Please open your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 8. 1 Kings chapter 8. And when you find 1 Kings chapter 8, put a marker in your Bible and turn over to Psalm chapter 139. 1 Kings chapter 8, Psalms 139. Let's pray. Father, we love you today. We beg you that you will open up your word and make our hearts receptive unto it so that we can learn more about you. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior. Amen. I want to begin with Psalm 139. The uninspired title of Psalm 139 reads, To the chief musician a psalm of David. So we believe that David penned 139. David, in this particular chapter, introduced God's omnipresence. And in so doing, whenever I read about God's omnipresence and know about God's omniscience and all of the other attributes of God, they present a dilemma for me because not only they are quite disturbing whenever I know of God's omnipresence and omniscience, it is disturbing and yet it is also a comforting analysis as well. In verse number 1, David writes, O LORD, and that word LORD there, I'm glad somebody brought out the other night the different spellings in the word LORD, because when you see the word LORD in all caps, it is talking about the eternal, self-existing God, Jehovah, Yahweh God. And then the capital L with a lowercase o-r-d is Adonai, meaning God. who is Lord over all, He owns, He controls all things. O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. That word search means is that God has thoroughly examined and investigated every detail. We know God does this because over and again throughout God's Word, God tells us He does so. He did so with the Antediluvians. Their thoughts were wicked. Everything that they did, God investigated that, found out the condition of man, and sent the flood. We also know that he knew that there was something going on down there in Babel, so God went and investigated, and he destroyed that place, changed all the languages, and scattered those people. We also know that God heard the cries of the Israelites over there in Egypt, and God said He was going to go down there and investigate. He did so, and He delivered them out of that place. We also hear and can read in the Bible that God had heard about some of the things that was going on down in Sodom and Gomorrah. God says, I'm going to go down there and investigate. He did so and we know that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with hail and fire. Then something else that is very disturbing and yet comforting as well is we can go over into Revelation and we can see how that God addresses those seven churches over there through the Apostle John, and over and again God says, I know, I know your works, I know your deeds, and I know all of your good things, and I know all of your detractors as well. And so God perceives and understands and distinguishes every detail about Grace Baptist Church and the church where you're from, and not only that, but to you and me on a personal level. You see that expression? O Lord, thou hast searched me. Thou hast known me. That word me there strikes me individually. It means me individually, personally, intimately. all by myself and all by my lonesome, one day I'm going to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ at the judgment seat of Christ and I'm going to give an account for every thought and every deed and every word that I have done. And so we need to be very careful about that. Isn't that disturbing that God knows all about me? And yet, dear friends, it is quite comforting that God knows all about me. Let's read some verses here, Psalm 139, verse number 1. O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and my uprising. That just speaks of the restlessness of man. You and I are usually restless in this world and God knows all about those things. And so he says, thou understandest my thoughts from afar off, from a great distance, from heaven, God's abode. God knows what you and I are thinking about at every moment and instance in time. That's comforting. And that's disturbing as well. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all of my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it all together. Thou hast beset me behind and before. and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me." That word wonderful means too incomprehensible for me. Whenever I think about what God knows and all of the attributes of God and where God is at all times, it just exacerbates the hernia in my brain that I already have trying to think about such things. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, Thou art there. Do you see those words aren't there, they're italicized? They were put there by the translators for clarity. We could read it this way. If I ascend up into heaven, thou, there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou. Meaning God is everywhere at all times. "'If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the othermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shines as the day. The darkness and the light are both a light to thee.'" God's omnipresence is incomprehensible, meaning we simply cannot investigate it and know the full extent of it. But let me give you an elementary Sunday school definition of God's omnipresence. That is that God is everywhere at all times. There is no place where God ain't. In 1974, in August, after the Lord had saved me in April of that year, I was on an airplane flying to Utapau, Thailand, where the Air Force had reassigned me. And I am sitting there on that airplane, and I'm looking around at all of these