Thursday, 23 October 2008

• Our ever-present Lord

  Psalm 139:7-12

  We all know that the highest mountain in the world is Mt. Everest  (29,035 feet) and that the lowest point in the world is the Marinas Trench (- 35,830 feet), the difference in the two points is 64, 865 feet which is about 12 miles… Man cannot exist at either extreme…  Yet, scriptures say that God is found on the heights of Mt. Everest and in the depths of the Marinas Trench – “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 on 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…” Psalm 139:7-12.

  The question that we all ask at some point of our Life is:  God are you there… the masses of this world ask this question without even knowing they are… How do I know, just look at the hearts that are broken, shattered, and lost and you will find a person who is looking for a God to believe in…  and WE beloved have the only answer for the ills of mankind!  He is ever present with us and desires and longs to have fellowship with us!!!

  Not only is God omniscient; He is omnipresent as well. He is in all places at one and the same time. However, the all-presence of God is not the same as pantheism. The latter teaches that the creation is God. The Bible teaches that God is a Person who is separate and distinct from His creation. Is there any place where man can evade the Holy Spirit of God? Is there any place where he can hide from the presence of the Lord? Suppose man should ascend into heaven, would he elude God there? Of course not; heaven is the throne of God according to Matthew 5:34. Even if he made his bed in Sheol, the disembodied state, he would find the Lord there as well.
  

  Scientists tell us that the smallest subatomic particles are quarks. They recognize six kinds of quarks that make up the neutrons and protons of the nucleus of an atom. Now realize that our most powerful microscopes can barely make out the nucleus of the largest atoms, and we certainly cannot come close to seeing a neutron or a proton, and quarks are the things that make up neutrons and protons. But God is present even to each quark. God is present to the smallest things of the universe and to the largest things. The largest thing in our solar system is the magnetic sphere surrounding the planet Jupiter, which is ten times as large as the sun. God is present in that magnetic sphere.
  

  This is what theologians call the doctrine of omnipresence. Back in 1788, John Wesley wrote a sermon “On the Omnipresence of God” [Sermon 111]. He called it a “sublime subject.” He used as his text Jeremiah 23:24, "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." Wesley says, “there is no point of space, whether within or without the bounds of creation, where God is not.”
  

  Some people have the idea that certain places on the earth are more sacred, more filled with the presence of God than others. For example, we call Palestine the Holy Land. Obviously we call it that because the events of the Bible took place in that area, but really that area is no more holy than any other area. When you consider the amount of blood that has been shed in that place, you could argue that a better title would be the God-cursed or God-forsaken Land.
  

  In the religion of Islam, every Muslim is supposed to visit Mecca at least one time in his life if possible. The belief seems to be that God is in Mecca in special way, and you get a special charge out of going to that city in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. Not so. God is no more in Mecca than he is in Bath. Let me state that positively: You can find just as much of God in Bath, as you can in Mecca, or Jerusalem

  Again, some people picture God as a faraway being who lives in heaven, and occasionally breaks into the world to do some miracle. Not so. God is right here with us right now. Our God, the God of love, the God of grace, the God of mercy, is always near to our hearts and minds and souls.
  
  Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Nature is too thin a screen, the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through it everywhere!” All around us we can see that God is all around us.
  God is creation’s environment. The universe does not contain God, God contains the universe. nothing exists beyond God. Everything that exists dwells within God. Just as the sea is the environment of the fish, God is the environment of his creation. A catechism asks: “Why is there but one God?” The answer is: “There is only one God because God fills every place in the heavens and the earth, and no room is left for another.”

  In I Kings 18, the prophets of Baal called upon their god from morning till noon, and there was no reply. They cut themselves, and they shouted for their god to come forth. “At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.’” They did cry aloud, they did shout, but Baal never responded because Baal was an idol of dead stone.
  
  But our God is not like that. We do not need to behave the way Baal’s priests behaved. We do not need to cry for God’s presence. God is already present.

  God’s presence is like the air we breathe. Air is odorless, tasteless and invisible at least here in Maine. Most of the time we do not even think about the air we breathe, yet we depend on it for our very existence. Likewise, God’s presence is all around us, and if it were withdrawn, none of us could survive for even one moment.

  “If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” The wings of the morning are an allusion to the rays of the morning sun that streak across the heavens from east to west at 186,000 miles per second. Even if we could travel to some remote corner of the universe at the speed of light, we would find the Lord there, waiting to guide and uphold us.

  Incidentally verses 9 and 10 are fantastically appropriate for the age of jet travel in which we live. I shall never forget how the Lord spoke to me through this precious promise, as I was about to embark on an extended ministry trip in 1998. The many jet aircraft in which I flew were like the wings of the morning, taking me literally to the uttermost parts of the earth. But always there was the sense of the Lord’s presence and protection, regardless of speed or distance. So claim this promise for yourself, and share it with Christian friends who travel by air.

  This awareness of the living presence of God is what the Psalmist is discussing in Psalm 139. The Psalmist asks two questions: Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? These rhetorical questions are an emphatic way of declaring that God’s presence is everywhere. There is no place where we are not in the presence in God.

