Josh asked me if I had a preference on what song to sing, and I had none, but that was perfect. He couldn't have started this with a better song at the end. Wherever man can be, God is present there. And that is the topic that I'm going to look at this afternoon, the omnipresence of God. This is the third of what are the omni-attributes. If you don't remember, compound word omni meaning all and presence, well, meaning presence. God is all present or he is everywhere present. That is the most simplified definition of what omni-presence is, that God is all present. The children's catechism that we use with the girls asks the question, where is God? And the simple answer is, God is everywhere. And that, at its most essential element, is the doctrine of the omnipresence of God. But there is, in reality, a little more to it than that. It's not simply that God is everywhere in the sense that You could misunderstand that as the sense that we are so small and God is so big that no matter where we go, there's still something of God there. Like, God is just really, really big. He occupies a lot of space, and he occupies all the space that is the universe. In that sense, God is omnipresent. That is not what omnipresence means. And I want to begin with looking at a contrast on our limited presence. We are finite. We are small. If you've ever been to a mall or an airport or some complex building, you'll often see a sign or really a map on a wall or on a stand, and it shows all the different rooms in the building or all these different places, and there's a little red dot, and it says, you are here. Right? Probably never thought. That's actually a really profound theological and anthropological statement. You are here, you're not also there, and you're not also outside. You are here, you are in this spot. And so we can have a tendency to think that the circle where God is is just a much bigger circle. And really the omnipresence of God is so much more than that. It's not simply that we are small and God is just a bigger being. There's a distinction, or well, there's a reference in the Second Lenten Baptist Confession to the immensity of God. If you look through the confession and the catechisms, you won't find the word omnipresence. There's no reference to that. But you will find the word immensity. God is immense. And what does that mean? It means that God is limitless. He has no boundaries. And so when we're talking about the proper attribute of God himself, the absolute attribute of God that we're talking about is God's immensity. He is not bound by space. God's immensity also applies to time. He's eternal. He's not bound by time. But we're looking at his relationship of immensity to space. God is not bound or confined by anything. And so when this doctrine of God's immensity interfaces, interacts with what God has created. This is what we refer to as omnipresence, his immensity interacting with the finiteness of his creation. And so with that essential first fundamental part of the doctrine that God is everywhere, I want to look at a few verses and kind of build out the rest of what the doctrine of God's omnipresence is. Because again, we can get this mistaken view that God is just like us, but bigger. So we're going to look at a couple of texts here. First, turn with me to 1 Kings, chapter 8. 1 Kings, chapter 8. In the chapters leading up to this point, we've had a description of the building of the temple. Solomon is king, and in the fourth year of his reign, he begins to build a temple to God. And God gives him his approval for this. This is something God says is right for him to do. And so in chapters 6 and 7, you have the building of the temple and the furnishing of the temple. And then in chapter 8, you have the dedication of the temple. The ark is brought in, and the temple is solemnly dedicated to the Lord. And Solomon dedicates this temple with a prayer. And he begins his prayer in verse 23, addressing the Lord, but we're going to jump down a little bit, down to verse 27. So 1 Kings 8, beginning in verse 27, Solomon is praying, But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built. Yet regard the prayer of your servant and his supplication, O Lord, my God, and listen to the cry and the prayer which your servant is praying before you today, that your eyes may be opened toward this temple night and day, toward the place of which you said, my name shall be there, that you may hear the prayer which your servant makes towards this place. And may you hear the supplication of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Here in heaven, your dwelling place, And when you hear, forgive. And so Solomon has built this temple and he's proclaimed this is the temple of God. This is where God will have a unique presence and interaction with his people. And yet he thinks, but will God really live on the earth? Do I really confine God to this space? Is God really going to be restricted to this temple? And understand Solomon's theology here. It's a rhetorical question. He knows the answer is no. He says, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built. And so when you read this, it's easy for us to just pass over and think of, OK, yes, of course, Solomon understands God's not going to live in a house. But think of how radically different