Our Awesome God Series:
GOD’S OMNIPRESENCE OR EVERYWHERE PRESENCE
PSALM 139: 7-12
God is unlike anything we know or experience. God is infinite. God is not subject to space and time. This is the second of God’s “omni” attributes we want to study. The word omnipresent is easy to understand. Omni means “all.” Presence has to do with locally. The Omnipresence of God means that there is no place in creation where God does not exist. It will take a while to wrap our mind around that thought.
We can only be one place at one time, and there are some places where we cannot be. God alone can be all places at all times. God transcends the limitations of space and is present in all places at all times. [Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. 1988. Baker encyclopedia of the Bible. (p1588). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House.)
Some folks 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’s presence is like the air we breathe. Air is odorless, tasteless and invisible so it goes unnoticed, but it’s there. Let me qualify that a bit. When I lived in the mountain city of Arequipa, Peru, sometimes the air smelled terrible, it tasted bad and you could actually see it (pollution). But 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 Likewise, God’s presence is all around us, and if it were withdrawn, none of us could survive for even one moment.
Another aspect of God's infinity in terms of space is that there is no place where He cannot be found. [We are here facing the tension be¬tween the immanence of God (he is every¬where) and the transcendence (he is not anywhere).] Nowhere within the creation is God inaccessible. Jeremiah quotes God as saying, "Am I a God at hand, . . .and not a God afar off?" Jer. 23:23). The impli¬cation seems to be that being a God at hand does not preclude His being afar off or transcendent as well. He fills the whole heaven and earth (v. 24). Thus, we cannot hide "in secret places" so that we cannot be seen.]
In our passage today in Psalm 139:7-12, we hear the Psalmist David declare that God is omnipresent. O the wondrous comfort the sense of God's omnipresence gives. The Psalmist first takes the thought into his own heart, then flies with it to the farthest reaches of the universe and then into the darkest places of being.
God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. The Psalmist came to the conclusion that nothing can hide us from God and that to escape from His presence is utterly impossible. He illustrates that fact three ways:
I. DEATH CANNOT HIDE US FROM GOD, 7-8.
II. DISTANCE CANNOT HIDE US FROM GOD, 9-10.
III. DARKNESS CANNOT HIDE US FROM GOD, 11-12.
David declares that there is nowhere that we can hide from God. Wherever we go, the presence of God¬ will be there. Listen to the very important question David raises a in Psalm 139:7 when he asks, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence (face)?”
The theme here is the omnipresence of God. The Psalmist does not want to go (or flee) from God or even to avoid the presence of the Almighty. He asks this (hypothetical) question to set forth the fact that no one can escape from the all pervading Being or from the observation of the Invisible “Spirit.” From the sight of God we cannot be hidden, but that is not all, from the actual constant presence of God, We cannot be removed.
The obvious answer to “where can I flee from your presence” is no where. God is everywhere. Now the presence and the manifestation of the presence are not the same thing. When Jacob was in the wilderness he said "Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not.” God dwells with His creation and is everywhere invisibly present among all His works. He is here even when we are totally unaware of Him. In order to experience His presence we must surrender fully and continually to the Spirit of God.
The sense of God's presence is due to RELATIONSHIP CLOSENESS. A man may say that he feels closer to his son since he has grown older. The fact may be that he has lived next door all these years. What the father means is that relationally they experience each other more and better now. Barriers have disappeared and they are more intimate and have a deeper understanding of each other. If we would develop intimate relationship with God we would find Him closer than our most secret thoughts. [Innocué-vivite, numen adest. Live innocently, God is present.]
Now this is not pantheism. God is described as a person everywhere present in all locations not as part of creation. God is everywhere, He is not everything.
[Francis Thompson wrote a gripping poem that he called “The Hound of Heaven.” It reflected the torture of his life during the years he was running from God. At one time he had intended to be a priest but was deemed unqualified. Then he turned to his father’s medical profession but failed again. Angry and bitter, Thompson gave up on God.
From 1885 to 1888 he lived the life of a derelict on the streets of London, suffering the agony of an opium habit. Finally some friends snatched him from the pit of death and brought him to the God he had dreaded. Thompson was gloriously converted.
His poem is his testimony. As the hound pursues the hare, ever drawing nearer in the chase, so God pursues the fleeing soul.
No matter how far you’ve run from God, the “Hound of Heaven” is still chasing you. Just when you think you’ve eluded Him, you’ll discover that He’s still there. King David knew he could not flee from God’s presence.
