It's our privilege to have today in chapel, speaking both today and tomorrow, Pastor Mike Harding of First Baptist Church in Troy, Michigan. Brother Harding came to know Christ as his Savior at the age of eight and accepted the call to the ministry at the age of 11. He comes from the south side of Chicago and was influenced in ministry there years ago by Dr. Bill Schroeder. Mike came and trained here at Bob Jones University for the ministry, graduating in 1978 with a degree in Bible. And again, the next spring, having completed a master's degree in just two semesters, did that in 1979. Then he served as a youth pastor back home for six years. And in 1985, he became the pastor of First Baptist Church in Troy. The church had gone through a severe downturn, was struggling. But through Brother Harding's leadership, the Lord's grace, the church came back as a strong, large church today with the Christian School, Bethany Christian School. Brother Mike has served there for over 25 years. And while serving as senior pastor, he completed a Master of Divinity degree at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, along with a Master of Theology degree as well. And in 1995, received an honorary doctorate from Maranatha Baptist Bible College. Dr. Harding serves in several leadership roles in Christian educational organizations and church organizations. He serves on the boards of Gospel Fellowship Association, the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship, as well as Bob Jones University. He and his wife, Jenny, who is also a BJU graduate, have four children, a son who will soon be heading to seminary, and three daughters who are, like their mother, outstanding musicians. And so we are so glad to have Pastor Mike Harding here today. He loves to preach God's Word. He has influenced hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands of young people toward the Lord and even toward full-time Christian service. And I will say he loves to have fun. He loves to tell funny stories. I don't know if he'll do that today, but I had dinner with him recently up in the Detroit area, and we just laughed the whole time just about. So you're in for a treat these next two days as Brother Harding comes. and proclaims God's word to us. Psalm 139 verses 7 through 10. Two Saturdays ago I had a very difficult meeting with one of our dearest families in our church, been with us for 26 years, probably the finest Christian family that we have. Got up at 5 a.m. on that Saturday morning, went to their house at 6 a.m. When I arrived it was a very somber time. The entire family was there, plus their son, his wife, several of the siblings. It was like a living funeral, even though no one had died. There was no terminal illness. This young man, who had grown up in our church, graduated from our school, received the Pastoral Service Award, the Outstanding Leadership Award for Spiritual Leadership, attended here as a Bible major, Greek minor, graduated here, went to Detroit Seminary, completed 90% of his Master Divinity degree there, had served for three or four years at a nearby church as youth pastor, had decided that he no longer believed the Gospel. He no longer believed the Bible, that Jesus Christ was not in his mind the Son of God. He made a decision that he was going to run away from any biblical influences in his life, and so he had purchased a ticket to Vietnam. And he was leaving that morning. His family could not bear to take him to the airport, so they asked if I would do so. And as the family wept and put their arms around their son and said goodbye to him for a final time, and his dear wife, who's a graduate of this school and a teacher at our Christian school, hugged him and sobbed as he left, I took this young man to the airport and I dropped him off. We talked the whole way there. It was a very sober conversation. And I handed him a four or five page letter that was basically the synopsis of the message I'm going to preach to you this morning. The title of that message is The Godness of God's Infinite Presence in Our Life. It's interesting when you look at the book of Genesis, chapter 28, verses 10 through 17, you notice that Jacob was unaware that God was in the very place that God was meeting with him. God had met with Jacob during that night vision. When Jacob had awakened from his sleep, he said, surely the Lord was in this place and I knew it not. And I reminded this young man that wherever he goes, even though he would not ostensibly acknowledge that God was in the very place he was going, some 10,000 miles away, God was in that place and he knew it not. The Bible tells us in the book of Psalms, chapter 139, verses 10 through 13, these words. The Bible says, Yes, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as a day. The darkness and the light are both alike to thee." The infiniteness of God's presence, the godness of God. What is God? The Bible teaches that every man knows that God is the light of nature, the light of conscience, tells every human being that God is. And so the Bible in Genesis 1-1 assumes the existence of God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible never proves God because the Bible knows that every human being being made in the image of God knows intuitively that God exists. The question is not, is there a God? The question is, what is God like? What is God? What is God not? And what is God up to in this world? Jesus answered that question in the book of John, chapter 4, verse 24, where he says, God is spirit, and they that worship God must worship him in spirit, in truth. It literally reads, Numaha theos, spirit is the God. He is defining the very nature of God. God is spirit, and that means that God is personal. That means that God is not only personal, but God is tri-personal. When God said, let us make man in our own image, he was referencing in the very first page of the Bible that the personal God, the one true and living God, is a tri-personal God. