Good morning, everyone. Good to have you here. I see we have some visitors, we have some folks we haven't seen for a while. It's good to have you.
And I'm glad you're here. And I hope today will be a blessing for you as we look into the Word of God. Certainly a blessing to sing these praises to the Lord. Yes, thank you.
As we do each week. So glad to have you with us. And if you've been with us a long time, that's what keeps us going. Glad you're here.
Let's pray. Father, thank you. This morning that we can come. Last song we sang, Lord, I need you.
As the cry of every heart, we need you. Every hour we need you. You're my one defense, my righteousness. Oh Lord, how I need you.
I pray, Father, that you would help us this morning as we look into the Scriptures. And that you would speak to our hearts. Each of us are here this morning with different needs. Each of us are here this morning with different burdens on our heart.
Some of us are here with different joys on our heart. And we pray, Father, that you would meet us where we are. And that we would turn to you wherever we may be. We may know you.
May I know your presence in our life? May I ask this in Jesus' name? Amen. I'm going to speak on a very perplexing question this morning.
Where is God? Our street preachers aren't here now, so I can't ask them how many times they've heard this. But I'm sure they've heard it often. I've heard it often whether I've read it in a vlog, whether I've had somebody speak it to me, or whether somebody just cries out and says that.
We're doing a little series on Psalm 139. If you have a Bible turn there, I have put the text up on the wall behind us. And we can read through this as we look at this passage in Scripture. And I hope that this morning we can answer that question for you.
Where is God? It's a difficult topic to look at. But it's a very profound question that's asked. And then we are given the answer.
If you read with me, Psalm 139, verse 1 to 12, oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. I'm reading from the New King James version. You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up.
You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, oh Lord, you know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. 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.
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. David's question in Psalm 139 is very short and simple. Where is God?
There's many seekers in the world today asking that question. Many ask, how can I find God? What's the answer? Is it in a church?
Is it in a temple? Do I do a pilgrimage somewhere and crawl on my knees to a place where I find God? Do I read books on enlightenment that's going to open my mind and expand it that I'm going to find God? Is God within me, myself?
People teach that? Is he in nature? Where is God? Psalm 139, the last time we looked at it, it presents four different attributes of God.
But this is divided up into four sections with six stands as in each section. It's a poem or a song written by David. Each one talks about a different attribute of God. The last time we looked at his omniscience, God is all knowing.
He knows everything. God doesn't have to learn anything. His knowledge is instantaneous. It's intuitive.
And it's utterly complete. God does not have a new realization about anything ever. He knows all. He always has.
And he always will. Now David deals with something called God's omnipresence. Now that might seem like a big word to you, omnipresence. I'm supposed to change slides.
There. Even the veggie tales guys asked, where is God? Where is God when I'm scared? I had to put that one in there.
But this is the question that people ask. And David is going to deal with this. He's going to deal with God's omnipresence. Omnipresence, omni, all, everywhere, all, present.
Always present everywhere. That's quite a thing to say. He's not dealing with this, though, from a theological point of view. He's dealing with a theological topic.
But this is a worship song. It's to be sung in the temple. It's interesting because David is not a writer of deep theology, but he writes from theology. He writes from what he knows about God.
He writes from what the Spirit of God has inspired his heart to write. It's kind of a rhetorical question. He doesn't need more information on this. He already knows the answer.
But he asks the question anyway. Probably asks the question so that we could ask the question so that we could get the answer that he gives. God's omnipresence is a difficult thing for us to grasp. It's different from omnipotence.
And it's different from omniscience, all knowing, and all powerful. You see, in this room, I know people who know more than I do. They're much smarter than I am. And they know, and they've read much more than I ever have.
So I can understand when I think of that, I can think, all right, I can get a handle on the fact that God knows more than me and knows more than anybody in the room. I definitely know people that are stronger than me. Fola is much stronger than I am. We could, you stood up, so I had to pick on you.
You're the highest person in the room. In an arm wrestling match, 100% of the time, she is going to break my arm. So I can understand a person is stronger than me, and therefore I can understand a person is stronger than God. But when it comes to omnipresence, there is not a single human being, not a single creature on Earth that can be in more than one place at once.
It's totally unique. It's totally unique to God. There are people more powerful than you. People more powerful than me.
There are people smarter than you. People know more than me, believe it or not. But there is nobody in the world, not a single person. It can be in two places at once.
And there is certainly nobody who can be everywhere at once. That is unique to God. What I find very interesting is when the Lord Jesus came to Earth, the God of heaven as a man among us. There were times he showed his omniscience.