We can sense His presence everywhere. It may be through the patience of a spouse, or the warm embrace of a friend when we expected to be shunned. But God is there.
It’s tiring to run from God. Perhaps you sense that He’s pursuing you. If you do, it’s time to stop running. Relentless love will never let us go. No matter how far you’ve run from God, He’s only a prayer away.]
Remember the story of JONAH? The prophet JONAH found out the hard way that you can not out run God. 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. He fled in the opposite direction than God wanted him to go. He ran from God and got on a ship and went down below. 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. How did that turn out for him?
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. Everyone knows that he got thrown into the ocean and a big fish swallowed him up and he spent three days in solitary in the belly of a fish! Yet God was with him even in the belly of the whale or fish. But, even there in that fish God saw what he was doing and knew what he said. When he repented and was ready to do what God wanted him to then up he came onto the beach. Jonah learned the hard way that he couldn’t out run God. Relentless love will never let us go. No matter how far you’ve run from God, He’s only a prayer away
David continues to enumerate hypothetical avenues of escape from the all-pervading presence (face) of the omnipresent God in verse 8. “If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.”
David now addresses what he would find if he went to the farthest corners of the universe. Even in the remotest parts of the universe, God is there. It isn’t that God gets there ahead of us, but that God is there at the same time He is here with us.
By heaven David means the upper region of the world, with reference to a state of blessedness. By “sheol” or the most opposite to heaven, the lower parts of the earth, the grave or the abode of the dead is meant. Sheol also referred to the place of departed spirits, both of the righteous (Gen. 37:35) and wicked (Prov. 9:18). It was the place of waiting for final judgment. Distance does not separate from God. The unsaved discover that as well. If you can rise to the highest heaven or descend to the lowest earth, you cannot escape the presence of the all-present God. He will be with you wherever life takes you.
This thought reminds me of the story of the man who was walking in the marketplace of Damascus and came FACE-TO-FACE WITH DEATH. The man noticed an expression of surprise on Death's face. The man him¬self was terrified, looking Death in the face, knowing that it had come for him. So he took off running and went to a wise friend for advice. "In the marketplace I just saw Death, and he was staring me right in the face. What should I do?"
The wise man said, "What you've got to do is run to the city of Aleppo. Go to that city and get away from Death."
So the man got on his horse and reached Aleppo in record time to get away from Death. When he arrived, he wiped his brow and congratulated himself that he had escaped Death. But just then, Death came up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me, but I have come for you."
The man looked at him and said, "How can this be? I thought I met you in Damascus yesterday."
Death looked at him and said, "Exactly! That's why I looked so surprised when I saw you, because I was scheduled to meet you in Aleppo today."
That's what running from God is like. When you run from Him and you get to where you were going, you bump into Him.
One of the greatest comforts in the face of death is that God will be there with us. Psalm 23:4 states “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou are with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”
God doesn’t promise we won’t go through difficult circumstances, but that He will be with us through them. The all-present God will be with you where ever life takes you. He will lead you in the right direction for the right purpose. Thank God for the assurance of His guiding hand through life.
II. DISTANCE CANNOT HIDE US FROM GOD, 9-10.
In verse 9 the Psalmist proposes the fastest of flights to the most far away of places to flee from the scrutinizing presence of God. “If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea.”
The wings of the dawn [shachar] is a dynamic metaphor for the light of the sun flying over the horizon. The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second or 299,790 kilometer/second. The inconceivable speed of light would utterly fail if employed in flying from God. If I put the wings of light on my back and flew with it scattering darkness before me God would still be with me.
Light, so sudden and instantaneous that it prevents the observation of the eye, does not prevent God's observation or leave His presence behind. If I could fly with all swiftness and find habitation where space probes have not yet been, I could not reach the boundaries of the divine presence. If we went into the uncharted regions of space, or the great sea, we would find God's presence already there waiting for us. He who will save to the utmost is with us to the outermost. (What does this verse say about the possibilities of our next life?)
[FOLLOW THE RIGHT MAP] The story is told of a first century battalion of Roman soldiers involved in a war. In the process of pursuing the enemy, they moved into what was then unknown territory. The map makers of that era designated the lands beyond their own journeys by drawing dragons and sea monsters in those areas. This showed that uncharted territories could be frightening and life-threatening.
The commander of the battalion was unsure whether to forge ahead into what might be danger, or turn back to what was familiar land, which would mean a retreat. So he sent a dispatch to Rome with the following urgent message: "Please send new orders. We have marched off the map."
