Our God is Omnipresent (Part 3)

But the reason I want to read these two verses before we go to Genesis chapter 3 is because it speaks to the idea of hiding oneself from God, which is related to God’s omnipresence. So let’s pray and then we’re going to go to Genesis chapter 3. Our Father, thank you for the opportunity again to study your word. Lord, let us stand in awe of everything that you are, because Lord, you are a great God and a great King above all gods.

There is none like you. Help us, Lord, to see your attributes. Help us to see your glories in the scripture that you have given to us to reveal yourself to us. And Lord, help us to truly grow, not just in our knowledge, but also in the way that we live for you, that we might live in light of your great attributes. Lord, give us a good day today as we meet together as the Church of God to worship you, to give you praise, to hear your word, to encourage and strengthen one another.

Lord, help us today and bless, I pray, our Sunday school class also in Jesus’ name. Amen. Now if you would go to Genesis 3, and I want to go look at Adam and Eve, Genesis chapter 3. Starting in verse number 6, of course you’re very familiar with this passage, no doubt. Genesis 3 says, And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

You know, you could literally spend a month of Sundays just studying Genesis chapter 3. There is, it is so, so rich. There are so many things that these first several chapters of Genesis touch upon. So Eve has, Eve has eaten the fruit that God forbid. Verse 7, And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.

Verse 8, And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. Okay, so we see several things here. Number one, we see that Adam and Eve, however it was that God revealed himself to them, we do not know. Like if God came down in a, what they call a theophany, when God showed himself in a visible form in some way, or if this as the voice of the Lord came, just a little diversion on that, some people have related the voice of the Lord to Jesus as the Word of God in the New Testament.

And so some people have related that Jesus is the voice of the Lord. Okay, that’s fine, that’s fine. But however it was that God approached them, first of all, you see in verse number 8, they recognized and knew that God was coming. So wherever God was, God came near to them and they perceived that he was approaching because they heard his voice coming. And as a result of that, so that’s one thing related to God’s presence.

Now what that tells us is that apparently Adam and Eve did not yet fully understand. And there indeed, there was no way they could fully understand at this point in history that God was omnipresent. Because that revelation is something that the only way that we can know is if God tells us. And so he tells us in Scripture, but it’s not going to be for thousands of years that God tells humanity in no uncertain terms, I feel heaven and earth.

So Adam and Eve are just reacting according to what they know of God. They hear his voice, and that’s one way they apparently had interacted with God prior. And then, and their reaction is to run away, to run away from God’s voice. Now we know and having the whole picture in front of us, we know that is futile. God was present when Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

God was present when they’re running away. God’s present before his voice arrives. And so it’s futile for what they’re trying to do is futile. But they notice what they did when they had consciousness. They had a conscience of sin in verse number eight now that they’ve eaten the fruit. They, their instinctive reaction when approached by God is to withdraw and to create distance between God and themselves.

That is the instinctive reaction. And again, following the principle of first mention in scripture, which is to say the principle that states that the first mention of a particular subject in scripture often forecasts the nature of that or character of that thing throughout the rest of scripture. And that’s, it’s a clearly well-defined scriptural principle. All right, this is the first time that a sinner has interacted with God.

What is he doing? He’s withdrawing. He’s pulling away. He’s running away. And we already saw that, whither shall I flee from thy presence? And we saw that principle that we have as well. But the first time in scripture, you also see it. A sinner meets God. He doesn’t run to God for forgiveness. He runs away from God. All right. That’s the way we are. And that is probably the way you were before you came to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The instinctive reaction to recoil from God and that’s out of fear. At some point though, here’s the thing. At some point when a person is dealing with God on the subject of their sin, because although Adam and Eve are dealing with a particular sin at a particular moment, this speaks to a greater truth, which is every person comes to God, right? Every person interacts with God on the subject of their sin.

And at some point, in order for that person to be forgiven, at some point they have to come to Him. That that instinct to run away from God has to somehow, someway be overcome. And of course it’s not overcoming in anyone’s own power or even of their own desire, honestly. To be honest with you, I think the scripture bears this out as well. I think that if sinners thought that they could get away from God and never face retribution, forever they would.

In fact, I saw one preacher yesterday, it was just one of these random quotes you see. And he was talking about evangelizing and giving the gospel to people. And he says, don’t ask people if they want to go to heaven. He said this, and this is just food for thought. I’m not knocking that, but just food for thought. It was something good to think upon. He said, don’t ask people if they want to go to heaven. Ask them if they want God.

