Godisnowhere - Part B

If death can't hide us from God, and if distance can't hide us from God, this is what it means. I don't have to go to any special place to meet with Him. I don't have to go on a pilgrimage to a special holy place or a shrine, crawl on my knees and get them bloody and say something, you know, profound. God is everywhere. Thus, in my apartment, in my house, at my job, I can open the Bible and I can pray, and I can instantly make contact with Heaven and have God's blessings at my disposal.

Do you remember the popular Where's Waldo puzzles? Sometimes it was easy to find him, and sometimes you wondered if he was really in the picture at all. That can sum up how some people feel about God. Today on Connect with Skip Hyten, Skip continues to explore where it is you can find God. Before we begin, here's a resource that draws on philosophy and science to help you understand who God is, and how you can know Him on a deeper level. Someone once said that if you want to know about Michelangelo, you need to study what he said, what he did, and what he created. Well, the same is true if you want to know God. You must devote yourself to his words, actions, and what he created.

That is one of the reasons I wrote the book, The Biography of God. It's available now, and I hope you'll join me on this noble, demanding, and even rewarding journey. Here's how to get your copy of my newest book, The Biography of God. Skip's new book is our thanks when you give $35 or more today to help keep this ministry on the air.

Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, let's dive into today's teaching. We'll be in Psalm chapter 139 as Skip Heiseck begins the study. I believe there's something, I'm going to call it neopantheism, and I think it shows up in earth worship, in hyper environmentalism, where people so focus on the environment and the earth, and there's days of worship for it, and it's all about the environment because that is the only thing they know, and that has become essentially their God. There's slogans like, love your mother, or the environment is everything. There was a French teacher who even asked her nephew, well, isn't God just mother nature?

Answer, no. God is eternal and separate. God has no beginning and no end.

This world, this universe had a beginning, all scientists will tell you that, and will have an end, it's winding down. So God is outside of it, but created it, and is present in his creation, but is not his creation. That's the omnipresence of God. Now for us in the New Testament, it gets even better, because it's not just like, yeah, there's kind of like God is everywhere, and he's big, and he's out there. For us, it's more personal, because Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, and Jesus came to the earth, and for 33 and a half years lived here, and I know some of you are thinking, yeah, but he left. But before he left, he told his disciples, it's good for you that I go, because if I can't go, or if I don't go, I won't be able to send the counselor, the comforter, who will be with you. And then Jesus said, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.

And he was referring to the presence of the Holy Spirit of God, dwelling inside of the believer. So that is the rhetorical question, where is God? Everywhere. Where can you get away from God?

Nowhere. That's followed in the next few verses by three rational conclusions. The rhetorical question is followed by the rational conclusion, and David says three things about the omnipresence of God. First, death itself can't hide a person from God. Verse 8, if I ascend into heaven, you're there. Now we would take that first part of the verse and go, duh. I mean, that's God's unique dwelling place, though God is everywhere present, heaven is his unique dwelling place.

Even Jesus taught us to pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. We understand that that's HQ for God. That's headquarters.

That's the base of operations. But notice the next part of the verse. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. You see the word hell? It's an ancient Hebrew word, sheol. 65 times it appears in the Old Testament. It is typically a word that means the grave, the place of the dead. It's where people get buried.

It's a general term to refer to the abode of those who have died. Now, in ancient thinking, a person in the grave, a person in sheol, was cut off from God. You die, you go down into the earth, and you hang up the sign, God is nowhere. That's how the ancients thought, not David.

David would say, uh-uh, God is now here. He's present on this side of the grave, on earth, and when you die, God will be present on that side of the grave. Because death is a transition, right?

It's a threshold. For the believer, well, when a Christian dies, you really can't say he died. You have to say he moved. To be absent from the body, Paul said, is to be present with the Lord. That's where a person experiences the presence of God in a very special way. Unlike here, where we apprehend it by faith, it'll be face-to-face, in glory. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

But flip the coin, go to the other side. What about the unbeliever, who his whole life, or her whole life, has tried to get away from God, or not believe in God, or discount God? Surely death ends it all.

