God Is Everywhere

Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 139 as we prepare to learn what God is like as He's revealed Himself in this passage.

! Psalm 139, we'll read the first 18 verses. O Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise.

You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, You know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind and before. You have laid Your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, You are there. If I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle in the far side of the sea, even there, Your hand will guide me.

Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to You.

The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You. For You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with You. One of the most staggering thoughts that can cross the human mind is the fact that there is a living God.

And once we have thought about that, we should want to know what He's like, this living God. And so we have launched into a study on Sunday mornings because God's Word is God telling us what He's like.

So far we have seen Him to be the uncreated Creator. We've seen Him to be the unchangeable God. We've seen Him to be the faithful God. Now in our study this morning on who God is, we come to answer the question, where is God?

Where is this God? Now the Children's Catechism summarizes the Bible's answer for us by saying, God is everywhere.

God is everywhere. Sometimes children and even adults have a wrong idea about God on this very point. Where is God?

Oh, He's up in heaven. We're down here on earth and God's up there in heaven. He's up there and He's not down here. Wrong.

Wrong answer. The Bible says God is everywhere. Yes, He's in heaven and He's also down here. God is everywhere all the time.

Now that teaching of the Bible is simple enough for a young child to memorize and recite, but it's deep enough that the sharpest minds on earth cannot fully comprehend it.

The mystery of God's omnipresence, the fact that He's everywhere present at all time. Now we have a lot of people missing today.

Some 30 or so of our young people and sponsors are up in Holland, Michigan, worshiping with other young people there. They are there. They're not here. They can't be in two places at the same time.

God's omnipresence is one of His non-communicable attributes. It just simply means He doesn't share this with anyone else. No one else has this about Him.

Many times you have wished that you could be two places at the same time. But it's impossible. That is to you. But not to God.

God is spirit. He does not have a body like men. And so He is there in Holland, Michigan with our young people. And He's here with us this morning. God is everywhere at the same time.

Now let's see how this is taught in the Scriptures. If you'd hold your place in Psalm 139, we'll be coming there. But we're going to go several places. In the book of Jeremiah, where we read, chapter 23, God was going to bring judgment upon His sinning nation of Judah.

He's going to bring the Babylonians to capture them and to take them captive into Babylon. But before He did it, He was gracious in sending His prophets to warn them and to tell them that's what was going to happen.

Judgment is coming. But judgment is never a popular message. So, alongside of the true prophets declaring judgment, there arose the false prophets.

And they simply told the people what the people wanted to hear. They said, peace, peace, when there was no peace. Everything's going to be fine. There's no judgment.

That was the message of the false prophets. Now, verses 23 and 24 of Jeremiah 23 show that these prophets were operating with a faulty view of God.

And wrong living flows out of wrong ideas about God. They thought God could not see what they were up to.

Their lies were hidden from God. So they thought. As they stood and proclaimed to the people, thus says the Lord, the Babylonians will not come and conquer us.

They thought God was afar off. He's in heaven. And He's only a God nearby. He only knows what's going on nearby around Him. He's not a God of far off.

God tells them, you couldn't be more wrong. Verses 23 and 24. Am I only a God nearby, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?

Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see Him, declares the Lord? Do not I fill heaven and earth, declares the Lord?

I have heard what the prophets say, who prophesy lies in my name. Notice how God's knowledge of all things is argued from His omnipresence.

It was that way in Psalm 139. You find those two together. His omniscience. He knows all things. His omnipresence. He is everywhere. Because I am everywhere, I know everything that's going on.

That's the point. He who fills heaven and earth knows what's happening in heaven and earth. When the prophets told lies in His name, He was in the room where they were telling lies in His name.

There are no secret places where I am not present, God says. You can close the door and shut men out, but when you have, you have only succeeded to shut yourself in with Me.

I fill heaven and earth. I'm here. God's always here. Think of an empty water glass. And now fill it up with water all the way to the top.

How much of the glass, is there any place in the glass where the water is not? You can go an inch down, the water's there.