that is compared to the pagans. The Baals, the Asherim, Zeus, Athena, Ra, Horus, all these gods were like men. They had bodies. They were big and powerful, and they had some measure of control, but they weren't everywhere. They were limited. If you read the ancient Greek myths, the gods aren't omnipresent. They're not omniscient. They don't know everything. They have to move about from place to place. Zeus is on Mount Olympus, and he has his messenger god, Hermes, who can fly to go and take his orders throughout the creation and to learn what's going on in the creation. That was the worldview of all the religions around Israel at this time. So Solomon's statement that, no, this temple can't contain God, not even heaven can contain God, is an incredibly advanced view of who God is. There was no one like it. No other system of theology, no other theism had this kind of a view of God from the very beginning. Heaven and the heavens of heavens cannot contain you. What you have created does not restrict you, Lord. You are beyond what you have made. And whether Solomon here is making a distinction, heaven, as in the atmosphere and space and things like that, and the heaven of heavens, meaning the heaven where his throne is, so to speak, whether that's what he means by this or not, it's not entirely clear, but the point is the same either way. God, what you have made cannot contain you. You are beyond what you have made. He does say that God has looked toward this place in verse 29, toward the place at which you said, my name shall be there. God has said my name will be there. So there is a unique way in which God will be present in the temple. But in his essence, in his being, God is not restricted to this temple and Solomon even knows that. He even says God will hear in heaven your dwelling place. There's a unique way in which God dwells in heaven. God doesn't really hear from his temple because God's dwelling in this sense is in heaven. But even that He's already said heaven can't contain God. So just look at what Psalm is presenting, who this God is that we worship, the God who has made us. He is not restricted or bound by his creation, let alone a creation of his creation. He cannot be confined to a temple or to a house, anything that a man has made. Turn with me over to Psalm 139. Psalm 139. This is a psalm of David, and he is proclaiming the greatness of God. He begins with God's knowledge, his personal knowledge of David, and then he goes on to discussing God's omnipresence, beginning in verse 7. Psalm 139, verse 7. 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. And so David asks this rhetorical question, where can I go to flee your presence, Lord? He's not actually trying to get away from God, because as he answers, you can't. It's a rhetorical question. He's making a point. Where can I go to get away from God? I can't. There's nowhere to go. Where can I flee from your presence? Well, God is present wherever David would go. God is present wherever you would go. And so he gives four examples here. He begins with the up and down. If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If he means just the physical heavens, if I go up to the mountaintops to where I can touch the clouds, God, you are there. Or if he means the spiritual heaven where his presence is manifested uniquely, Obviously God's presence is there. We know that. But then, not only if I go up, but if I go down. And now the New King James renders this as hell. I actually don't like that translation. It's Sheol. It is almost always a reference to the grave or the depths of the earth, not hell as in the sense that we often think of the word hell. And this is not, if I go and stretch out a cot in the Lake of Fire, that's not what David is saying. If I go down into the most bottom depths of this earth, if I dig to the center of the earth, If I go to where the dead bodies are laid, you're still there. Death does not separate you from God. No hole in the ground can separate you from God. And that is what David is saying here. If I go up as high as I can go, God, you are there. If I go down as far as I can go, God, you are there. And now having taken care of up and down, he now turns to right and left, or really east and west. If you think of where Israel is on the map, if you go east, you have Mesopotamia, Babylon, what we now call Iraq, those areas. The sun rises there. To the west, you've got the Mediterranean Sea. That's the sea that is being referred to in verse 9, the outermost parts of the sea. In David's day, he was almost certainly aware of Italy, maybe even aware of Iberia, what we call Spain, that part of Europe. But he knows to the west is the sea, to the east is the sunrise. And so looking to the east, if I take the wings of the morning, and then dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. So basically, from east, as far as I can go, to west, as far as I can go. I cannot get away from the presence of God. And he's not even simply saying if I just went east and then later went west, he's saying if I started out as far east, wherever the sun rises up, and if I take the wings of the morning, the imagery here is I grab hold of a beam of sunlight as it breaks over the ridge. and ride this sunlight to the west as far as I can in an instant. If you grab hold of