Does that not kind of nail the whole issue of salvation? It’s not about heaven. I think everybody on earth would go to heaven without God if they could. It’s God they don’t want. They want heaven without God. And so this is seen in Adam and Eve’s instinctive response to pull away from God. So at some point if any person comes to God and receives God’s forgiveness, that has to be reversed.

And the reason that ever happens, if there’s any reason that happens, the reason is that God does all of the work. That God comes to them because they’re not coming to Him. They don’t want Him. God influences them in such a way that their heart gets to a point that there’s a willingness to repent. But remember, it was God who closed the distance. It was God chasing Adam and Eve down.

There’s you another principle. This is why you can spend a month of Sundays in Genesis chapter 3. God chased them down, not the reverse. And that is the pattern for all of the rest of the history of salvation of mankind. It’s the pattern that God’s chasing people down. Man, what a good God. He don’t have to do that. He don’t have to do that. He can just stay where He is. All of mankind would go to a lake of fire justly and rightly, but He doesn’t.

He seeks us out. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Not because He has to, but because He wants to, because He loves us. It’s just an amazing truth. And so Adam and Eve tried to hide from God’s presence. They thought that by going, by hiding apparently behind the trees or among the trees, that if God could not see them, then they, or if they could not see God, then God could not see them.

And of course, that’s false because God is omnipresent. And then in verse 8, it says, hid themselves, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. This is the first mention in Scripture of God’s presence, the very first mention of God’s presence in that term. But look at a few other verses. Look at Genesis chapter 1, Genesis 1, verse number 2.

And the Lord and the earth rather was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Notice the word face is mentioned twice in verse 2. That’s the same as the word presence. Of course, this is referring to the surface of the water, but it’s the same word that when applied to God refers to His presence or His face, God’s face.

All right. So that’s the same word. Go to chapter 2, if you would, verse number 20 or chapter 1 rather, verse 29. And this is referring to the face of the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face, which is upon the face of all the earth. There’s that same word that later we’re going to see is the presence of God in chapter 3.

Look at chapter 2, verse number 6 says, but there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. There it is again. And of course, we’ve already been to chapter 3. Look at chapter 4, verse number 5, speaking of Cain after he had killed his brother and was rebuked by God. But unto Cain into his offering, he had not respect and Cain was wroth and his countenance fell.

Countenance, face, presence, they’re all synonyms. We’re all talking about the same thing. But when applied to God, sometimes we refer to it as we refer to God’s presence. Sometimes we say God’s face. Of course, you’ve read the Psalms. We’ve covered many examples in the Psalms of God’s face. Hide not thy face from me. And so what’s interesting is when you see this concept of God’s face or God’s presence, again, we’re talking about the same thing.

When you see that, it seems to be seems that it’s distinct from his omnipresence. In other words, it’s kind of redundant. In other words, it’s kind of redundant. In other words, it’s kind of redundant. In other words, how can God have a have a what we might call an immediate or an imminent presence if he is in all places all at the same time? And I don’t I don’t know the you know, we’re talking about things that are beyond our comprehension.

But the scripture just do absolutely bear it out that God does have a presence, his face, that is somehow different than the fact that he is everywhere all at once. And I thought about this with I thought about this with just in human interaction when you think about someone’s face. So say so say you’re having a conversation with someone and you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re in the same space as they are.

You’re you’re present with them. That would be sort of like omnipresence. Right. As an example, as an example, we’re all in this room together. So in some sense, we’re all present together. Right. So that’s kind of like God’s omnipresence. But if I was having a conversation with you in the same room like that, but I turned my back on you. And I just ignored you.

Would you say that I’m present with you? Well, in a way, I’m in the same room. But because you don’t see my face, it it’s different. Right. The presence is different. I’m there, but I’m not there. And that’s kind of the way the way kind of I look at what’s happening here is that it is possible, absolutely possible for God to turn his face away. Now, in one sense, he feels having an earth, he’s everywhere.

But in another sense, he’s he’s not there. His immediate presence is not there because he has chosen to turn his face from mankind. You know, turn his face from a person. And that’s what we’re talking about when we say God hide not by face from me. This is the thing that they were trying to hide from. They were trying to hide from God’s face. Right. Even though they could not escape his spirit, they were trying to hide from his face.