  The Psalmist then contemplates what would happen if he tried to go up to the heavens. I know we generally think of heaven as the place where God lives, but in the Bible there is another possible meaning. What we now call space, the Bible calls the heavens. The psalmist is saying if I could travel through the reaches of outer space, I find God. If I could travel to the center of the galaxy, if I could travel to another galaxy, even another universe, I would still find God there.
  
  Note the personal way the Psalmist talks about God. The Psalmist says, I find YOU there. The psalmist is saying that wherever I am, I am united in a loving relationship with you God.
  
  After mentioning the heights and the depths, the Psalmist turns to horizontal directions. In verse 9, he meets the dawn and travels with the sun to the far side of the sea. This is the Mediterranean Sea, which is west of Palestine. The Jewish people, for the most part, were not sailors and did not like the sea, but the psalm emphasizes God is there.
  

  Jonah
  

  The prophet Jonah found this out the hard way. We read in chapter one of the book of Jonah that the prophet was commissioned by God to preach to Nineveh. He was to tell them about how wicked they were. Jonah did not like his mission because he knew that God would show the Ninevites mercy. These people were the mortal enemies of Israel and Jonah wanted no part of God’s redemptive plan for these barbarians.

  So he tried to flee from the presence of God. Like most people in ancient times, Jonah did not believe in the omnipresence of God. He believed that God was localized and tied to a certain land or people. He believed that the God of Israel had no power or presence outside Israel. Thus, 1:3 says that instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah booked passage on a boat sailing in the opposite direction. He went west instead of east. He headed toward Tarshish, in what is now Spain, trying to get as far away from Nineveh, and as far from God as he could.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when the ship sailed away from the shore. He thought he had got to a place where God was not, but what Jonah found out was that God was with him on the ship, and God was with him even in the belly of the whale. One major point of the Book of Jonah is that you cannot hide from God. That is the negative what to put it. The positive way to say it is that no matter where we are God is there with us.

  Jonah teaches us that God cannot be localized in a city or a nation. This truth should keep us from having an exalted opinion of the USA. God is God of all peoples and nations. God does not wear red, white and blue. I have to remind myself of that often. I know we saw a company of soldiers go off to Iraq this morning. God loves every one of those soldiers. But God loves every Iraqi also.

  Another lesson from Jonah is that God is always present whether we believe it or not. In the early days of space travel, one of the Soviet cosmonauts returned from earth orbit the earth and announced that when he had looked out of his space capsule he had not seen God anywhere. Of course, he was echoing the Communist party line, trying to stay out of the Gulag. But God was there anyway. God is always there.

  If a person wanted the darkness to hide him from God, he would trust a false refuge. Night cannot shut out the presence of the Lord. Darkness is not dark to Him. “The night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to you.” God is absolutely inescapable. As Pascal said, “His center is everywhere; His circumference is nowhere.”

  Jesus spoke this same truth to the disciples:  “Lo, I am with you always,” He meant it in the fullness of the divine omnipresence, in the fullness of the divine love, and he longs to reveal Himself to you and to me, as we have never seen Him before.  And now just think a moment what a blessed life that must be—the presence of Jesus always abiding. Is not that the secret of peace and happiness? If I could just attain (that is what each heart says) to that blessed state in which every day and all the day I felt Jesus to be watching and ever keeping me, oh, what peace I would have in the thought, “I have no care if He cares for me, and I have no fear if He provides for me.” Your heart says that this is too good to be true, and that it is too glorious to be for you. Still you acknowledge it must be most blessed. Fearful one, erring one, anxious one, I bring you God’s promise, it is for me and for you. Jesus will do it; as God, He is able, and Jesus is willing and longing as the Crucified One to keep you in perfect peace. This is a wonderful fact, and it is the secret of joy unspeakable.

  Paul asked, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”-- Romans 7:24.  Romans chapter 8 gives the answer: the Holy Spirit of God. The blessings He brings make us “more than conquerors!”

  “The Wonder of God”

  Lightning was flashing, thunder war roaring, black clouds looked angry; and the train was traveling fast! The tension and fear among the passengers was evident; however, one little boy, who was sitting by himself, seemed completely unaware of the raging storm. One of the passengers spoke to him and said, “Aren’t you afraid to travel alone on this train on such a stormy night?” The little boy looked up and answered with a smile, “No ma’am, I’m not afraid! My daddy is the engineer!”