Military folks and military folks being what military folks are, they're very irreverent and so forth. And listening to the conversations and I'm sitting there thinking, God, why are you sending me to such a place that is bound to be God forsaken with a bunch of people such as I am flying on this airplane with? God, you are sending me to a place that is consumed with Buddhism, consumed with the false religions, and surely you can't be in such a place as that." Whenever I got to Thailand and after I got settled in, I found out that God was already there. There was a small nucleus of men over there who were Christians who dearly loved the Lord and a great number of them were Baptists. And I had a great deal that was common with them. And dear friends, that was one year of my life that was so sweet. And I became a man both spiritually and morally and physically and mentally in Thailand. And I would not take that year back because God was there maturing me. And so as Creator, God is omnipresent. He is holding all things together. We know that by reading Colossians chapter 1. This is what Paul says of Christ. He says, "...by Him were all things created. All things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." That word before is interesting in this particular context. It is translated from the Greek preposition pro. And that word pro, at least in this context, means is that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, preexisted before the earth was created, and in fact, He had to do so because Jesus Christ is the one who spoke this world into existence. Christ is God, we know that by reading John chapter 1 and verse number 1. And in the beginning, according to Genesis chapter 1 and verse number 1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, which makes Jesus Christ God and the Creator. That word pro also means supreme importance. There is no one more important in creation and in all things than the Lord Jesus Christ. He controls and He owns and He dominates all of creation. And then we see that word consist in that verse as well. That translates from the Greek compound verb sunisto. That word sun means with, besides, or accompanies, and the histemi means to cause to stand, firmly establishes, immovable. Whenever I look at artists' conceptions and computer-generated images of outer space and all of the galaxies and so forth out there, I wonder what is it that holds those things together? Why don't they just explode or implode or just move around at willy-nilly random? Why is it that everything moves around in such orderly fashion? It's because they are consisted by the Lord Jesus Christ. So let me transition into my first main point, and that is, let me ask some questions. Is God present in the extreme boundaries of space? I was going to elaborate on that, but Steve Fulton did a good job of it, so I'm not going to go any further with that. But I asked that question and I wrote it down on a piece of paper. Is God present in the extreme boundaries of space? Then I got to thinking to myself, is there such a thing as the extreme boundaries of space? And if it goes even farther beyond the extreme boundaries to the outermost extreme boundaries, is God out there as well? Well, scriptures say that he is. Is that important to me personally? Well, yes, it is. And yet there is something else about God's omnipresence that's even more important and fascinating than that. Here's my first point. Man cannot elude God's literal presence. Look in verse number 7. Where shall I go from thy presence? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? Actually, I misread that. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? That word spirit there translates from the Hebrew noun ruach. And I believe that there are at least three possible descriptions of that word ruach. First of all, it is describing the Lord God Himself. We know in John chapter 4 that God is spirit. I believe it also may pertain to the one of the persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Where shall I go from thy Spirit? The Holy Spirit being equal in rank and status and attributes of God the Father and God the Son. But I also believe that it means something a little bit more than just the person of God and the person of the Holy Spirit. I believe that that word Spirit is talking about the Lord's righteous, vital attentions to His people. It is talking about God's holy attributes, God's dispositions, God's motivations, God's purposes, God's desires, and God's character as He acts and relates to you and me in our relationship with Him. And you see that expression, "...or wherewither shall I flee from thy presence?" That word presence literally in the Hebrew means, where shall I go from your face? Whenever I go from this place to that place, God's face follows me. Whenever I leave here and go back to Carson City, God's face is following me. Whenever I go from one place to another, God's face is following me. Dear friends, let me say this, is that God is the type of God where He's doing exactly the same thing simultaneously to you as well. Where shall we flee from thy face or from thy presence? It is vain to try to flee from God's presence. Adam and Eve did not hide from God. They covered themselves with fig leaves vainly. We're not able to do so. God sent the whale to arrest Jonah's flight. God knew where Jonah was. God preferred to fish, the Bible says. Jeremiah did not escape preaching to Judah. Jeremiah says, listen, every time I preach to you and every time I prophesy, you persecute me and you torment