You can go to the bottom, the water's there. To the side? No, there's no place in the glass where there is not water. The water fills the cup.

Now the glass is the heavens and the earth. And God says, I fill the heavens and the earth. That simply means there's no place in the whole universe where God is not.

He's no further away from things here on earth than He is from things in heaven. As Paul says in Acts 17, He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being.

We are in Him like the fish is in the sea. We live and move and have our being in Him. He's as near as the air you breathe. He fills heaven and earth. In 1961, that's before many of you were born, a Russian cosmonaut named Yuri Gagarin made history by becoming the first man to visit outer space.

There he is, out in the heavens. And he announces back to the earth, he being an atheist, announced mockingly to the world below, I have entered heaven.

I've looked and I've looked. But I have not seen any God here. Well, oh Yuri, of course not. God is spirit. Spirit. And He fills heaven and earth.

Though you do not see Him, He is there. Just as you do not see the oxygen in your little rocket chamber, but you believe it's there, so God is there.

He fills the heaven. He's outside of your spaceship. He's inside your spaceship. That farthest star you can see, God is there. That farthest star that you can't see, He's there too.

God fills the heaven and the earth. There's a little girl standing in the middle of the living room and her parents are there.

And she's about to do something that she knows she shouldn't do and she doesn't want her parents to see her doing it. So what does she do? She closes her eyes. Or she puts her hand over her eyes.

And what is her little mind thinking now? Her little mind thinks that because I can't see them, they can't see me. In fact, because I can't see them, they no longer exist.

They're no longer there. They're gone. Wouldn't that be a great power? Just shut your eyes and they're gone. But that's how her little mind sees it. She doesn't realize yet. Her mind's not developed to realize that though I cannot see them, when I close my eyes, it does not change the reality of their presence and of their gaze upon me.

And we all suffer from that disease. Because we cannot see God, we foolishly think that He does not see us. Because we cannot see God, we think with Yuri, He's not here.

He's not here. The wicked says to himself, Psalm 10, 11, God has forgotten. He has covered His face and He cannot see. God answers in Hosea 7, 2, but they do not realize that I remember all their evil deeds.

Their sins engulf them. They are always before my face. Always. The wicked, though they think that God doesn't see them, God says, Oh, you're wrong.

You're always before my face. You right now are before my face, you see. I'm looking at you from my face. You are always before the face of God. Corum Deo, before the face of God.

In Psalm 139, the passage that was read for us, David realizes he can never escape the presence of this great, living, true God. Where can I go from your spirit?

He says in verse 7. Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, where does the sun come up? The east. If I settle on the far side of the sea, the Mediterranean, the west, even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast.

So David looks in every direction. He looks up, he looks down, he looks east, he looks west. And he realizes there's no place where God is not there. He fills the heavens and the earth.

So that needs to be a part of our understanding of this God. He's everywhere all the time. But something else needs to be said about his omnipresence.

And it's this, that though he fills heaven and earth, even the heavens and the earth do not contain him. No space can contain him. He is infinite. Now, don't blow a circuit on this one, but it is mind-boggling.

And I told you, the sharpest minds cannot fully fathom it. Solomon understood this. Remember, he was the one that was given the charge of building a temple for the Lord, where the Lord would dwell in the midst of his people, and where his people would meet with him.

With him. And they're at the dedication of that new temple. Solomon prays. In the midst of his prayer, he says, 1 Kings 8, 27, But will God really dwell on earth?

The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built. We sometimes get to thinking of God in a box.

God is there, but He's not there. God is in the temple. Yes, He is. But He's also outside the temple. And Solomon thought about this God. His pervasive presence, who fills the heavens and earth.

And yet, even the highest heavens cannot contain God. You can't draw a circle around God and say, that's all there is of God. He's infinite. Remember, before there was any space, before He created anything, God was.

He's the eternal God. And we begin to see how big He is, the immensity of God, and we start to feel how small we are. And it'll have to lead us to wonder that this God even notices us, that He should care for us and send His Son to die for us.