What kind of map are you following? As you live out your life, make daily decisions, plan for the future, what kind of information do you have that will assure your long term success? An even more important question might be; who drew the map you are following? How do you know it is accurate? Will it get you where, when your thinking your clearest, you really want to end up? Or are you head toward down a dead end road?
The psalmist reminds us that if we follow God, the map will never be too small. God is everywhere. This means that wherever you are, He has already been there and can lovingly guide you. As a child of the Father, you can never "march off the map."
He will lead you in the right direction for the right purpose. Thank God for the assurance of His guiding hand through life.
[The NW Passage is a water route from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic Archipelago of northern Canada and along the northern coast of Alaska. Sought by navigators since the 16th century, the existence of such a route was proved in the early 19th century, but the passage was not traversed until the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen led an expedition across it in 1903 to 1906. The ice-breaking tanker Manhattan was the first commercial ship to cross the passage (1969), after the discovery of oil in northern Alaska.]
John Franklin, the discoverer of the Northwest Passage, lived an exciting life of adventure in the British Navy sailing to many parts of the world. He was a devout Christian and found great strength in reading his Bible. His men said they would rather have him hold services than most ministers.
In 1845 he led one of the best-equipped expeditions ever to enter the Arctic. None of the team ever came back. Years later Sir Francis McClintock discovered what remained of the expedition, including a collection of books and bones. Among the books was Franklin's copy of John Todd's Students’ Manual, turned down at a particular page as though the dead explorer's finger were pointing to the place. On that turned-down page, almost the last page in the book, is to be found this dialogue:
"Are you not afraid to die?"
"No!"
"No? Why, does the uncertainty of another state give you no concern?"
"Because God has said to me: Fear not; when you pass through the waters, I will be with you ... "
That was it. In the frozen north Sir John Franklin knew the abiding presence of God. A monument was erected to the memory of this navigator of the north. Lord Tennyson wrote its inscription:
Not here!
The White North has thy bones,
And thou, Heroic Sailor Soul
Art passing on thy happier voyage now
Toward no earthly Pole.
Verse 10 is a strong affirmation that wherever we may go, God is there to lead us and to hold us. “Even there Thy hand will lead me, and Thy right hand will lay hold of me.”
What a surprise. After you try fleeing from God you would expect a reprimand. Instead God acts graciously. He guides and hold us together which indicates providential guidance and protection. These actions evidence divine pursue and loyalty. We can only fly from God by the power He grants us. Even then our Lord is leading, covering, preserving, and sustaining us even while we are fugitives from Him.
The word David used for “hold” is interesting. The verb in Hebrew means is “to hold, grasp,” in the positive sense of helping or sustaining, not in the negative sense of seizing or arresting. [Bratcher, R. G., & Reyburn, W. D. (1991). A translator’s handbook on the book of Psalms. Helps for translators (1126). New York: United Bible Societies.]
Jonah discovered that. Away he went, fleeing toward the west, hoping he had left God behind. We can picture him sound asleep in the bottom of the boat. Then the wind at God's bidding comes and that little ship is picked up and hurled like a piece of driftwood on the angry waves. God is about to snatch Jonah from his bed and return him, by way of a fish's belly, to the coast from which he fled.
When we think we fly from God by going from one place to another but we simply flee from one hand to another.
[YOUR HAND IN HIS] Life holds no surprises for God. No path is unknown to Him--no circumstance unsettling. Because the future is perfectly clear to our Father, the Christian has the full assurance that he can follow where God leads, whether the way is marked by calm or storm.
While making a brief Christmas address to the people of the British Empire in 1939, KING GEORGE VI spoke of his faith in God's leading. World War II had begun, and Great Britain faced the onslaughts of Hitler's reckless military barrage (blitzkrieg). As the King spoke to the people on that Christmas day, he concluded his remarks with these lines written by Minnie Louise Haskins some 30 years earlier: "And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied: 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.' "
Like Great Britain back in 1939, each of us today faces a changing future with varying and perhaps foreboding circumstances. But we don't have to fear. We have Someone to guide us even in the darkest night. That's why the psalmist could say, Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. God's presence enables the Christian to face tomorrow with complete confidence.