Nope. Even there, even in the grave, believer or unbeliever, you can't get rid of God even at death. Because the Bible puts it this way. It is appointed unto every man once to die, and after this, the judgment. Not after this, you float around.

Not after this, you're eternally unconscious. But after this comes the judgment. Imagine the fate of a man like, let's take Adolf Hitler. Hated Jews, killed millions of them, killed Christians who protected them, and he dies. And who does he see?

Jesus Christ, a Jew, who is his judge for eternity. He cannot escape Christ. He cannot escape this Jewish Messiah. He cannot escape the judgment and the faith that beholds him. Death can't separate him from God. There's a verse of scripture I was looking at early this morning.

I want to share it with you. It is a frightening verse. It goes along with this for the unbeliever. This is Revelation 14 verse 10. He himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation, which is poured out on all the earth.

And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. That's a frightening piece of truth. I have a book in my library.

I pull it out from time to time. It's simply called The Last Words of Saints and Sinners. And what Herbert Lockyer, the author, has done is to find people throughout history, believers and non-believers, and give us the last words before they died. It's a great book of comfort. It's a great book of terror. Here's a couple of unbelievers.

One was Altamont, who lived in the 1800s. He was an agnostic writer. He wrote a lot of words, not believing in God, discounting it, being very confident about it, but at his death, he said, As for deity, nothing less than an Almighty could inflict what I feel now.

Remorse for the past throws my thoughts onto the future. O thou blasphemed and indulgent God, hell is a refuge if it hides me from thy frown. Can you imagine breathing those words as your last words after living that way?

Tragic. Then there was Voltaire, the French atheist, who was very vocal against Christ. In fact, while he was alive, he said of Jesus Christ, Curse the wretch! But when he died, among his last words were, I'll give you half of what I'm worth for six months of life, and then I shall go to hell, and you shall go with me, O Christ, O Jesus Christ.

Tragic again, and powerful. No, death can't hide any person, believer or unbeliever, from God, and David states that in this poetic language. The second conclusion David comes to is that because God is everywhere, distance can't hide us from God. Look at the next two verses, 9 and 10 of Psalm 139. If I take the wings of the morning, and I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, your right hand shall hold me. Now this is Hebrew poetry. It's a description of distance, especially going west over the Mediterranean.

The sun rises in the east, and instantly its rays permeate everything, even out toward the Mediterranean. Picture where David is writing this, and it travels instantly. So if I were to rephrase this, David is saying, if I could travel the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, and shoot across the universe to any place, God is there. You're there.

Even there. Back in 1968, I don't know how many of you were around back then, usually there's more people first service that were around back then than second and third service, but 1968 on Christmas Eve, if you were around, you remember, Apollo 8 was orbiting, and on Christmas Eve they gave a great gift to the United States of America, to the whole world. The three astronauts aboard Apollo 8 read Genesis 1, 1 through 10.

I remember, I was a little kid, I remember hearing it. In the beginning, you know, in that in the beginning, you know, in that crackly voice that comes from space. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and they all three took turns reading the Genesis account from space for the earth. Now, what a lot of you may not realize, as soon as they got back, Madeleine Murray O'Hare, the atheist, sued NASA because they said that. They were saying, God is now here. We feel it. This is so unique, and God is awesome.

We're here, we get it. And she would say, God is nowhere. What you may not know is that in the Apollo 11 mission, Buzz Aldrin, on the lunar surface, brought the elements of communion with him and broke bread in fellowship with God, and he was also declaring, God is now here. Now, not everybody would agree. There were a group of cosmonauts that went up from Russia, and one of them came back and proudly said to an audience, I've been up in space, and I did not see God. And someone in the audience turned to his buddy and said, if he'd have stepped out of a space suit, he would have seen God. I've always loved that. Okay, but what does all this mean to us?