me, so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to stop preaching to you. You can go on your own way. So Jeremiah turned his back, at least on his mission of prophecy, and God says, No, you don't. And Jeremiah says this, His Word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. God will find you and me wherever we are. That's disturbing and that's comforting. Jeremiah chapter 23, God says this to Judah's idolaters. Am I a God at hand, meaning immediately near? Am I a God at hand and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? Do not I feel heaven and earth? I found out whenever I got on an airplane in Vandenberg, California, that God was there. And I found out whenever I landed in Utapau, Thailand, that God was already there. Man cannot elude God's literal presence. Number two, heaven and hell do not prohibit God's presence. Look in verse number eight. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." That word heaven means the starry expanse of outer space. As I was on the airplane the other day winging my way here, I realized that God was up there in the clouds with me. Then we also see, if I make my bed in hell, that word bed there really has two applications. A bed promises comfort, rest, and slumbering sleep. But brother, there are some times whenever I can't wait to put my head down upon the pillow. And as I am laying there in this dark, There are nothing to distract me. I think about the wonders of God and I realize that God is there in the night with me, in bed with me in my heart. But that bed also has another application too. It is the final place for the gravely ill to die in misery. I have not been there yet, but I've been in bed thinking that I'm dying in misery. I remember waking up in an ICU bed one time, looking down at the foot of the bed and seeing a nurse who was assigned to me and me alone, and realized that there is a God who is assigned to me and to me alone. If I make my bed in hell... This is a very troubling word to me. I still don't have the grasp of this. I think that I have a pretty good idea, but being able to relate it to you may pose a problem, but I'm going to do my best. That word hell, at least in this verse, translates from the Hebrew noun sheol. Sheol. includes several things. First of all, Sheol can include the grave, it can include the pit, and it can include the underworld. And in the underworld, at least when David wrote this, there was two places. One place was called Paradise and the other place was called Hell. And I believe that we have a perfect picture of that by reading Luke chapter 16. And the paradise was the abode of the righteous dead, and hell was the rebel's eternal exile and punishment. And since David believed and worshiped Jehovah God, when David is talking about hell here, he is talking about paradise. And so David says, if I make my bed in hell or Sheol or paradise, behold, thou art there. Now let's think about something else as well. Do you remember Korah? Korah rebelled against God and he rebelled against Moses and God came down to investigate because God is omnipresent. God knows all things. And so God says, I'll tell you what, Moses, you and the children of Israel, you guys back away from Korah, because I'm going to show you something. And the Bible says that the ground opened up and swallowed Korah and his families and all of his confederates, and they were swallowed alive into the pit. The word pit translates from the Hebrew noun she-o. So when David says, if I make my bed in hell, I believe he's talking about paradise. Now here's point number three. Geographic extremes do not restrict God's presence. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. I look at that expression, wings of the morning. I believe he's talking about the speed of light. Whenever the sun comes up, boy, that light is from horizon to horizon in an instant. I went to nasa.gov the other day and I found out that light travels at a constant finite speed of 186,000 miles an hour. And if a person is transversing the globe at the equator, within one second at the speed of light, he can go around the earth seven and a half times in one second. And the Bible says, if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me. Dear friends, the Holy Spirit of God and God Himself is quick. I don't know how long it took me to get from Carson City to here, but God can do it. Well, He's already here. He says, if I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, that means at least from our perspective. See, a lot of the Bible is written from the human perspective so that we can at least have some sort of semblance of a grasp of God. If I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, meaning the furthest extreme boundaries, I've been to the extreme boundaries, I believe, of the earth. I've been to Thailand, I've been to Philippines, I've been to Iceland, I've been to Germany, I've been to Alaska, I've been to Tyler. Do you know that I found God in every one of those places? He was already there waiting for me to welcome me with open arms. God's always with us. Sometimes whenever we feel so lonely and we seek out God, that He does like my dad used to do. My dad was a giant of a man, at least in my little boy's eyes. My daddy would take those arms and he would wrap them around me and squeeze me so tight that I would go... And God does that to you and me. The uttermost parts of the sea, The emperor decided that he was going to banish the apostle John to the Isle of Patmos. Yeah, we'll put him out there. We'll put him out there where he can't do any more damage