God forgives the past, controls the present, and holds the future. Put your hand in His hand. Think of the implications for those in Christ from Isaiah 41:10. “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
If the palmist cannot escape geographically, perhaps he can try to hide in the darkness. This doesn’t work either. God is always with us. Death Cannot Hide Us from God. Distance Cannot Hide Us from God. And finally:
III. DARKNESS CANNOT HIDE US FROM GOD, 11-12.
David has said that no matter where I go, I run into You Lord. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. In verses 11-12 the psalmist uses the figures of darkness and light to show how impossible it is to hide from Yahweh. But this is good news to the psalmist, because he goes on to say that God shines forth in the darkness. ‘If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,”
In verse 11 the Hebrew verb translated “cover” [Choshekh, seems to indicate some sort of peril that will separate him from God [Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Ps 139:10–11). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.] is taken to mean, in a general sense, to overwhelm or to hide. NKJV has “conceal.” [Bratcher, R. G., & Reyburn, W. D. (1991). A translator’s handbook on the book of Psalms. Helps for translators (1126). New York: United Bible Societies.]
Dense darkness may oppress me and those who love darkness rather than light may abound, but it cannot shut me out from God or God from me. God sees as well without light as with it since He is not dependent upon light to see. Whatever gloom or evil has shut me up, God is there. If the darkness be light to God, how great is the light in which we dwell (Job 34:21-22).
One sweltering hot night in July 1977 New York's POWER SUPPLY BROKE DOWN. Immediately tens of thousands of people poured from their tenements to loot and burn the city. Roving bands of men, women, and children pulled down steel shutters and grills from storefronts, shattered plate glass windows, and hauled away everything they could carry. Some of them even rented trucks to haul off the loot. Fires were started. Firemen fought over one thousand of them and received seventeen hundred false alarms to decoy them and the police away from the looting.
Thieves even robbed each other. One teenage girl complained to friends that some boys had offered to help her carry some clothes and radios she had stolen and then made off with them. "That's not right," she said. "They shouldn't have done that." Only a fraction of the looters were arrested. Over two thousand stores were plundered or damaged at the cost of $1 billion. Most of those arrested thought society owed them this windfall and showed no regret except at having been caught. One young woman told a reporter: "It's really sort of beautiful. Everybody is out on the streets together. It's like being at a party." One boy said, "This is better than going to Macy's."
All this because it was dark--as though God could not see in the dark! But darkness does not hide from Him; God is omnipresent. He was there on the dark streets of New York that night. No matter where we are, or may go in the world, God sees me--this is a blessed thought to those of us who live in this dark world and who know Him as Father and Friend.
Isaiah 50:10 “Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.”
Verse 12 teaches us that we cannot hide in the darkest of night nor in the darkest of evil from God. Even the darkness is not dark to Thee, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to Thee.”
The darkness veils nothing. It is not a medium of concealment in any degree what so ever. Night is but another form of day to God. This will either fill one with joyful praise that we cannot be hidden from God or with anger that He cannot be shaken.
Have you ever taken a look at your behavior or deeds that you do in day and in night? Do the type of actions or activities you are involved in change? If your manner or demeanor change, you have been living for man and not God.
He is everywhere, and He will personally pursue us, wherever we go. We will run into Him at every turn. We cannot escape Him in the darkness, even the darkness of our own souls. He is a jealous lover, and His love will not be denied [Williams, D., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1989). Psalms 73–150 (Vol. 14, p. 472). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.]
[The darkest darkness does not hid from God, for there is no darkness nor shadow where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. No hypocritical mask or disguise, however sophisticated can save any person or action from appearing in a true light before God. Secret haunts of sin are as open before God as the most open and barefaced villainies. [Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: (Ps 139:7). Peabody: Hendrickson.]
In CLOSING
No place is beyond the presence, guidance and protection of God. Let any man turn to God in earnest and the presence of God will become manifested to him, it matters not were he is: in the jungles of Asia or concrete jungle of Memphis. Turn to God and He will develop in you a capacity for spiritual receptivity through trust and obedience. You will find character development in a way that will exceed anything hoped for outside of Jesus Christ. We have the opportunity to relate to Him in any place under any circumstances if we will but respond to His leading.
God desires to walk with us and guide us, because He wants the very best for us. Why should we run away and hide? Adam and Eve tried and failed (Gen. 3:8). So did Jonah the prophet, who only went from bad to worse. We need God’s presence with us if we want to enjoy His love and fulfill His purposes (Isa. 43:1-7).
Repent of your sinful preoccupation with visible things that have blinded you to His presence and He will open your eyes so that you may behold Him not only around you but in you!
