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of the horrible pit, up from the miry clay, and placing your feet upon the Rock, which is Himself? If you are still in sin, lift up your frail and powerless hand and feel His almighty grasp as you are raised to newness of life. It is a wonderful experience. He can do it! And now some interesting facts about the hands: Of course, our arms are important because they enable us to perform various tasks in protecting ourselves, and expressing our thoughts and feelings. The chief factor, however, in making your arm important is the hand at the end of it. If your hand were attached directly to your shoulder, with no arm in between, it would be more useful to you than your arm would be without a hand. The upper arm has but one bone, called the humerus. At the shoulder, it is attached to the scapula, or shoulder blade, by a ball-and-socket joint. The socket into which the arm bone fits is shallow, thus permitting a great range of movement. If you have kept your shoulder joint normally flexible by proper exercise, you can rotate your upper arm through nearly a quarter of a turn, make it hang straight downward, raise it straight up ward, point it nearly straight backward, fold it partly across the chest, or put it into any imaginable inter mediate position between those mentioned. All of these'multitudinous movements are made pos sible by balanced or co-ordinated contractions of muscles attached to the humerus. Also by their constant and moderate pull, they keep the bones in contact with each other at the joints. In fact, if it were-not for this constant muscle tension or pull, the ball at the end of your arm bone would fall away from the shoulder socket more than an inch, that is, your shoulder would always be out of joint. Everyone knows something about the biceps, the large muscle of the upper arm. It performs three im portant duties: it helps to bend your elbow; it helps to hold your shoulder joint in place; and it helps to turn your hand so that the palm faces upward. Most people think that this large biceps muscle, which strong men are fond of displaying, will enable you to strike a powerful blow. This is not so. The muscle that does the hitting is another muscle, the triceps, at the back of the arm. Your forearm has two long bones. If you lay your arm and hand on a table, with the palm of the hand facing upward, the two bones lie parallel to one another. Turn your palm until it faces downward and one of the bones lies across the other. But no matter what the position
there was no blood, because blood Is necessary only to a body which is dying. The blood stream carries food, oxygen, and water to dying cells, and then removes the products of combustion from the blood. In the new body, there is no death; the cells are immortal. The pos sessors of this body need no food, although food may be taken and enjoyed, as demonstrated by Jesus when He ate the broiled fish and honeycomb. After His resur rection,, He had a body controlled by spirit, not subject to the laws which govern our present body machine. That same instantaneous change will be effected in our bodies when they are “ glorified” at the coming of our Lord. As Jesus is with His Father today, are there recogniz able differences between His body and that of His Father? Of course, at this point, we are in the presence of unfathomable mystery, but, according, to this passage from Hebrews, they are identical — Jesus has a body which is “the express image” of the substance of God. That is, God’s body is controlled by spirit, and that is the meaning of “God is . . . spirit.” The word “a” has been improperly inserted in this passage, and when the Lord, in speaking to His disciples, denied that He was “a spirit,” He practically gave us the same truth about ■His Father. What light, then, is shed on the hands of God? They are real hands. They can do what our hands can do, and infinitely more. They have fingers and nails; they are sensitive and gentle; they are powerful enough to destroy or to save. The goodness of God is seen in this— that He provided for our bodies what He Himself has and uses constantly. With this thought before us, these verses take on new interest and meaning: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him” (Gen. 1:26, 27 R. V.). It is usual, when these verses are quoted, to qualify their actual meaning. God has a body, a spiritual one, but it does have substance, shape and form. He gave us a similar shape and form. God has eyes, ears, etc., and I declare that, in addition, He has hands! The Bible tells us that repeatedly. “The right hand of the Lord is exalted: the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly” (Psa. 118:16). “But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand” (Isa. 64:8). “Thy hands have framed me and fashioned me together round about . . . Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast fashioned me as clay; And wilt thou bring me into dust again? Has thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews. Thou hast granted me life . . . and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit” (Job 10:8, 9, 11, 12 R. V.). , These are remarkable passages. Job reminds God of the work done when the human body was planned and that design carried to its finish. In imagination, we can visualize God’s fingers and hands, working swiftly, and with infinite and divine deftness, molding the dust par ticles, mixed with water, until everything is complete. God’s hands! Wonderful hands! Mighty, skillful, accurate, sensitive, tender—no other hands like these! Then I recall the words of Jesus: “ 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 10:28, 29). May I ask, my friend, if you know the keeping power of this wonderful Saviour? Have you experienced the loving touch of that mighty hand lifting you out
“ IF WE CONFESS” The governor of a great state visited the penitentiary and addressed the inmates. He stated that after the meeting, he would linger and be available for. interviews. He promised that he would listen in confidence to any con vict, and that nothing a man might say would be used against him. When the service was over, a large group remained, many of them life termers. One by one they poured out their tales: one was there through a "frame-up"; another because of a judicial blunder; nearly all were victims of injustice. At last a man said humbly: "Mr. Governor, I am guilty. I did what they sent me here for. But I believe I have paid for it, and if I were freed, I would do everything in my power to prove myself worthy of your mercy." He alone was par doned!
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