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In an undivided essence, that God is one, Christ is God, Christ is distinct from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is a person. You put those truths together, and you have the tri-unity of the Godhead. God is spirit and personal, and being personal and being spirit, God has never, in his essence, ever been seen by a human being. No one knows what God looks like because God has no looks. No one has ever seen him because God cannot be seen. But it is the infinity of his presence that I would like us to center our hearts and thoughts and minds on this morning. The point is, even though none of us have seen God in his essence, Every one of us has been surrounded by the sheer glory of God, the inescapable presence of the sheer intrinsic Godness of God. We've seen it all of our life. The proof is absolutely overwhelming. The question for us today is, are we conscious of the presence of this God in our life as Psalm 137 tells us? When King Solomon was dedicating his temple to the Lord, The question was asked, can God be contained? And the Bible says the highest heavens cannot contain him, 1 Kings 8, 27. The psalmist asked in our text, where can you go from his spirit? Where can you flee from his presence? Heaven? No, God is there. You can't flee there. Hell? God is there as well. The far side of the ocean? No, God is there as well. And God's right hand will guide and sustain his own, according to Psalm 139, verses 7 through 10. Regardless, The eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the whole earth, beholding the good and the evil. In every place he sees the wicked and the good. Even when Israel was endeavoring to depart from the Lord, Amos reminds us in chapter 9 that though Israel would dig down into the deepest grave in order to escape God, God would bring her up. If Israel should climb to the heavens, from there God would bring her down. If Israel attempted to ascend to the very top of Carmel, from there God would seize her. And should she attempt to go to the bottom of the sea, God would bring her up. The point is, can any person hide him or herself from the Lord? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so that I shall not see him, says the Lord in Jeremiah 23, verse 23. do not I fill heaven and earth." And the point for us this morning is this, whether in judgment or in blessing, there is simply no way to escape the one true and living God. There is no way to escape the God and Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no way that a human being can run from God. because He fills heaven and earth. And for this reason, Luke tells us of Paul's words in Acts 17. He tells us God is not far from each of us. In Him we live and move and have our existence. Meaning that God is everywhere, that all things are immediately in His presence, and never do we have any privacy from God. Never have we had a private conversation apart from God. His presence is simply inescapable. Even self-proclaimed agnostics and atheists cannot ultimately suppress this truth, according to Romans 1.18. Robert Browning once eloquently reflected on the agnostic's haunting dilemma. In his poem, Bishop Blugum's Apology, he writes these words. And now what are we? Unbelievers both. Calm, complete, determinately fixed. Today, tomorrow, and forever? Pray? You'll guarantee me that? Not so, I think. Where's the gain? How can we guard our unbelief? Make it bear fruit to us. Ah, the problem here, just when we are safest, there's a sunset touch, a fancy from a flower bell, someone's death, a chorus ending from Euripides, and that's enough for 50 hopes and fears as old and new as nature's self to rap and knock and enter into our soul. Take hands and dance there a fantastic ring round the ancient idol on his base again, the grand perhaps. the agnostic and the self-proclaimed atheist, the practical atheist, cannot get away from the haunting truth that God has implanted in our hearts an intrinsic understanding of His divine majesty and a holy judgment, a planting that we will never successfully lose or shake. No man can shake the knowledge and presence of God. The question for you this morning is this, will God's presence in your life be an approving presence or a disapproving presence. We are told in the Bible in 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 8 and 9, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them who know not God, who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. And yet we're told in Revelation 10, verse 14, that the doomed and the damned will be