The Bible. God telling us what He's like. I'm everywhere all the time. So do you believe that God is everywhere present all the time?

Do you have that as a part of your working knowledge of who God is? Stephen Sharnock, an English Puritan of the 17th century, wrote a book on the existence and attributes of God.

And he says, you know, men may claim to believe God is everywhere present and yet live as if He were present nowhere. everywhere. And there are times in our lives, folks, when we act as if God were not here.

When, for the moment, our functional, working definition of God does not include His omnipresence. We must confess with that man in the Gospel who said, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.

Help my unbelief. So we come to the applications. What difference should it make? If there is such a God who is everywhere present at all times, how should my life be different?

Well, if God is everywhere present, then I ought to live the whole of my life with the awareness of His presence. Because God is here. That's just living in touch with reality.

It's not being out of touch, kids. It's being in touch with the most important reality of all. God is, and He's here. The world is blind to this truth, but even we who know God are only half awake to this reality.

Much of the times, we're like Jacob at Bethel when he woke up. He said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. Our problem, you see, is that we forget His presence.

We live as if it were not true. Though God is not far from any one of us, He's often very far from us in our minds. And so, if our great problem is that we forget God's presence, then our great need is to think much about this truth.

Think much about God being everywhere all the time. Our great need is to practice the presence of God, to be consciously aware of it.

I ought to be saying to myself often, God is here. I don't just mean in church. I mean everywhere. When I move from place to place, when I change location, I ought to say, God is here.

Am I on the ball field? God is here. Am I going to work? God is here. I ought to be reminding myself often, He's never absent. I do everything before His face, in His presence.

I obey in His presence. I disobey in His presence. I sin in His presence. I speak in His presence. I listen in His presence. I think in His presence. I work in His presence.

I play in His presence. I worship in His presence. I study in His presence. I watch TV in His presence. I surf the internet in His presence. J.I. Packer says, Living becomes an awesome business when you realize that you spend every moment of your life in the site and in the company of an omniscient, omnipresent Creator.

Your life won't be the same as you live consciously in the presence of this living God. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, also took on Him human flesh and became a man like us.

And as a human being, He shows us what it's like to live under the presence of His God. Psalm 16 and verse 8.

The words of our Savior in that Messianic Psalm. I have set the Lord always before me because He is at my right hand. I shall not be moved.

Here's the Son of God. A true man. As much man as I am a man. He's different from me in that He's as much God as God. The Father is God. But as a man, He says, I have set the Lord always before me.

He's right there at my right hand. You can read that in Acts chapter 2 and verse 25. It translates this very quote as saying, I saw the Lord always before me.

That's what it means to say, I have set the Lord always before me. I see Him there. He's that close to Jesus that He sees Him face to face. Every moment in Jesus' life, whatever He's doing, the Lord's there.

He's right at His hand. Always. In every situation. At every time. In joy or sorrow. Whoever He's with. He sees the Lord right there at His right hand.

It makes a difference in the way He lives. That's what it means to walk with God. When you walk with someone, you have them by the hand. You're going arm in arm. You're walking with Him everywhere you go, they go with you.

When you read your Bible and you read that Enoch walked with God, that's what it means. He walked with God. Everywhere he went. He was conscious of the fact that God's with me here.

And he enjoyed communion with Him. He's talking to Him. He's enjoying His creation. He's thanking Him for the things that He's made. He's receiving blessings and He's glorying in God. And He's in trouble and heartache and He's pouring His heart out to His friend.

He's walking with God. And God rewarded that, didn't He? He took Him straight to heaven without ever dying. And there's a blessing for everyone who walks with God. Psalm 89, 15 and 16.

Blessed are all who walk in the light of Your presence, O Lord. And dear Christian, we have only learned just a little bit of the blessedness of walking in the light of His presence.

Oh, there's so much more. So much more uncharted territories for us to learn about walking with God, recognizing consciously He's always with me.

