Nehemiah speaks again and again of "the good hand of my God upon me," [Footnote: Neh. ii. 8.] when he tells us of all God's loving help and guidance in the difficult work he had undertaken.
Think again of God's loving Hands in grace, healing the broken in heart and binding up their wounds. How safe David felt when he said, "Thy right hand upholdeth me." [Footnote: Ps. lxiii. 8.] He shows his confidence in God when he prays, "Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe." [Footnote: Ps. cxix. 117.] When your child wants you to hold him up he slips his little hand in yours, doesn't he? Have you ever put your weak hand into God's strong loving Hand so as to let Him do the holding up?
The saints in olden times felt God's Hand in everything, over-ruling, planning, guiding, and Jesus assures us of the perfect safety and everlasting security of the believer, for He says, "No one, either man or devil, can pluck them out of My hand, nor shall any man be able to pluck them out of My Father's hand;" [Footnote: St. John x. 28, 29.] so there are two Divine Hands holding us fast.
Think once more of the hands of God: not only strong hands to help and to heal, but redeeming hands, mighty to save; hands that have been in the fire to pluck us out of the burning; hands that have laid hold of the enemy and have overcome him; hands that have unlocked the gates of a new life that we may enter in.
Not long ago a little girl was caressing her dear old nurse, and when she caught sight of the deep scars in her hands she asked, "How did you get these scars?" The nurse looked at her very tenderly and then she said, "When you were a baby, a fire broke out one night when you were asleep in your cot. I plunged my hands into the flames and lifted you out." The child's eyes were full of tears as she looked at the dear scarred hands, the hands that had been wounded to save her.
Those scarred hands remind me of another story. One day, about thirty years ago, some children were playing on a mountain in France, and their merry peals of laughter attracted the notice of a shepherd lad who was taking care of the sheep a little way off. Suddenly a wolf foaming at the mouth came in sight. He saw it run madly down the mountain towards the children. Without a moment's hesitation he rushed forward, seized the wolf, and grappled with it. After a fierce struggle he managed to bind a leather strap around its mouth, and then he killed it, but not before the wolf, which was raving mad, had bitten him severely in the hand. This occurred just at the time when Pasteur, the famous Paris doctor, had discovered a remedy for hydrophobia. Without delay the shepherd lad who had saved the lives of the children at such a cost was taken to Paris and was cured. Hundreds of patients are sent to the Pasteur Institute at Paris and when they ring the bell, the door is opened by an elderly man with a scar on his hand. He was once the shepherd lad who rescued the children from the raving wolf, and the deep scars are from its bite. Inside the hall there is a statue representing him in the terrible struggle with the wolf.
Think of the wounded hands of the Son of God. Do you ask Where? How? Why? Where were they wounded? On Calvary's Cross. How? "They pierced My hands and My feet." [Footnote: Ps. xxii. 16.] This is the wonder of it, "He was wounded for our transgressions." Look at the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, and there you will see Jesus as the Suffering Substitute. Seven times in that chapter it is distinctly mentioned that all His suffering was because He was bearing our sins. Notice in verse 5 it says, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." Then in verse 6, "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." In verse 8, "For the transgression of My people was He stricken," or the stroke was upon Him. He stood between the stroke of Divine Justice and the sinner and received the blow Himself. In verse 10, "Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin;" verse 11, "He shall bear their iniquities;" verse 12, "He bare the sin of many." Jesus was the Suffering Substitute because He was the Sin-bearer. See how in His death He was identified with the sinner. For in verse 12 we read, "He was numbered with the transgressors."
In the Gospels we are told that there were two thieves crucified with Him, on either side one and Jesus in the midst. I once saw a coloured illustration of the three crosses on Calvary. One cross was painted black, the other was white, and the middle one was red. Now if we look at those three crosses on Calvary from the Divine standpoint, it seems as if one cross which was black at first is now white. It is the cross of the penitent thief; all his sins have been transferred to the Sin-bearer, so now there is not one sin on him; he has been washed "whiter than snow." The cross of the impenitent thief is black, and remains black, for he dies with all his sins on him and goes into the blackness of darkness for ever. The middle cross is red: Jesus the Holy One has no sin in Him, but the sin of the whole world is on Him, because He is the atoning sacrifice for sin.
"O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head,
Our load was laid on Thee.
Thou stoodest in the sinner's stead,
Didst bear all ill for me.
A victim led, Thy blood was shed,
Now there's no load for me."
In the writings of an American Evangelist we meet with this quaint illustration, "God uses bright red to get pure white out of dead black." It is just the same truth as we have seen shining out from the three crosses. There we see Jesus "in the midst," the God-appointed Sacrifice for sin, and we see the penitent thief washed whiter than snow in the precious Blood. We see Jesus again "in the midst," three days after. It is in the Upper Room at Jerusalem, on Easter Sunday. The disciples who were like scattered sheep have gathered together there once more, though still trembling with fear. "Then came Jesus and stood in the midst and said unto them, Peace be unto you." [Footnote: St. John xx. 19.]