the sunlight and are transported across the globe at the speed of light, you do not get away from God even for a moment. God is not trying to catch up to you, no matter how fast you go. Not only is God not catching up, he says, even there your hand shall lead me. Not only did you not outrun God, God's the one that even brought you there. If you are able to transport in an instant from east to west, you did not outrun God. God's there waiting for you. He says, 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. Darkness and light are both alike to you. If you ever notice the tendency for people, if they want to hide their activities, is to do them at night, because it's really easy to hide from people. We don't see in the dark very well, but God does. This is not directly related to his omnipresence, more of his omniscience, but even the things done in secret, God is aware of. He sees. The darkness does not hide anything from God's vision. And this is what's amazing in verses 13 to 16, he brings this into the most closed off, intimate, secret part of all of creation, the womb of a mother. For you formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb. I'll praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed and your book they were all written. The days fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them." So as David say, even what happens in the womb of a mother where there is only the child, God is there. God sees it. God is the one at work in the womb of the mother. So even that place where no man could go or even see until really recently in human history with the invention of the ultrasound, no one could see that, but God saw it. God saw it because God's there. So David in this psalm proclaims, there is nowhere I can go. As high up as I can find, as far down in the earth as I can go, east, west, as quickly as I can travel, I cannot escape the presence of God. God is there waiting, leading even. Turn quickly to Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah 23. In this context, God is rebuking and proclaiming really his judgment on the false prophets that have come to his people to say, no, well, the Lord has told me there will be peace, there will be prosperity, everything is okay. And God says in verse 21, I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. They went of their own initiative to tell these things. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. And so God is saying, these are not true prophets. These are not men that I have sent. And then he turns to this whole, whole idea of what really gave rise to these prophets. How can a man have this view, such a low view of God to say that he speaks for God when he knows he's lying? Well, it's they've domesticated God in their thinking. They have a low view of God. God can be avoided. God is, yeah, God's near at hand when you're in the temple, but if you go outside of the temple, well, God's not nearly as attentive outside the courts. They've domesticated God, and this is God's response. Am I a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so I shall not see him, says the Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth, says the Lord? So God begins, am I a God near at hand? The answer is yes. God is promised. He is a God near at hand. And he's right. You are correct when you say that I am near at hand. But am I not also a God that's far off? I'm not only in Jerusalem. I'm not only in the temple. I'm far off. And it's not that he's really fast. He goes from being near at hand and far off. It's that he's at both places and all places in between all at once. He's a God near at hand and a God far off. Can anyone hide himself in secret places so I shall not see him? Rhetorical question. The answer, no. No, you can't, because God fills heaven and earth. As he says, do I not fill heaven and earth? All of creation filled with the presence of God. His presence throughout all that he has made. And again, we might have a tendency to misunderstand what this means. It isn't that God in his being or his essence is kind of filling in the gaps. As if there's, you know, a space that God is able to squeeze into, and there's enough spaces throughout all of creation that God is able to squeeze in. No, God transcends even the category of space. God is present everywhere and in everything. God is not restricted or confined in any way. He fills heaven and earth. He fills all that he has made. And then lastly, look at New Testament, Acts 17. Acts chapter 17. Paul has arrived in Athens, and he is bothered by the idolatry that he sees. Because these are men who have devoted their lives to worshiping what is not God. They have devoted their lives to worshiping the things that they have made. But in verse 24, he begins to make known to them the true God. 