We too are called to run the race looking unto Jesus. Hebrews 12, 2. That means that if life is a race, from the very start to breaking the tape at the finish, we fix our eyes on Jesus.

He's always with us. We talk to Him in the morning. The first person we talk to when we get up in the morning, it's Jesus. He's there. He's with us. It's the last one we speak to at night as we pillow our heads.

Thank You, Lord, for the blessings of the day. And we fill the day with Him. We're conscious of His presence. The challenge of each new day, Christian, is to not lose sight of the ever-present Jesus.

Now, I want to apply this truth to several areas of our lives. Worship, temptations, and trials. These are a few things that we do face.

Realizing the presence of God in the first place. Realizing the presence of God is the very heart of true worship. It's the first thing in worship.

Without this, you have no worship. Worship does not take place. Without realizing the presence of God. Take off your sandals, Moses, because the place where you are standing is holy ground.

God Himself is with us. Let us now adore Him and with awe appear before Him. I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene.

I wonder how He could love me as a sinner condemned unclean. So, are we worshiping God? Then we ought to be saying often to ourselves, He's here. He's here.

Right now, I mean in this place, in this room. You're here, He's here. He's listening. He's listening. And so we ought to sing and we ought to pray right into His ear.

We ought to direct our praise personally to Him. We're not singing for some other audience now, we're singing to Him. He's here speaking in the reading and preaching of His Word.

God has something to say to us and He's observing and watching to see what we're doing with the Word as He speaks it to us.

And so, we listen in worship. We listen to Him. Well, yes, the man is reading. The man is preaching. But, the sheep hear the voice of the shepherd when He speaks in His Word.

He's observing with delight those who tremble in His Word, who take it seriously. Who don't just shrug it off like the neighbor talking. No, God is speaking. And He esteems the one who trembles at His Word.

He's here to receive our financial gifts so we put them into His hands. He's here to receive our confession of sin so we confess directly to Him. Straight to Him. He's here to receive our thanksgiving, our requests.

We bring it all to Him. What a difference this makes in worship when we realize the presence of the Lord Jesus. Without this, we go through barren ritual.

We do church. Like so many this morning are doing church. Are you doing church? Doing the church thing? Or are you meeting with a living God? That's what changes us.

It's an encounter with Christ that stamps more of His likeness upon us. So the apostle says to the church at Corinth, when you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and the power of the Lord Jesus is present, Jesus is here with His power.

Power to save. Power to change. Us. He walks among the golden candlesticks. His churches. He's here. Not a sigh, but He hears it.

Not a groan. Not a tear, but He sees it. Not a cry for mercy, but He answers it. Not a yearning for greater holiness than He detects it.

Not an outgoing of your heart in love to Christ than He is pleased with it. He's here to meet with us. He's here to bless us. Don't miss Him.

That's perhaps the saddest thing, that we can come to worship where Christ is present and miss Him. Oh, we met our friends, we met so-and-so, we sang the hymns, we heard the sermon, but we missed Him.

We had no heart dealings with Him. Oh, we go home so poor if we've not met the present Christ today.

Say to yourself often in worship, He is here. He is here. Here to bless us. And lay hold of the hem of His garment by faith.

Through all the fog of your unbelief, get to Jesus. That's where all the blessing is found. And when we get up and walk out of this place, He's going to follow us home to see what we're doing with His word there.

He's always with us. Everywhere, all the time. That'll go a long way in curing us from distracting, wondering thoughts in worship.

God is here, speaking, watching, listening. It keeps us attentive to Him. Secondly, realizing the presence of God is not only the heart of worship, it's also a powerful deterrent to sin.

In all of our temptations, here is a powerful deterrent to sin. Now there's a young man, Joseph, and he's far from home, he's down in Egypt. He's a slave there, and his master's wife is trying to seduce him day after day.

And day after day, he refuses her. What is giving this man power? This young man. What is giving him power to resist temptation?

One day, there's no one else in the house and she actually physically lays hold of him. And he says to her, how could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?

