The LORD is Everywhere
I just want to jump right in and begin by reading from 1 Chron. 28
IN 1 CHRONICLES 28:9 DAVID TOLD his son, “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind.”
1 Chronicles 28:9 (NKJV)
“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind
That is the greatest advise a parent can give their child. Know God, and when you know Him, serve Him willingly and eagerly.
David continues, 1 Chronicles 28:9
1 Chronicles 28:9 (NKJV)
for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.
We could wish every father gave that message to his child.
As that verse implies, the consequences of not knowing God have eternal ramifications of being cast out forever.
In 2 Thessalonians 1:7–8 Paul wrote,
2 Thessalonians 1:7–8 NKJV
and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,
in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To know God, is to have eternal life. The one who knows God intimately partakes of His very nature and life.
In John 17:3 our Lord prayed,
John 17:3 NKJV
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
True wisdom is likewise a fruit of knowing God.
Solomon wrote, Proverbs 2:2–5
Proverbs 2:2–5 NKJV
So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;
Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, And find the knowledge of God.
Knowing God is the essential basis of true wisdom and discernment. A human being is wise to the degree he understands the true God.
At times, God may veil significant truths in mystery, either temporarily or for specific purposes. However, the remainder of that verse states, “The glory of kings is to search out a matter.” This implies that God encourages us to seek understanding, starting with knowledge about Him and His nature.
God does not play games with us by hiding Himself. He is not a cosmic hide-and-seek player tucked away in a bush, hinting, “You’re getting closer.” He is not attempting to obscure Himself or make it difficult for us to understand Him. He has revealed Himself not only through the magnificence of His creation but also as explicitly as possible in human language. The Scriptures are His comprehensive self-disclosure. His desire is for us to know Him intimately.
Today message, we will only scratch the surface about another attribute of God—we have already looked briefly at His immutability and His omnipotence. Today we will look at Yahweh's Omnipresence
THE LORD IS OMNIPRESENT
Throughout history, humans have attempted to limit God. Given that our limited minds cannot fully grasp His infinite qualities, we naturally tend to minimize Him in our thoughts.
Many Jews in the Old Testament believed that God resided in the Temple. They failed to realize that the ark was merely a symbol of His presence and did not represent His complete essence. In our society, people often envision God as residing in a distant heavenly palace. However, God cannot be confined to a specific location. His presence permeates everywhere, at all times. This is the essence of omnipresence..
Jeremiah 23:23
Jeremiah 23:23 NKJV
“Am I a God near at hand,” says the Lord, “And not a God afar off?
In other words, God is not an idol restricted to a specific place. He cannot be housed within a structure. We don’t need to travel to a particular location to worship because God is omnipresent.
The Assyrians believed that the God of the Israelites resided on a hill, while their deities inhabited the valleys. Some pagans believed their gods resided in specially prepared groves. These are all examples of attempts to confine the divine to physical locations.
They associated their god with places. But the true God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands Acts 17:24 tells us,
Acts 17:24 NKJV
God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
He cannot be confined to a single location or building or object. For the Lord is everywhere—and everywhere available to a true worshiper.
WHERE DOES GOD DWELL?
The New Testament teaches that He indwells inside a believers new heart.
Is God only in the hearts of believers?
Is He not also in the hearts of wicked men?
When the Bible says that believers are the temples of God (1 Corinthians 3:16), it is speaking of a special relationship God has with those who are redeemed.
1 Corinthians 3:16 NKJV
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
This passage speaks of a relational, spiritual presence. The indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit living in a person who has been set apart for this very purpose. God has a unique, intimate relationship with His elect, and the Bible describes it here in this passage as “indwelling.”
In the Old Testament, God is said to have dwelt between the wings of the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant. That simply means that the Holy of Holies was a special, sacred place where God established the throne of His majesty symbolically.
Today the whole church serves that purpose—not the church building, but the church universal, the church as a whole; that spiritual body consisting of all believers globally.
Believers are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19),
1 Corinthians 6:19–20 NKJV
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Collectively, the entire body of all believers from all times and all places constitutes a magnificent spiritual temple,
Ephesians 2:20–22 NKJV
having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone,
in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
God is even in places we associate with evil. He is in the heart of an unconverted sinner for inspection and conviction. He is in hell for the purpose of judgment, for it is He who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Psalm 139:7–13 NKJV
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
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.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me;
Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.
Undoubtedly, The Lord remains untainted by the impurity of hell, let alone the evils found in any earthly dungeon. His essence permeates all things, yet it remains unmingled with any impurity. Just as the sunbeam may touch a decaying corpse in a field, yet never absorbs its corruption, so too does God remain pure.