tormented in the presence of the angels of God and in the very presence of the Lamb of God. that God is the eternal warden of that awful place, and so that there is no place in which the presence of God is not felt. The issue is, is His presence an approving presence, or is it a disapproving presence? For those of you here who know the Lord, who believe in Him, who have trusted Christ as Savior and Lord, and are evidencing that by being disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us that His presence in our life is an approving presence. God's presence is our refuge and strength. He is a present help in time of trouble, Psalm 46.1. The Bible says His throne is a throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need, Hebrews 14.16. Even in death, a true worshiper of God can say with the psalmist, I will fear no evil for thou art with me, Psalm 23.4. The truth is, just about every preposition in the English language is used in the Bible to describe the presence of God with His own. We are told that God is with us, Matthew chapter 28, verse 20. That God is around us, Psalm 20. That God is in us, John 14. That John is in the midst of us, Psalm 46. That God is behind us, Psalm 139. That God is underneath us, Deuteronomy 33. That God is over us, 1 Peter 2. That God is near us, Psalm 148. That God is before us, John 10. The point is that God is wholly there and He is wholly here. He is in all of His presence, here and there. There is no place where God is not. Practically, what does this mean for your life and my life? First of all, it means this, that in times of trouble, times of difficulty, poverty, affliction, sickness, pain, even death when nurses and friends have to leave our bedside for weariness, God is still there. We are told in Romans 8, verse 28, that God allows all things to come into our lives, that they may have a salvific benefit, that they may conform us to the image of His dear Son, that He works all things out providentially for our salvation good to them who love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. And so we can say that He knows our condition. He is working out His perfect will in it and by it for His glory, even though we do not always understand the good when we're experiencing it. It also means this. The presence of God in your life and my life as a believer means that no matter where you are, you can always pray to God. He is there. And you need not shout when you pray. We're told by Kahalath, the author of Ecclesiastes, in Ecclesiastes 5, verse 2, let not your heart be hasty to utter anything in the presence of God. We can pray in the presence of God, but we're not to be hasty in doing so. We can pray to Him because God is in our prayer closet. God is in our bedroom late in the night. God is nearer to you this day than the breath you are breathing. God is near. And God will hear every repentant whisper that comes from your heart. He knows your longings. He knows the agonizings of your heart. God knows the thoughts of your being before you even verbalize them. And should you be 10,000 miles away from home, on the other side of this earthly globe. You can ask your Heavenly Father for divine forgiveness and He will forgive you. You can knock on His heavenly door and He will open it. And you can seek Him and He will be found. God is everywhere. God is near. Thirdly, your knowledge of His presence must be a restraint on your bent to sin. God is always watching us. God is always observing our activity and all of our activity. Do you realize this morning that every act you commit is as public to God as if you would do that act at high noon in broad daylight? That God is there, and when a young couple steals away into a moonless night, and behaves immorally, God is there, God is watching that activity, and you might as well do that activity before the very presence of your parents and your spouse and your children, because God is there. It should be a restraint on our breadth to sin. Sometimes we say to ourselves, as David had said, surely the darkness will fall on me, but God will answer. Even the night shall be light about me. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from thee. The night shines as the day. The darkness and light are both alike to you, O God." Psalm 139, 12. I think it's regrettable that David forgot this truth for a brief period of time in his life. And when he forgot that truth, he engaged in sexual sin and subsequent patterns that led to the death of Uriah. It's sad that David forgot the very words that he had written. However, it is equally true that David, because he understood the presence of God, could restore the joy of his salvation through divine repentance, divine faith that God had granted him and his grace, and God will do the same for you. The truth is, it's sobering for all of us that God knows our every thought. It's sobering that God hears our every word, that he observes our every action. And I think if we just would dwell on that thought for one day, we would cease our foolishness. If we dwelled on the presence of God in our life for one day, we'd take careful thought where we went and what we did. We'd take careful thought about what we saw and what we viewed, and perhaps would be saved from discovered immorality and subsequent