“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?  Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.  Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are continually before Me”  - Isaiah 49:15-16. 

    This is a revelation of the Lord’s everlasting concern for and faithfulness to His people and, consequently, the absolute security of His elect.  O that we would be brought, by divine love, to consider our Lord’s unceasing care and concern for His children.  If we could, by faith, behold the Lord’s unending designs of grace toward us, then we would, like Paul, be joyful in the Lord even in the midst of dark trials and lean upon His word of promise, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5).  I want you to especially pay attention to those words, “I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands.”  We are not painted on His hands lest we think that our names could be rubbed out.  Neither are we said to be written on His hands lest we conclude that our names might fade away with time.  O what delightful and lasting words - “I have graven upon the palms of My hands.”  There is a permanency to that statement!  They are His hands and He did the engraving.

     “I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.”  Does this not remind you of the Savior’s hands, stretched out and pierced upon the cross in order to redeem us from the curse of the law?  Those scars are lasting reminders of His covenant love and the death that He died to satisfy divine justice for all His people.  Let us look by faith upon those blessed hands and see them “wounded for our transgressions” and be reminded of the impossibility of being forgotten by our gracious Lord.  All of the blessings ordained for us before the world began are ours through the dear Savior Who gave His life a ransom for our sins.  In Christ Jesus there is everlasting safety.  “My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me.  And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.  My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:27-29).

     One of my favorite hymns was written in 1771 by Augustus Toplady.  In poetic form he expresses what I am trying to say in this article.  This hymn has been a blessing to many saints through the years; may the Lord engrave these words upon all of our hearts.