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, nor is he worshiped with men's hands as though he needed anything, since he gives to all life, breath, and all things. And he has made from one blood every nation of men, to dwell on all the faces of the earth, and has determined there are pre-appointed times and boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring." And so he begins making known the true God in contrast to the gods of ancient Greece. Like the false gods in the days of Solomon, the false gods in the days of Paul were limited gods. They dwelt in temples. They needed men to serve them. The gods made deals with humans to get what they wanted. Zeus was not all powerful. He lived on Olympus, aloof from everything until he decided he wanted something, or more often someone. Paul sees all these temples and these idols that they've built, and he says, God made everything. And if He made everything, He is not contained within what He made. He made all heaven and earth. He does not dwell in temples made with hands. God made you and everything around you. How do you think you can make a place to contain Him? Or a place for Him to live? He does not need anything. He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And he's, in verse 26, he's determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings. The Athenians thought that they appointed for the gods a dwelling place. And Paul says, no, God appointed your dwelling place. You do not build a house for him. He has made this creation and set up where you are going to live and he is beyond all of it. He fills it all. He is not contained within a temple. No idol is the essence of God. No altar contains the presence of God. God fills everything. And God has put you where you are, verse 27, so that people might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Well, that's an interesting thing to say. Yes, God is not in these temples. He's created all the world and so we might get this idea of a completely, what's called a transcendent God, a God that is completely out there somewhere. It's the God of Islam, a God who is completely out there. We might be tempted to have that idea if we think God made all things and he does not need temples, he does not need us to serve him, he's just out there. But Paul says, no, he's not just out there, he's not far from each one of us. Well, how far is not far, Paul? Well, he answers in the next sentence. For in him we live and move and have our being. God is so close to us. It is in him that we move. It is in him that we function. It is in him that we exist. So how close is your God to you, Paul? He's closer to me than myself. He's closer to me than my very being. God is closer to me than my own existence. That is how close God is. I live and exist in him. So looking at these four passages, we can see, I think, three main components to what really is the doctrine of omnipresence. Firstly, and most clearly, God is everywhere. You cannot escape from him. He is everywhere. That is the simplest and most foundational part of the doctrine of omnipresence. God is everywhere. Secondly, God is everywhere all the time. There is never a point in time where God is not everywhere. He is present not only in all places, but he is present in all places at all times. That is why David could say, if I teleported from Babylon to Spain and then the speed of light, God is still leading me. God's waiting for you because he's everywhere at all times. God's not trying to play catch up with you no matter how fast you move. So he's present everywhere all the time. And thirdly, he is present everywhere at all times with all his being. This is probably the most difficult part to really begin to wrap our minds around. God's essence, who he is in his being, is everywhere at all times. We are in no way like this. We are Compartmentalized, we are complex beings. We have hands and arms and legs and head and feet and all these things. We are made of parts. And so even though we are small, we don't occupy just a single point in space. We do take up space. Some of us take up more space than others. But we take up space. And so my hand is over here. My head is not. We get that. It is not the same with God. Where I'm standing right now is not God's hand. And if I move over there, I'm not in God's arm. If I move to the back of the room, I'm not in God's head. God is not like us in this sense where he is just large and extended throughout space. God in his essence, his being, is everywhere. All of God is here now. All of God is also at your house right now. All of God is in Syria right now. All of God is on the moon right now. God is not divided or stretched out or extended throughout space. God is a simple being, a spirit being. He is not like us in that Part of him takes up one space and part of him takes up another. No, all of God is everywhere at all times, all of his being, because he cannot be divided into parts. And so that is the three components to really the biblical view of God's omnipresence. God is everywhere. God is everywhere all the time. And God is everywhere all the time with all his being. And so what does that mean for us? Quickly, I want to look at three areas of our life that this view of the omnipresence of God should affect. Firstly, the omnipresence of God in our worship. What does this mean for our worship? Well, we can have confidence that God hears us. When you worship God in secret at home, or in your car as you're driving, When you go into your prayer closet or you pray at your desk, God is there. He is not far off. He's there. So this should greatly encourage us. We can worship anywhere because God is everywhere. Our worship is never in vain. God is always present. And now, Scripture does make a distinction. There are unique ways in which God is present