with this Christianity. And bloody God met John the Baptist on the Isle of Patmos in the person of Jesus Christ. And the apostle John did more for Christianity on the Isle of Patmos than he could have done in Ephesus or anywhere else he was. Even there, no surprise, God is already there. Point number four, darkness cannot prevent God's presence. And verse number 11 says, "'If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me.'" That word darkness there, I believe, is referring not only to physical but also spiritual darkness. There are times, dear friends, for whatever reason, Maybe it's because I haven't read and studied. Maybe it's because my prayer life is dwindling. Or maybe it's because I'm just in a bad mood. But buddy, I'm so spiritually far away from God that I don't think God can find me. And God's already there. He hasn't left. He's still there. Darkness holds both dangers and fears. Darkness holds no secrets from God. You see that word cover? Surely the darkness shall cover me. That's an interesting word. I did not know this until I was preparing this outline. That word cover there literally means to attack and injure. It means that, it really does. Surely the darkness shall attack and injure me. You know this verse. Genesis chapter 3 and verse number 15. Remember what God said to the servant, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, in between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head. That word bruise translates from the same Hebrew verb that we read the word cover. The two are translated from the same Hebrew verb. God's omnipresence overpowers darkness. In verse number 12, he says, "'Yea, the darkness hides not from thee, but the night shines as the day, the darkness and the light are both alike unto thee.'" And very quickly, let me give you my last point. God's immensity, go to 1 Kings chapter 8, God's immensity demands His omnipresence. The immensity of God means that He is omnipresent. That word immensity means that God transcends. I heard that word the other night and I liked it so I put it in my outline. God transcends all limits of space and geography. In this chapter, Solomon is giving his dedicatory prayer Asking God to dedicate the temple Solomon says this will God indeed I'm in verse number 27 will God indeed dwell on the earth behold the heaven in the heavens of heaven cannot contain thee How much less this house that I have built that word heavens there is talking about Well, the Bible speaks of three heavens. The Apostle Paul brought that out. We can go to 2 Corinthians 12. I knew a man some time ago, whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell who was caught up into the third heaven. That word caught up is translated from the Greek noun harpazo, and in the Latin it is translated rapturo, and we get the word rapture. who was raptured up, who was harpozoed up into the very presence of God." I lost my place. You see that word, contain? It means it cannot contain the presence of God. The heaven and the heavens of heavens cannot contain the presence of God. It cannot provide a residence for God, and it cannot hold God in restraint. It wouldn't take a very strong man to hold me in restraint. Nothing can restrain God, because He's omnipresent. God is anywhere and everywhere. We need Him. 1 Kings 8, verse number 28, the very next verse, Solomon in his same prayer says, "...yet have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication." Isn't it fascinating that in a galaxy far, far away, God's there, and yet in Jerusalem, Tiny human being insignificant by the person of Solomon. Solomon prays. And that God out there heard Solomon here. "...to hearken unto the cry and to my prayer, which thy servant prays before thee this day." God heard Solomon's prayer and we all know the story that the glory of God came and the smoke filled the temple and it was so thick that the priests could not enter into the temple to do their duties for a while. And that same God who reacted on that day tells you and me, listen, Hebrews chapter 4, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace. that we may obtain mercy and find grace in time of help. And my time is gone. Let me just give you one more thing, and that is my own experience with God's presence. Some years back, I was walking the streets of Barksdale Air Force Base, sub-Bolliger City, and Shreveport, Louisiana. God was dealing with me. I was a rebel. I hated and I despised God. And as far as I was concerned, I would just assume God would just leave me alone. And I remember trying to flee from God just as fast and just as hard as I could, and every time that I would try to run somewhere, there was a roadblock. And I remember going home on leave in April of 1974, and I remember my two brothers, Daniel and David, both of them were men of God at that time, and my brother Daniel says, Phil, let me talk to you a little bit. And I said, sure, that'll be fine. So we went into a small bedroom in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and I was sitting on the foot of the bed, and my two brothers were talking to me all night long. And I was still looking for the opportunity and whatever I could formulate in my mind to be able to flee from God one last time. But dear friends, in a little bedroom in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, God was there. And God arrested this poor, unfortunate, undeserving soul. And it is fascinating to me that the God of the universe that is in the far extremes of outer space is small enough to indwell into an undeserving heart such as mine.