dismissal. The point is, it would have a holy effect on our lives. Perhaps there are those here today who, like this young man that I referenced at the beginning of the message, were tempted to fill their hearts and minds and their sensual appetites. With him it began as an intense internal desire. It escalated to a curiosity, and then from a curiosity to an experiment, and then from an experiment to an idol, and then from an idol to a tyrannical master. Do you realize today you will become exactly what you worship? Whatever you adore, whatever you worship, whatever you have affections for, that is what you are becoming and that's what became of Him. It is only the presence of God and the knowledge of that presence and the consciousness of that presence, be it approving or disapproving, that could be a motivation for us not to fall into that sin. Fourthly, If we're conscious of the presence of God in our lives, we will never permit this consciousness of His presence to allow us to supersede God's instructions in Hebrews 10, verse 25, that we not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, and so much the more as we see the day of judgment approaching. That we will gather together more often to stir ourselves up to love and good works, That we will worship God with reverence and fear, as Hebrews 12, 28 says, knowing that God is the primary observer of our worship. And then finally, if this morning you are seeking to hide from God, because you suspect that God does not approve of your lifestyle, Let me say to you this morning that it is totally, utterly irrational thinking on your part to hide from Him or to fly from Him. You cannot escape God. No matter where you go, no matter how hard you try to avoid confronting Him, God is there. God is always there. God is here. God is always here. You have no privacy from Him. And the only rational thing to do is to bow before His inescapable presence and make peace with Him. Allow me to share a timely and thought-provoking providence. There was a young man who professed to know the Lord Jesus Christ at the age of 18. He went to a Christian college, graduated, came to this school and did his master's degree and then a subsequent PhD with an emphasis in apologetics. He married a Christian wife. They had children. They're grown. After graduation, he taught in a Christian college for nine years. And after nine years, this man decided, because in his own mind, he could not rationalize penal death and vicarious atonement. It began to have a domino effect in his life. And one after another, each theological truth that he had learned and believed began to fall. And he finally announced to the world that he was an agnostic atheist. Those are his words. He announced to the world that he believed in nothingness. And sadly, he turned to his wife and his grown children, and with his unbelief and hatred for God, he convinced them to abandon the Gospel in Jesus Christ as well. He boasted of the freedom he had now that he was not under the burden of God's truth and God's commands. He boasted of his newfound occupation and successful business. But what this young man did not know, what he did not realize when he was saying to himself, so thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. God in heaven, who will not be mocked, was simultaneously saying to him, Thou fool, today your soul will be required of thee. Then whose shall these things be which thou hast provided? I learned of this man not but two weeks ago on Sunday, November the 7th. I mentioned this man by name to our congregation. And what I didn't know, And what this man didn't know is that prior to his 50th birthday, God unexpectedly, suddenly struck this man with a massive heart attack and took his life. And why is this man important? Because it was the writings of this man that convinced this student from our church to walk away from the Lord. And in that letter that I handed to this young man from our church whom I've known for 27 years, I said, when you're on that 30-hour plane trip to Chicago, to South Korea, to Vietnam, I want you to read this letter. And I want you to realize that the God of heaven will not be mocked. Let God be true in every man, a liar, that today is the day of salvation and now is the time and this may be God's final call to you." After five minutes in the place that Dante's Inferno refers to as, abandon all hope all ye who enter here, what do you think he would say? I know exactly what this man would say. He would say, God, release me for five minutes, so I can have a moment to talk to my wife, so I can have a moment to talk to my children whom I successfully convinced to turn away from God and His Scriptures and His Son and His Gospel and His Revelation, so I can say, I was wrong. I was wrong. But that's not possible. Because in the words of Jesus Christ in Luke 16, He said, they, meaning those who are suffering eternally in a place, a real place, where real people are, where the real warden of that place is God's eternal Son. He will say they have Moses and the prophets. If they will not hear them, neither will they hear the one rose from the dead." And to prove the very statement that Jesus said, He died and He rose from the dead, and He announced the gospel and was seen physically of 500 separate