with His people. You can read what Solomon said, heaven can't even contain God. And yet you have verses that talk about, well, God dwells in Israel. God dwells in Jerusalem. God dwells in the temple. There's even a passage in the Psalms, God dwells between the cherubim, a reference to the mercy seat on the ark. God lives on the mercy seat between the two angels of the ark. Well, what does that mean? This is God's special covenantal presence. God reveals and manifests himself in a unique way with those whom he is in covenant with. A unique way in which he is present and blesses and guides and directs his people whom he has chosen and loved. And so when you worship, God is present, but God is also present in a special way. He's present with his people. uniquely, opening up their minds to understand the word, empowering even their prayers, because we don't know how we ought to pray. God is present in a unique way. But yes, God in his omnipresence, he is everywhere. So the omnipresence of God in our worship. Secondly, the omnipresence of God in our suffering. We suffer. Life can be hard. God is there. When you suffer, when you are at the lowest part of your suffering, God is not far off. God is near. God sees. God knows. Whether it's medical or mistreatment, whether it's your own body failing or your friends betraying you, God is there. He sees it, he knows it. God is present in our suffering. And third, the omnipresence of God in our sin. How should the omnipresence of God affect us when we sin? God's there. You may sin in the dark, but what did David say? The dark is light to God. You may sin in a room by yourself with no one else around. God's there. You cannot get away from His presence. What did God say to Jeremiah? Do I not fill heaven and earth? There's no space, no secret place. There is no real secrecy. There's no real privacy in this sense. God is there. Consider this all your sins. God is there. He sees it. God doesn't just passively know it. He doesn't learn it from anyone. He sees it personally. And so do not think that God will fail. To remember your sins on that day of judgment, if you stand before him. Apart from Christ. He was there every time that you have sinned against him. He was present, and God's memory does not fail. And this brings up sort of a second question of, okay, if God is there in our sin, he sees us in our sin, God's everywhere, is God in hell? And I think part of the problem is oftentimes people will describe hell as being separated from God, and I get what they mean. But yes, God is in hell. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. Hell is aware. He's there. So what does it mean that God is in hell? Just like there's a unique way in which God dwelt with Israel, God dwelt in the temple, there's a unique way in which God is present in hell. It's not the covenantal blessing aspect. It's the opposite. It's the judicial aspect of God's presence. God is present in hell judging you for your sin, punishing you for your sin. God is present in hell. And so this God that you have committed every one of your sins before is the God that you will be before all of eternity. And even if you die and you are consigned to hell, you will not escape the presence of God. But now all of the mercy and goodness of God is removed. And God will have no more patience with you. And no more mercy on you. So yes, God is in hell. And so what is the application of this? What does all this mean for us? The fundamental takeaway is that life truly is Coram Deo. Life is before the face of God. Always. And so this will affect you differently, depending on whether you are a Christian or you are an unbeliever. If you are a Christian, this is great news. This is wonderful news. God is here. If you are an unbeliever, this is terrible, terrifying news. God is here. and you stand before Him every moment of every day. All of life is before the face of God. You cannot escape Him. He is there. And so, Christian, be encouraged. God is there. God is here. He is with you always. You cannot escape His presence, even if you wanted to. God does not lose track of you. God is there. Unbeliever. God is there. When you sin, God sees it. God will hold you accountable for it if you do not repent and believe in Christ. So this should encourage and convict us to know that God is everywhere at all times and he sees all. Let's pray. Oh, Lord, we thank you, God, that you are a God who is near and a God who is far off. A God from whom we cannot hide. A God who sees all and fills all. A God that is so much greater than we. Lord, I pray that you would Help us to keep this truth in our minds that as we go through life and we suffer, we go through life and we are afflicted. To know that you are there and you see it. As we go through life and we take time to worship, we take time to read your word and make our requests known to you. God, may we be encouraged to know you're there. And God, when we fail and when we fall into sin, when we rebel against your law, God, may it convict us to know that you are there. We sin in your presence, Lord. May this motivate us onto holiness. May it motivate the unbeliever to repentance. God, may we never forget that you are a God greater than we are. You fill heaven and earth. May we be in awe of who you are. In Christ's name, amen.