There's the help. There's the powerful deterrent to sin. God's in view. God's in this place. Oh, I may be far from mom and dad.

I may be far from brother and sister, but I am not far from God and I know it. How could I do this and sin against God?

He's here. We would be sinning in his face. Take up the shield of faith, Paul says. You'll need it in a tempting world with a busy devil and it's faith in God's presence that is the shield against all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

There's another young man, Moses, and he's growing up in Egypt in Pharaoh's court and you know what is available to this young man. Hebrews 11 tells us that by faith he rejected all the short-lived pleasures of sin and all the alluring treasures of Egypt that could have been his and he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

There was more than the women and the glittering gold. By faith Moses saw God. He saw him who is invisible.

Now folks, that's why Yuri didn't see God because he had no faith. We're talking about realizing the presence of God. You don't see him.

He's invisible. And yet it is by faith that Moses saw the invisible God. So in our temptations, whatever we're being tempted to, the moment you realize you're being tempted, you say to yourself, God is here.

He's right here. If I'm to sin and do what is being suggested to me, I will do it in his face. He's not only here to watch, he's here to help, to make a way of escape for me.

And it's the God who 2,000 years ago in the person of his son went to a cross and suffered damnation on my behalf. That God is here. He's here now.

Sinning gets a whole lot harder in the precincts of Calvary. You get to Calvary and you think, this God who's here died on the cross for me. Most of our sins can be traced back to forgetfulness of God's presence everywhere.

It's how the false prophets in Judah could announce, this is what the Lord says, and then tell a lie. They didn't think God was near and in the room listening. And it is a sobering reality that the author of Psalm 139 who is so struck by this fact that he can't go anywhere to escape the presence of God is the same David who commits adultery and murder.

How can that be? Does that just undo what I'm saying? That to realize the presence of God deters you from sin? Here's a man who realized that God is present everywhere.

He wrote Psalm 139. He celebrates that. The fact that he can't go anywhere but that God is there. And yet on that night he entered into his bedroom with Bathsheba and committed adultery with another man's wife and then had that man put to death.

How does that work? Well, it shows us how capable we are of conveniently forgetting the presence of God. For the moment that is the furthest thing on David's mind.

And we have that potential to forget God is here. God is here. And it's practical unbelief. Oh, but every sin we commit is before his face.

There are no such things as secret sins from him. If you can do something in front of me and call it a secret then there are secrets from God. But that's what we do. We do it right under his nose.

And so in his confession of sin David acknowledges this with pain in Psalm 51. Against you and you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight.

There it is. Oh Lord, I didn't think about it. I wasn't thinking. I didn't consider your presence. I forgot you were here and that ought to be part of our confession of sin as well.

Lord, we did not realize that you were with us. We have not feared thee as we ought nor bowed beneath thine awful eye nor guarded deed and word and thought remembering that God was nigh.

Lord, give us faith to know thee near and grant the grace of holy fear. Think how the presence of certain people keep us from certain sins.

Will a man rob a house when the policeman's standing in the street? No, but he'll do it when it's just God and him.

Will a man view pornography with his wife and children gathered around the computer? No, but when it's just him and God he'll do it.

Will a man misuse the Lord's name when the preacher's around? Some will. Most will not. But when it's just God and them they'll use his name in oaths.

Will we be kept from sin by the presence of a man and yet not be kept from sin by the presence of the living God?

It says that for the moment we don't believe that God is here. Because I don't see anyone here I posit God is not here.

Or else I so slight the presence of God that he is less important to me than the presence of a man. Neither are attractive options. We must confess Oh God I forgot I was not thinking I have done this evil in your sight.

So wherever you're being tempted you need to say God is here. Sit down and watch TV. He's sitting there watching with you. Everything on the screen that you see he sees.

You go on a date. He's here. He's here. Powerful preventative to sin in our temptations.

But then lastly realizing the presence of God is a sweet comfort to us in our trials. I don't know of any other promise in the whole of God's word that is mentioned more often for the encouragement of God's people in their troubles and trials than this promise.