So when you see someone fleeing away from God’s face, it’s like fleeing away from God’s presence. As I said a minute ago, if you can’t see his face, then he can’t see you. And that’s a very human way. Obviously, Adam and Eve are human beings, and that’s that’s a very human way to look at it. You know, in other words, Adam said, you know, Adam stands behind is when he’s flirting with Eve.

Right. He stands by the tree. I can’t see you. I can see you. I can’t see you. I can see you. I can’t see you. You know, and he just and he applies that to God wrongly. So they try to run away from God. Now, look, if you would, at Genesis, chapter six, Genesis, chapter six.

Look at verse number 16. This is related, of course, to God’s judgments on the earth during the tribulation. Notice Genesis 6, 16. So these are the verse 15 said, And the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every bondman and every free man hid themselves in dens in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains and said unto the and said to the mountains and rocks fall on us.

Fall on us and hide us from what? From what? The face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. Are you in Genesis or Revelation? I’m in the wrong end of the book. Revelation, chapter six. I apologize. What’s wrong? You know, I have the right Bible or what? Revelation. Yeah, well, I have no idea what it says something about the flood or something.

Yeah, that’ll work. Revelation six, verse 16. I apologize. They said and said to the mountains and to the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sit on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. So even at that time, mankind, all those years later, mankind is still trying to hide from God. But now notice they’re being judged. They’re not turning to God.

And this is one of the features of the judgments in the tribulation is you. We all think God’s doing all these terrible things. People are going to turn to God. They’re not. They’re not. That is that. That is a that is a misunderstanding of human nature. We think if God judges man, he turns up the heat, man will turn to him. No, they won’t. They he proves it.

He proves it. But what are they trying to do? They’re trying to hide from God. So this is an age old problem. Now, if you would look at Jeremiah, chapter 23, this is another proof text for the omnipresence of God. So let’s look at it quickly here. Jeremiah 23, verse number 23.

Jeremiah 23, verse 23. Of course, God speaking here says this. Jeremiah 23, verse 23. Now notice what he’s saying. There’s three things I want you to see. Number one, God is near. God is at hand. Remember when we talked about a hand, what does that hand mean? It means close enough to touch him. Right. That’s the idea of that hand. You’re within an arm’s length. You can touch somebody.

You’re there. Right. When the Bible says Christ coming is at hand, that means it’s a punis. Right. And so when we talk about God is a God who God is a God at hand, not a God afar off, that speaks to his presence. Okay. That speaks to his presence. If God feels heaven and earth, then there is no place in the universe where God is distant. Right.

There’s no place in the universe where God is distant. Acts 17, 27, when Paul’s preaching on Aropagus and he is preaching to the Athenians, one of the things he says about God is this. He says that they should seek the Lord if happily they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us. You see, one of the ideas that man has developed about God, like God in general, false gods in particular, is the idea that if I’m not in the temple, then God doesn’t know what’s happening.

It’s the idea that they can, you can be distant from God or that or the idea of distance is possible and is true of false gods, but not true of the living God. What you also see in Jeremiah 23 verse number 24, can any any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him say at the Lord? If God is in every place, there is no secret place.

That means in the place, I think there’s a place in Ezekiel, Ezekiel’s vision, where the Lord takes Ezekiel to Jerusalem and he digs through a wall because remember Ezekiel was part of the early captivity of, of, of, yeah, the early, because there were several Ezekiel’s part of the early captivity, so Jerusalem was still intact at that point. And God sends Ezekiel in a vision to there and he tells him to dig through the wall in the temple and he digs through the wall and he ends up inside of a secret chamber where they’re performing all kinds of rites and rituals to idols in the temple secretly.

Right? And this idea that we can hide in secret places from God, of course, that’s not possible and we’ve already seen that. So let’s go to the next one. The Lord says, do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth. Now, so that’s the third thing. So you’ve got God is at hand. Number two, it is impossible to hide from God in a secret place and God’s in all places.

Number three, God fills heaven and earth. All right. Now let’s go to Second Chronicles, Chapter six, Second Chronicles, Chapter six. Second Chronicles, Chapter six. Now, in this context, Solomon is praying to God in dedication to the, in dedicate to dedicate the temple that he has built. And Solomon is perceptive. Solomon understands he’s a man of wisdom. He understands some things about God and he understands this. How can God dwell in this little puny temple as glorious as it might have been?

How can God, the God of scripture, the true and the living God dwell in a temple at all? So verse 18, notice what he says. But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house which I have built. So what this tells us is that God fills heaven and earth. So if you take heaven and earth, what those are is a measure.