witnesses, and still they say that their disciples stole their body. And for you, dear friend, this morning, You have Moses and the prophets. You have the 66 inscripturated books of the Bible that the one true and living God has self-attestingly revealed Himself in His book. He has revealed Himself in all of His creation that His intrinsic Weight, the inescapable glory and weight of God Himself is manifest in the intrinsic godness of God that surrounds you all your life. You cannot escape Him. He revealed Himself in your conscience. He revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, who in Him is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And He revealed Himself to you in His 66 special revelatory books, the inerrant, infallible, and inspired Word of God. And He has revealed Himself to you through the illuminating and effectual work of the Holy Spirit, calling you to Himself and changing you from the inside out. God has revealed Himself to you infallibly through His person and through His Word. The question is, are you listening to God? Because if something tragic like this could happen in the life of this young man, do not think for a moment that those who are neglectful, those who do not take Paul's words very seriously, to flesh out and to work out God's salvation in fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who is working in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. That we who are confident of this very thing, that the One who has began the good work in us will continue to perform it until the day of Jesus Christ, also gives us a responsibility to flesh out what God has worked in. That we are not to neglect so great salvation in our lives. We are never, ever to presumptively sin against God. that we who are secure in the Christ who bought us and died for us and secures us and has chosen us and keeps us, has given us a great responsibility to continue in the things which you have learned, knowing of whom you have learned them. And I implore you, young man, young lady today, I implore you, seminary student today, I implore you, doctoral student today, neglect not that spiritual gift that God has given you. to take God's words in a deadly serious manner, to work out, to flesh out what God has miraculously worked in your life. Our prayer for this young man and our whole church is praying for him. We met Sunday night Myself and a dear man in our church, perhaps the finest family that has ever walked through the doors of First Baptist Church of Troy. We both stood in that pulpit and we both begged and pleaded for our congregation to pray so that when God regenerates the soul of this young man and brings him back a changed man, that God will be glorified because more men and women and boys and girls and teenagers are praying that the God of heaven would do the miraculous. I pray that God will do that in your life. I pray that God will work deeply in your heart so that the epitaph will not be written over your life. Surely God was in this place, but I knew it not. Fortunately, Jacob knew the one true and living God, and I pray you will know Him today. Shall we bow our heads in prayer? Our Father, we thank You this morning that You will manifest Yourself to Your own. That You are a refuge in time of trouble. You are a strength. You are in us through the person of Your Son and Your Holy Spirit. You are with us. You are above us. You are beneath us. You are around us. You are in the midst of us. There is no place You are not. May we govern our lives. May we pray. Use that truth as a preventative of our bent to sin. Lord, we ask that you would work in the hearts of these dear young people, these college students, these seminary students, work in our hearts as fathers and mothers and professors and pastors and teachers, that we would never neglect the truth that the God of heaven, that the very inescapable weight of His glory would be the deepest motivation in our lives to live lives that are circumspect, lives that realize, Thou God, seest me. Work in the hearts of these your young men and women who do not know the Lord, that you will, through the gospel, draw them to yourself. Through the gospel, open their eyes and illumine their minds that they would see the verities and certainties and significance of the gospel truths in your word. For those who are believers, help them not to sin presumptuously, even as David had prayed, Lord, keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins. May we not sin unto death. May we not presume upon the grace of God and take our profession of faith for granted. And we pray particularly for this young man. A young man who had the best of parents, the best of siblings, the best of training, the best of schooling, the best of college, the best of seminary, the best of ministry opportunity, because of an intense desire that he eventually gained mastery over his life. He looked at his behavior and he looked at his beliefs and saw that they were 180 degrees apart and chose his behavior over his belief. Oh, Father, I pray that you will regenerate his heart and not make him a mere professor of Christianity, but a possessor of Christ, one who knows Christ, whom to know is truly life eternal. We pray this in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.