God’s essence is unadulterated—unmixed with anything. Nothing can defile Him. Jesus entered the world, walked among sinners, and witnessed sin, yet He remained sinless. God can interact with anything without being tainted by it.
God’s omnipresence coexists with His purity. Nothing corrupts Him, and nothing alters His character.
What kind of practical application does that doctrine have?
God’s Omnipresence means assurance for the Believer
There are times in our life that we just don't feel within our experiences that God is present. Yet scripture tells us that God is with us always. Assurance is not to be placed in ourselves but only in God, who He is and what He has promised. We may doubt His presence, we may even feel as if He is far away, but He is as near as He always has been.
He Himself has said,
Hebrews 13:5 (NKJV)
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Can a Christian be separated from God?
No! No one in the universe can be separated from God essentially, and a believer cannot be separated from Him relationally, either. He is always there.
Romans 8:33–39 NKJV
Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God’s Omnipresence also means support for the believer.
When God called Moses, Moses said in Exodus 4:10,
Exodus 4:10 (NKJV)
“O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
Then God responds to Moses in v.12,
Exodus 4:12 NKJV
Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”
God is an ever present support and strength. When Christ gave the disciples the a commission to go and make disciples in what we have called the Great Commission, He exclaimed it with this promise: “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age”
Matthew 28:20 (NKJV)
and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
It was His assurance that work done for Him would be blessed by His presence and powerful aid.
God’s Omnipresence is also a shield against overwhelming temptation.
Any time Satan wants to get to a believer, he has to go through God.
First Corinthians 10:13 says,
1 Corinthians 10:13 NKJV
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
God is present personally and individually with every believer to defend him against temptation he can’t handle. It is by His word and His word alone that can overcome all forms of temptations, Look at it this way, God’s word is His presence, for it come from Him, by Him and for Him. The word of God is powerful.
God’s Omnipresent ought to motivate us to obey Him more carefully.
Why is that? When we sin, whether it is a sin of thought or a sin of words or a sin of actions, it is done in the presence of God.
Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses, and in verse 8, Moses acknowledges the implications of God’s omnipresence with regard to our sin:
Psalm 90:8 NKJV
You have set our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.
In other words, when we sin, it is as if we ascended beyond the clouds, came into the throne room of God, walked up to the foot of the throne of God and committed the sin right before His face. That is a sobering thought. Think about that the next time you are tempted to look at something online you ought not be looking at. For you all you do you do in the presence of God.
This fact about God’s omnipresence should revolutionize our “private” lives.
To believers then, the doctrine of omnipresence is extremely important, but what does it mean to an unbeliever?
An evil person has no hiding place.
There is no escape, no way out, no place for him to retreat. Amos 9:2–4 gives insight into the plight of the unbeliever who tries to hide from God:
Amos 9:2–4 NKJV
“Though they dig into hell, From there My hand shall take them; Though they climb up to heaven, From there I will bring them down;
And though they hide themselves on top of Carmel, From there I will search and take them; Though they hide from My sight at the bottom of the sea, From there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them;
Though they go into captivity before their enemies, From there I will command the sword, And it shall slay them. I will set My eyes on them for harm and not for good.”
The ungodly person must realize that no matter how he tries, no matter how he runs, he cannot escape God.
The Ungodly Can Not Escape God
He may decide he doesn’t want to go to church, he doesn’t want to read the Bible, he wants to avoid any religious discussion, he wants to put God out of his mind—but God is there.
Job 26:5–6 says,
Job 26:5–6 NKJV
“The dead tremble, Those under the waters and those inhabiting them.
Sheol is naked before Him, And Destruction has no covering.
Job 34:21–22 says,
Job 34:21–22 NKJV
“For His eyes are on the ways of man, And He sees all his steps.
There is no darkness nor shadow of death Where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.
The thief steals when he thinks no one sees.
The adulterer commits adultery when he thinks no one will know.
The liar lies because he thinks no one finds out.
But God knows.
Just because God is invisible doesn’t mean He isn’t there.
God never slumbers and never sleeps.
Hebrews 4:13 makes a this statement:
Hebrews 4:13 NKJV
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
Not only does God observe every sin and fully comprehend every motive, He will call us to account for every idle word we utter and every secret thought we entertain.
Luke 12:2–3 NKJV
For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.
Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.
Jesus cited that truth as one of the primary reasons we ought to fear God:
Luke 12:4–5 NKJV
“And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!