I will be with you. I will be with you. Promised presence of God. God. Not just part of God with you but all of God with you.

All that he is for all that you need. His wisdom to guide. His power to protect. His love to comfort. His goodness to bless. And so with such a friend always at hand to bless what comfort what joy what peace we experience.

Moses is dead and Joshua is now given the assignment of leading this bunch of whining Israelites into the promised land.

He's lived with them for 40 years as Moses his aid. He's heard every gripe every whining complaint that they've made against their leadership. He's seen their gross unbelief.

He has no grandiose idea. about being the leader of these Israelites. And as for the promised land where he must lead them in for the conquest there are giants in the land.

And the land is populated by nations that are not just offering their land for the taking. They're willing to fight to the death for it. Now what could possibly cure Joshua of his doubts and fears as he's been given this assignment to lead the Israelites into the promised land?

Well we know the word of God comes to him. Be strong and courageous Joshua. Do not be terrified. Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

As I was with Moses so I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. When the Israelites murmur and complain I am with you. And when the people in the lands resist I am with you.

God's presence with power and grace to be with his servant. I ask you what difficult assignment is God giving you?

Child I want you to go through this trial that you might glorify me. You might prove that God is your portion. God is enough to give you joy and peace in life.

So I am going to put you through a heavy trial. I am going to give you a hard assignment. But here is your encouragement. My promised presence.

I am always with you. Live upon me. There is a little band of disciples. Just eleven of them.

And they have been given the awesome task of making disciples for Jesus Christ from all the nations. There they are. Eleven men over in Palestine. make disciples of all the nations.

Nations that had their own gods. Nations that hated Christ and his laws. What's the last word from their ascending Lord as he gives them this hard assignment? Surely I am with you to the end of the age.

That's it. My presence. Now go. Go. Go. Dear child of God, you have the same promise.

You have a difficult challenge. You got hard-hearted sinners to witness to, to tell about Christ. Your living Lord, mighty to save, always at your right hand.

Go. I'm sending you. Do troubles press in? Psalm 46, 1. God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble.

Isn't that beautiful? He's not just help in trouble. That would be wonderful. He is an ever-present help in trouble. You're in trouble. It's an emergency.

You call 911 and then you wait and you wait and you wait. It may just be two, three minutes. It seems like forever because you're in trouble and you need help now.

Jesus is not like that. He's an ever-present help. He's always on location. He's always right there with you. whatever your trouble, oh dear widows, you're never really alone.

You're never really alone. He's with you to bless you, to strengthen, to help and uphold you. Are you moving away from home?

Moving away from family and friends? Away from the familiar into the unknown? The unfamiliar? Moses knew something about that. now he's in Egypt growing up.

Now he's on the backside of the desert. Now he's back to Egypt. And now he's out in the wilderness roaming for 40 years, making some 33 different moves during those 40 years.

He knows a little about moving. And he says to us in Psalm 90 and verse 1, Lord, you have been our dwelling place through all generations. All this change in his life, all the unfamiliar, what is the one constant, the thing that never changes, the familiar, Lord, it's you.

Wherever I've gone, I've dwelt in you. You are our dwelling place in all generations. And so, brothers and sisters, wherever you roam, wherever you pitch your tent, God is there.

And that's what makes the difference. What a sweet comfort in our trials that God is there. This is the cure for all of our fears.

Is God our ever present help in trouble? Therefore, we will not fear. The next verse says, do not be afraid for I am with you. With me, with you, you can go through the floods and the fires and not need fear.

You can even enter into the very valley of the shadow of death. And I will fear no evil for thou art with me. According to the Bible, the presence of God is enough to overcome our fears.

So, if worries and fears are controlling me, what is it saying? It's saying, I don't believe God is with me. Here and now, my working knowledge of God is not that He is with me, that He is everywhere.

God is here. We have forgotten His presence. Oh, we must remind ourselves often in trials, God is here.