Then how big is God? Well, he fills heaven and earth. That’s a measure of how big he is. But this verse actually, what it does is it speaks to God’s immensity or God’s vastness, which I understand is a little bit, you know, we’re overlapping a lot. When we talked about God’s eternity, that’s kind of the same thing. But that’s what we’re talking about in terms of time.

Here we’re talking about in terms of space. OK, now, so if God fills heaven and earth, then that speaks to his immensity, how great thou art, how great God is, how big God is. OK, but this verse, verse 18 says actually something a little bit more. It says heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. So what that says, not only God fills it, but it can’t God extends beyond the boundaries of it.

It’s bigger than the universe, bigger than the heavens. When I visited Brother Muxlow, I think on Monday, if I got that right, Monday or Tuesday, when I visited him, he gave me some copies of a magazine that he receives. And it was talking about the size. It was just a magazine on various aspects of the universe, the cosmos, you know, and it was talking about the size of these different nebula and that kind of thing.

So it kind of got me thinking because we’re on this subject. And so I did a little bit of research. And of course, all of this is just based upon current scientific knowledge. Tomorrow it’ll be different. But but there is something to be said about understanding the universe because the Bible says God fills the heavens and the earth and then he cannot be contained by the heavens and the earth.

So think about this. The Milky Way, which is the galaxy in which we in which our solar system and our sun is the Milky Way is thought to roughly measure one hundred thousand light years from end to end. So it’s shaped like a disk sort of. And if you if you stretch the tape measure from one end to the other, it’s one hundred thousand light years. What does that mean? Just in case you’re not familiar with that term.

A light a light year is the distance that you could travel if you were on a beam of light in one year. OK, so one hundred eighty six thousand miles per second, approximately times 60 seconds, times 60 minutes, times 24 hours, times 365 days. That’s a lot. That’s a long distance. OK. That’s a lot of miles. The Milky Way is one hundred thousand of those light years.

So you got on a beam of light and you started on one end, it would take you one hundred thousand years to get to the other side. That’s the size of it. Now, to give you a scale or an illustration to understand the scale, if the Milky Way, the whole galaxy now, not not the earth, not the sun, not the solar system, but the whole Milky Way were the size of a grain of sand.

The whole observable universe would be the size of a large city. In comparison, one grain of sand compared to New York. OK, or Houston, something like that. That’s just astronaut. And remember, the grain of sand would take you on a beam of light, one hundred thousand years across. That’s pretty big. The observable universe is thought to be, again, it will change in five minutes, but is thought to be 93 billion light years in diameter.

93 billion. So if you on a beam of light and you travel for 93 billion years, you would get from one end to the other. Now, is that right? No. I don’t know why they don’t make it more precise. Come on. So to scale, I mean, these are numbers you can’t even think about, right? And this is just the observable universe because the observable universe, as man has been able to observe more and more, has gotten bigger.

Now, the universe, I guess, I don’t know. So if you were to shrink the earth down the size of a proton. That’s pretty small. Smaller than an atom. Very, very small part of the nucleus of an atom. If the earth was the size of a proton, the observable universe would still be far larger than the solar system at that scale. So the earth is the size of a subatomic particle compared to the whole solar system.

That’s just unbelievable. And here’s why I bring, I say this to you. Because the Bible says that God cannot be contained by that. He exceeds that size. Now, he didn’t, he said that because that’s the only way that we could understand the immensity of God. And that shows us something about his omnipresence. Now, knowing that, kind of put that in your mind. We know that this is true of God and his nature.

And God is a great God. He is immense. He is vast. Yet, if you go back to verse number 18 of 2 Chronicles chapter 6, he says, But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Now let me ask you, what’s the answer to that? Yes. Even in the temple, he did. He came and his glory filled that temple and he remained in that temple.

He did indeed dwell with men on the earth in a specific small, very small place. You were talking about how small that room was in Liberty, right? Man, for the Lord, for the Lord, that whole temple was a pretty small area, right? Though all of this is true, God chooses to dwell in a certain place specifically and specially in a way different from his omnipresence. Now, at the time we read here, God dwelt within the temple, in the midst of his people.

But in our time, we are the temple and he dwells within us. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 16 says this, And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. So even though God is vast, yet he chooses to in some special way dwell with us and indeed in us in a specific place.

If you want to say limit himself, I don’t know if that’s the right way to describe it. But his presence is in a special way with each one of us, despite how vast he is. Let’s pray together.