NTRODUCTION
When you were a kid, did you have secret hideout? This was a place that only you and a very select few friends knew about.
This hideout was a place that you could go to escape the worries of your young world. It was a place where you thought you could do things that you were not supposed to do.
This hideout made you feel that no one knew where you were. When I was a kid I had such a place. Whenever my mother wanted me to come home, she would stick her head out the door and yell my name at the top of her lungs. You could hear her for it seemed like 100 miles away.
I made the mistake ONCE when we were at the hideout of saying that I did not hear her.
Do we lose that “hideout” mentality when we grow up? Sometimes we do not. I told you about some of my business trip experiences last week. The idea was that these people thought they could hide things from their spouses and or girlfriends since they were out of state.
Today I want to talk about the last of three attributes that make God, God. Today we will look at the fact that God is OMNIPRESENT. Put in layman’s terms, “God is everywhere all the time.”
This is good news the those who know and love God, because no matter what we do or where we go, we can never be far from God’s comforting presence.
The bad news is that if we do not follow God is that He knows that also. GALATIANS 6:7 says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”
What I am not saying is that God is IN EVERYTHING. God is not in the rocks, in the trees, in the earth and so on. God has the ability to be in all places all the time. That is a big concept to grasp isn’t it?
David, in the first six verses of Psalm 139 talks about the fact that God knows everything about us, that nothing is hidden from Him.
How is it that God knows so much about us? Remember what verse five said? God is always with us. One reason God knows us so intimately is because He is with us continually. The first six verses answer the question; "How well does God know me?" Verses 7-12 answer the question; "How near is God to me?"
An atheist was lecturing at a University. He wrote on the chalkboard; "God is nowhere." After his lecture, a Christian student went to the board and separated the letters "W" and "H" of "nowhere" leaving the statement: "God is now here." God not only knows us intimately; He is with us all the time.
This is one of the reasons that it is futile to run from God when we have problems in life with sin or with life in general. God is with us so He knows.
Once again I want to take this very large subject of God’s omnipresence and bring it down to a personal level. Nothing can separate you from God or the love of God. ROMANS 8:39 says, “nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
There is no “hideout” from God. Today we will see that death, distance or darkness can hide us from God!
SERMON
READ PSALM 139:7-12
QUESTION
In verse seven David asks the question. Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
I feel a sense of excitement in the following verses as David tries to answer his own question.
I don’t believe that the question here expresses any intent to run from God. He didn’t express any fear in verses 1 to 6 when he thought about God’s detailed knowledge of him. Throughout David’s life when God confronted him, David did not run from Him. On the contrary, he was so grateful for God’s love and care, expressed in such intimate concern for him that he breaks forth in worship. And even here in verse 10, he sees God’s omnipresence as for his benefit. He says; "Your hand will lead me, your right hand will lay hold me."
The question of verse 7 is a statement of joyful astonishment that God is everywhere!
As we look at our text let us see that:
I. DEATH CANNOT HIDE US 8
David tells us that if we ascend to heaven, we cannot hide from God there since He God lives there.
He also says that the grave cannot hide us from God.
There are three possible ways to understand this verse on God being everywhere. We may take David’s words:
1. Geographically - Wherever we may go; vertically up to the highest regions of space; or down to the lowest depths of the earth; God is there! Or we may understand them.
2. Metaphorically - referring to the highs and lows of life whether we are up with joy or weighed down with sorrow, He is there with us. In light and life and joy and hope; or in darkness, death, sorrow and disappointment; through all of our life, God promises. HEBREWS 13:5 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.
When do you FEEL the furthest from God? It is usually during the tough times of life.
Do not try to run from God when times get.
In the book of Job, Job was having problems in his life. He refused to curse God for his trouble.
God not only knows about what we go through; He is there for us and cares about us. The third way to take his words is.
3. Literally - in the highest Heaven, where we naturally expect to find God. But even in "Sheol" -- the Hebrew word for the place of the dead (it’s not hell; "Sheol" is usually translated "the grave") even there we find God.