Now, lost friend, I've been speaking of these applications to God's people, those who have repented of their sins and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ alone to save them.

For them, the fact that God is everywhere is pure good news. It's pure good news. It's something that we want to remember often. It's something we rejoice in because this God is with us for our good.

But with you, it's far different. The fact that God is everywhere is a terrifying truth if you're outside of Jesus Christ. Because that means you're still His enemy.

And you're still in rebellion against Him. And every act of sin that you commit every day in word, deed, and thought is done right in His face. The judge, his eyes always on you because he's always with you.

That's not a real pleasant thought. It's no comfort to you any more than the presence of a policeman is a comfort to a fugitive from the law. And the natural response of the sinner who's under the guilt knowing he's a sinner before this present God is to turn and run.

Remember Adam and Eve? Oh, they were enjoying the fellowship of God's presence. Nothing between them and this God. And then they took the forbidden fruit and sinned against Him and their instinctive response when they heard God's voice was to run and to hide.

To cover themselves with fig leaves and hide among the fig trees thinking that God couldn't see them or find them there. That's the response of sinners ever since Adam and Eve who still carry the guilt of their sins.

Jonah was sinning against the Lord and he sought to run and hide from Him. But wherever he ran he found the Lord was there. He ran down to the sea and the Lord was there stirring up the wind and the waves just to remind Jonah that he hadn't been able to ditch him yet.

Fleeing from God's presence is an exercise in futility. That's like one of you children coming up here and you start running around me right here up and down the steps around the platform and you're running and I say run faster and you're thinking the faster you run maybe you can get away from me.

Folks that's all anyone ever does who flees from God. Remember he fills heaven and earth. All they do is run around in his presence. There's no getting away from him as David says where can I flee from your presence.

Though you may not be able to successfully flee from his presence you may be able to succeed in forgetting his presence. You may be able to put your hands over your eyes and think for the moment that God is not here.

That too is the response of a guilty sinner. How is he going to enjoy his sin? How is he going to enjoy his sin if he knows the judge is sitting right beside him as he's sinning?

He can't. That's the worm in the gourd of every pleasure of sin. God's here. So what's he do? He suppresses the truth. He shoves it out of his mind that he might remain an undisturbed sinner enjoying his lusts, enjoying his evil desires.

How sad that the only way you can have enjoyment in life is to forget reality, to forget the reality of God being everywhere. Someday your denial game will be over and you'll face your judge and you'll receive from him what your sins deserve.

So do you see, my sinner friend, the omniscience of God is bad news for you. Even as it's good news for the believer in Christ, it's bad news for everyone outside of Christ. But there is one sense in which it is good news.

Even for the sinner, even for the rebel, the one who's going their own way. And it's just this, that this Savior who is present, this God who is present, is willing to receive sinners.

That if you will just stop running from him and turn and run into his arms, he will save you. He will forgive you all of your sins. If you trust in what he did on Calvary to take away sin, he'll forgive you.

And so there is good news to be found. If you come with Jesus, come to Jesus, this present Jesus who's here today with nothing good to say for yourself, but cast yourself on his mercy.

Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Save me. And you trust in what he's done for sinners to save you. You'll find him to be a gracious Savior. Savior, whoever comes to me, I will in no wise, in no way, cast out.

God is here to have dealings with us. Let's have dealings with him as we pause briefly and pray and talk to him who is here with us and then we'll conclude.

Let's all pray silently. Lord God, thank you for your word.

If you had not told us that you were everywhere present all the time, we would never know that. And we confess even after having heard you say it, that there are huge gaps in our life where we live as if you were nowhere, that there is atheism in all of our sin.

And so we confess to you. We are sad that we have committed so much evil in your sight. Come and forgive us for Jesus' sake.

Look on him and pardon us. Treat us as he deserves. And count all our sins as his on Calvary.

And Lord, teach us then to walk throughout our days conscious of your presence in worship, under temptation, in trials, all day long.

Oh, help us not to forget you are here. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.