Applicationally, personally. If death can't hide us from God, and if distance can't hide us from God, this is what it means. I don't have to go to any special place to meet with him.

I don't have to go on a pilgrimage to a special holy place or a shrine, crawl on my knees and get them bloody and say something, you know, profound. God is everywhere. Thus, in my apartment, in my house, at my job, I can open the Bible, and I can pray, and I can instantly make contact with heaven and have God's blessings at my disposal.

We do make a mistake as human beings thinking that God is near or far in terms of a place or space. And back in the Old Testament, worship was very geocentric. They went to a temple.

That's where you bring the animal. That's where you meet with God. You come from your tribe to Jerusalem, because that's where God lived. And even to this day, you can see it in Jerusalem.

If you go there, the tour guides will sometimes say tongue-in-cheek, but there's an air of seriousness about it. They'll say, look, you can pray to God anywhere on earth, but here, it's a local call. There's a special place that God will meet with you, but that's not really true, is it? Even Solomon who built the temple, didn't he even say to God, look, even heaven, and the heaven of heavens can't contain you much less this temple that I have built.

Paul would agree. In Acts 17, he addressed the Athenians, and he said, point blank, God does not dwell in temples made with hands. You're the temple. You're the temple. All of you who know Christ, you're the temple of the Holy Spirit. I remember as a kid, I would run through our church building after service.

We were four boys, and I was the youngest, and I would take the cues of my older brother, so we were kids. We'd run around, and I remember hearing my parents, I think every Sunday, as well as the clergymen, say this, don't run in the house of God. Or my parents, don't run in God's house. Then I read the Bible, and I discovered, hey, I am God's house.

I am the temple of the Holy Spirit. He dwells in me very uniquely as one committed to him. So death can't hide you from God. Distance can't hide you from God. And here's the third conclusion David draws, darkness doesn't hide us from God.

Verse 11 and 12. If I say, surely the darkness shall fall on me, even the light, or even the night, shall be light about me. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day, and the darkness as the light, and the light are both alike to you. I always found it interesting that bars and nightclubs aren't well lit, but they're dark.

Not that I frequent them a lot, but I have noticed, the ones I've noticed, they're not like the lights turned up bright. It's very dim, and that's for a purpose, because darkness obscures detail. It hides people.

People feel better when they're hidden in doing certain things. Most crimes are committed under the cover of darkness. Saul, in the Old Testament, went to meet with the witch of Endor, and he knew it was wrong to do it. The Bible says Saul disguised himself, and he went at night. When Judas betrayed Jesus Christ in the New Testament, the writer wants us to know the same details.

He then went out immediately, and it was night. And Jesus used this darkness metaphorically when he said men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Well, that's really not the issue here.

David isn't trying to cover up anything. But I want you to notice something. This is, I think, the meaning of it. Verse 11 is a very important word.

Don't miss this. If I say, surely the darkness shall fall on me. See the word fall?

It's a very singular Hebrew word found only here that literally means to bruise. The darkness would bruise me, or crush me, or oppress me. I don't know your experience with the dark, but when it's completely dark, your mind does different things. The thoughts come out like at no other time, and you deal with things mentally, almost oppressively, as at no other time. First of all, when it's dark, I can know my own house, but I will stumble into walls every night, because I have no control. I have no frame of reference that's provided by my eyes in the light. Well, the idea here is a period of darkness that is oppressive. Now, all of us have gone through dark times, and I'm speaking spiritually, emotionally.

You might talk to a friend and say something like, this season of my life has been really dark. In fact, if you were honest, you might have even asked, where was God? Where is He? Where was He? Now, that's really a whole other study we want to look at, God in times of suffering, but I don't want to sound simplistic.

You know the answer. Jesus said, lo, I am with you, always, even until the end of the age. That's a promise for you and for me.