When Job was having all his trouble, his wife told him to curse God and die (Job 2:9) because she thought he had done something to anger God and that death would allow him to escape.
Death can’t hide us from God! Even if one takes their life, they will not be out of God’s presence.
II. DISTANCE CANNOT HIDE US 9-10
David is thinking geographically again. We’ve already seen that there is no escape from God vertically. Now his imagination moves horizontally.
David is literally saying, “If I were able to take to myself the wings of the morning, and endeavor to escape “by flight” from the presence of God, or go where he could not pursue me, or where he would not be.
The “wings of the morning” evidently mean that by which the light of the morning “seems to fly,” (the sunbeams)—the most rapid object known to us.
Have you ever stood in the dawn and watched the rising of the sun? If you have you’ve noticed how its rays shoot across the heavens with the speed of LIGHT and reach to the farthest bounds of the horizon.
Jonah tried to run away from the Lord by setting sail for Tarshish. He paid the fare and boarded the ship at Joppa, in a pointless effort to flee from the Lord. A few days into his Mediterranean Cruise, God decided to get Jonah’s attention by sending a mighty wind, which threatened to break up the ship. Little did the reluctant prophet know, but a great fish (or sea monster, or whale) was divinely appointed to swallow him up.
No matter where we go – God is there. Jonah found out that you can run but you cannot hide from God.
How many times to we try to run away from God when He is seeking us?
A mother was listening outside the door as her seven year-old said his prayers. It had been a hectic day as the family was preparing to move. Imagine her surprise when he closed his prayer: "Good-Bye God, we’re moving to California!" And imagine his surprise when he got to California and found that God was already there!
VERSE 10
David tells us with excitement that even if we go to the remotest parts of the earth, God’s right hand will be there to guide and protect us. The right hand is a symbol of God’s power (Exodus 15:6; Psalm 118:15,16; Psalm 16:8, 17:7)
The passage says that God will lay hold of us or literally “snatch us”
Jonah discovered this truth in a dramatic way. Away he went, fleeing westward; hoping he’d left God behind. Sound asleep in the boat; God brings the wind, the waves, the storm and by a fishes’ belly He snatches Jonah back to do his will.
David was excited about God’s care for us. Listen to the 23rd Psalm. READ IT.
This passage has been a comfort to so many people in their times of need. God loves you and wants to be your shepherd. He wants the best for you. When will you let go and let God?
David found the constant presence of God to be a comfort not something to be feared.
Distance will not allow us to escape the presence of God.
III. DARKNESS CANNOT HIDE US 11-12
The third place that we tend to go to so that we can hide from God is the darkness of night.
READ VERSES 11-12
EPH 5:11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;
Darkness is associated with evil.
One swelteringly hot night in July 1977, New York’s power supply broke down. Immediately tens of thousands of people poured from their homes 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. It was said that 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 had 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!
Darkness will not hide our deeds from God.
God is light and the light exposes all JOHN 3:19-20 "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
In verse 12 we find that to God, darkness is not dark. We have little night-lights throughout the house so that we do not fall, God sees all in the dark.
CONCLUSION
David found great comfort knowing that God was with Him no matter where he went.
We need to understand that we cannot hide from God.
We need to understand that we cannot hide from God’s love either.
God loves each and every person that has been created. God loves you.
Maybe you are in a difficult situation right now, have suffered some kind of loss, been afflicted with illness or pain. Maybe the wound is still tender. Perhaps it’s too early to know why it’s happening. Perhaps you may never know this side of eternity. But believe David; God has not left you.
He’ll never walk away from you. You’ll never find yourself in a situation where God is not right there alongside of you to strengthen, help, and encourage you.
There are times when you will question whether or not God is with you. Job had to wonder. God is always with you. Trust in God and He will direct your paths.
ROMANS 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
How many years of your life have you spent trying to run or hide from God? I want to challenge you today to give up the fight, stop trying to hide and allow yourself to enjoy the love He wants you to enjoy.
Will you come forward today as we stand and sing our hymn of decision.