  Rembrandt once did a painting which portrays the biblical story of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. Perhaps some of you remember this painting! The little ship occupied by Jesus and the Disciples is being hit by a huge wave. You can feel the fear running through each disciple. The storm is all around. The rigging on the boat is loose and blowing in the wind. It’s marvelous to realize that even though all the disciples are panic-stricken, the disciples had to awaken Jesus to tell Him about the storm. It wasn’t because Jesus didn’t care, or because He was indifferent to their needs. It was because Jesus had such trust in God that He was sleeping right through the storm. Rembrandt does a wonderful work in this painting, and when you look at it, you’ve got to say to yourself, “I’ve got to learn how I can have complete trust in God.”   You know I just saw this painting in my Doctor’s office… and as I looked at this painting, I thought this is what it means to sail anywhere safely in the arms of our Living Lord…

  We might ask ourselves a question does God know us?  All of us need someone who knows us, encourages us, comforts us, and builds us up!  We all have that basic human instinct to want somebody to know the things we like and the things we dislike, to know where we are in life and to know where we have been in life.  Is there anyone who really knows us?  Is there anyone who really understands us?  The answer to those questions is a resounding “Yes!”  God knows all!  Does God know you and I? Yes, He does!  God knows your habits, good or bad.  He knows us inside and out, and He loves us and cares for us. God wants to build us up with encouragement in His truth.  Where then is this God who knows us and wants to build us up with encouragement?  I think all of us have had times when we wonder and ask ourselves, “Where is God in the midst of all my circumstances?” David answered that question.  “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there…”.

  In the realm of light, life, heaven, darkness, and even death, God is there! David looks to the east and to the west, and to the far side of the sea, and God was there. Wherever David went, God was there! Are you hurting right now? God is there!   Are you experiencing great joy in your life right now? God is there!

  God, you know me! And I know you are there! How desperately we need to be led through our complexities of life! Now, God, listen to me in my great joy or in my deepest hurt: can you help me? When we turn to God we find our help! David turned to God and he found the power of God! When he contemplated the great power of God, he looked back at his own creation: “For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb…your eyes saw my unformed body.  The power of God was real to David in his own creation. You are a wonderful and unique person because God designed you.

  
  Where is God?

   Where is God? God is everywhere in his creation. God is present in every event, not only in every sunrise, but in every sunset, and every high noon, and indeed in every moment and in every second and beloved Scriptures speaks about us being sheltered under the wings of the almighty, that He is our shelter and our fortress.  He is our all in all and our lives are found in Him… 

   We Have:

   Life. When God saved you, He gave you a new life, not a new law; as you yield to that life, you obey His law. Keep your mind centered on the things of the Lord (Col. 3:1–4) and seek to please God in all things. Let the Spirit live His life in you.

  Liberty. We enter God’s family by the new birth, not by adoption (John 3); but adoption gives us an adult standing in His family. He deals with us as mature sons and daughters and not as “little children.” We can talk (“Abba, Father” [v. 15]), walk, and use our inheritance right now. We are free, but we are still debtors to the Lord (v. 12).

  Hope. We are not frustrated by the suffering we experience or see in our world because we have hope. When Jesus returns, we will enter into glorious liberty! The Spirit is the beginning of the harvest and assures us that the best is yet to come.

  Guidance. God’s purpose is to make His children like His Son, and He will succeed. The Spirit intercedes for us and guides us as we pray, and the circumstances of life work for our good, no matter how painful they may be.

  Love. The Spirit of God makes the love of God real to us (5:5; John 14:23–27). The Father is for us (vv. 31–32), the Son is for us (v. 34), and the Spirit is for us (vv. 26–27). Nothing can separate us from His love. Is there any reason why we should not be “more than conquerors”?

  “The Holy Spirit longs to reveal to you the deeper things of God. He longs to love through you. He longs to work through you. Through the blessed Holy Spirit you may have: strength for every duty, wisdom for every problem, comfort in every sorrow, joy in His overflowing service.”

   Let us make some personal application of this then. If God is always there what does that mean to me personally. 

  John Wesley, in the sermon he preached on this subject applied the doctrine in this way. He said, that if we believe God is always with us in every place and time, then we should “take care not to do the least thing, not to speak the least word, not to indulge the least thought, which you have reason to think would offend him.”  Wesley says, “Suppose that a messenger of God, an angel, be now standing at your right hand, and fixing his eyes upon you, would you not take care to abstain from every word or action that you knew would offend him?” Of course we would.  Then Wesley adds, “How much more cautious ought you to be when you know that not a holy man, not an angel of God, but God himself, the Holy One ‘that inhabiteth eternity,’ is inspecting your heart, your tongue, your hand, every moment.” That then is the first application. We should live like our lives are always an open book to God.

  The second application is the comfort we receive from the doctrine of our omnipresent God. To quote Wesley again, he says, “Cheerfully expect that He, before whom you stand, will ever guide you with his eye, will support you by his guardian hand, will keep you from all evil, … [God] will make you perfect, will establish, strengthen, and settle you; and then preserve you unblameable, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!"

  In the beginning of this treatise  I mentioned some incidents when I was especially aware of God’s presence. Of course, God is with me always not just those two times, but notice this, when I was really aware of God’s presence, it was a moment of exaltation. I felt lifted up and loved and comforted. This reminds me of what God said to the Prophet Isaiah, “Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”[41:10]. We do not ever need to be anxious and afraid, because God is always with us to strengthen and uphold us.

  love you guys,

  pastor
  

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