Lo, I am with you always. There was a minister on an airplane. He was sitting next to a lady who was obviously nervous to fly.

They were still taxiing on the runway. The Reverend was there. The lady next to him, an older lady, had her Bible open, head down. She was praying fervently. He could tell she was nervous. The plane started speeding up. She got more nervous, filled with anxiety, prayed more fervently. As the plane began to lift off, she grabbed the sides of the seat, sweat pouring down her face, and the preacher finally turned to the lady, put his hand on her shoulder and said, you don't have to worry. Jesus said, I am with you always. And she looked back and snapped at him. He didn't say that. He said, lo, I am with you always.

And right now we're getting up pretty high. That poor lady needed a newer translation of her Bible, didn't she? Well, this is a great truth, is it not, the omnipresence of God?

It really is. It's a great comfort as well as a great concern, depending on who you are and how you live. Think of what a comfort it was, for instance, to Moses, who didn't want to lead the children of Israel out of bondage, thought he couldn't do it, thought he couldn't speak very well. And all God told him is, I'm with you. That's enough. I'll go with you.

My presence will go with you. What a comfort it was later on to Joshua, who was going to take over for Moses. And God said, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. That's enough.

Go. What a comfort this was to Gideon when he faced the army of the Midianites and he was outnumbered. And the Lord said, you will defeat the Midianites as one man, for behold, I am with you.

Same promise. That's all he needed. And what a great comfort to Paul the apostle. And you know, there were times in Paul's life where he must have said, hey, where's God?

This is not the way it's supposed to work out. He was going from Athens to Corinth and things didn't pan out very well in Corinth. And he must have been very discouraged, for the Bible says, the Lord spoke to him at night and said, do not be afraid, but speak and do not keep silent, for I am with you. And what about us? What about us in this failing economy? Where's God?

What about us hearing about the Middle East crisis that could explode and get a lot bigger than it is? Where's God? The promise to us, repeated in the book of Hebrews, spoken by Jesus, I'll read you the Hebrews passage, Hebrews 13. Let your conduct be without covetousness, very good wisdom for those facing a financial downfall. Let your life be without covetousness, be content with the things that you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

And in Greek, it's very emphatic. I will never leave you, no ever, no ever leave you nor forsake you. God's presence. Where's God? God's everywhere, but uniquely dwelling inside the child of God to give you whatever you need this year.

And if I could just say at the beginning of this year, if there's ever to be a truth that you will filter all of the activities, all of the decisions of your year through, let it be this one. God is there in the quiet, silent places, dark moments, times you make your plans. Filter everything through this great truth.

God is now here. But I will also say if you're not walking with him, if you're not a believer, you shouldn't be comforted. You should be concerned. Or as the old saying goes, be afraid, be very afraid. In the old Roman Empire, there used to be a saying, the whole world, they used to say, the whole world is one great prison to the malfactor, to the criminal. In other words, you might hide under a bush or in another place, but the whole world is controlled by Rome.

We're going to find you and we'll bring you to justice. So no matter how you live apart from God, one day you will cross the threshold and you will face God as your judge. So let me just implore you in closing. If you have not surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, I would ask, why not?

What in the world is keeping you back from that important choice? That's Skip Heising with the conclusion of a message from the series, The Biography of God. Now, here's Skip to tell you about how you can keep encouraging messages like this coming your way as you help connect others to God's Word.

Well, we all know that life is filled with ups and downs, but God remains our steady constant. Our heart is to bring people closer to Him so they can have a relationship and enjoy the riches of His Word. Your gift today means we can keep sharing these teachings that you love for many more years to come.

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1-800-922-1888. Thank you. Tomorrow, Skip Heising shares just how limitless and powerful your Heavenly Father is.

Be sure to join us. God never runs out of His unlimited power. He is all powerful. He is omnipotent. And that's a Bible word, by the way.

One of the great anthems sung in eternity, Revelation 19, is, For the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heising is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.