We mentioned that the last time, under the fig tree, in Israel I didn't know there was no guile. Yes, I knew you before you were under the fig tree. He just knew. People were talking and reasoning in their hearts, and he knew what was on their hearts.
He certainly was all powerful. We read a passage yesterday in our about men's study. He stood up in the boat. Be quiet, and the wind stopped.
Only an all powerful God can do that. But he did not, that I'm aware, display omnipresence. There was a time when he was in the boat, and it said, and immediately they were at the shore. They were in the middle of the sea, and immediately they were at the shore.
But I don't think that's omnipresence. Because the same kind of thing happened to Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch. He baptized the dude, and then he was on time for his appointment, many miles away. Somehow he was transported to where he had to go.
That's not omnipresence, because he wasn't still in the jerryate with the Ethiopian. But you see, omnipresence is totally different. God is the only one that can be everywhere in his whole being, in his whole lessons, at the same time. He could be our Father in heaven as we read in Matthew, chapter 6 verse 9.
In this manner, therefore pray, our Father in heaven. How would be your name? And then Jeremiah, chapter 23, 23, and 24, we read these words. Jeremiah, God, near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God far off.
Can anyone hide himself in secret place, so I shall not see him? Says the Lord, do I not fill heaven and earth? Says the Lord. He is everywhere.
I mean, and he's also localized. He followed the children of Israel as they went from Egypt to the promised land, as either a pillar of fire or a pillar of cloud. So sometimes he's localized, but sometimes he's everywhere, and sometimes he's in a particular place. It's one of those things that the more I listen to, the more I messes up my head, the more I think about it, the more I start thinking about how can you be everywhere at once?
So it sets him apart as unique. It's as unique as his eternal being. He is God. So that leads to the perplexing question.
Where? David asked this question. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
Now, why does anybody want to flee from God? Well, I guess that depends on how you're living. Some people, and I have been this in my life, been, okay, I do not want to face God. I am hiding myself from God.
It's a foolish thing to do, by the way. It doesn't work, but you try to hide. You try to run from him. You're running from something.
You're running from God. And you're running from someone who is everywhere. Somebody who is all knowing, and somebody who knows exactly everything about you, and exactly where you are, and he is there. It depends on how you're living.
God's presence is either a comfort to you, or a concern for you. If you're going through a trial, and I know many are grieving, I know many that are suffering with illness, I know many that are suffering with sorrows, many that are suffering with fear. It's a great comfort, if you are in that situation, to know that God is there with you. He is right there.
Now, if you're a disobedient child of God, or if you are trying to live your life totally without Christ, and trying to run from him, it's kind of disconcerting to know that God is present. When you're committing that sin, God is present. He does, you can't hide that from him. So if you live as a child of God, you will desire his presence.
His presence is problematic if you don't know him, or if you're not a child of God, if you're a disobedient child, or you're not a child of God at all. Think of Jonah for one, one. It says in Jonah that he, did he, I keep forgetting to move ahead. It says of Jonah that he tried to run from God.
He says, he got on a boat. I'm going to get on a boat and I'm going to flee from God. Brother Jonah, as we like to speak. And you know what?
God sent his storm, just a show. Hey, guess what? I'm here. Just in case you forgot, I'm here.
You can't run from God. You can't hide from God. There are a couple of implications here from his omnipresence. One, I'm ahead of my son.
Sorry. I did jump way ahead in this. Yes, implications of his, so the two implications about God, his omnipresence, one, he can't be contained in a building. So if you thought, got up this morning, I thought, I'm going to dress up really nice, because today, I'm going to the house of God.
Well, is God present in this building? Yes, he is. Is this his house? Is he contained in this building?
No. Because you know what? There's another building across town. There's another building across the harbor.
There's another building down on Windall Road. There's buildings around where people are meeting, just like this. And God is there. So he's not, you're not in the house, the house of God.
But you were in a place where God is. Solomon at the dedication of the temple, he realized that he couldn't build a temple that could just contain God. There is no such building on earth that could contain God. There is no place to house the majesty and the glory and the presence of God in all of his fullness.
So what does he do? 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19 and 20. Do 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 Bob of the Price.
Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are gods. God says in capital G, gods, apostrophe S, not gods of the smallest. God is indwelling his people. You are here.
God is in you, if you're a believer. God is in me. He is in the believer's across the ocean. He cannot be contained to a building.
You see, he cannot be contained to a particular place, localized to a particular nation. I know in the US Constitution or something that God says, one nation under God. Well, they think the only nation under God sometimes. That's not a slam in Americans, but it's just that sometimes we think that we're the only nation that's under God, that God dwells in this nation.
And there's people, there's tour guides. It'll take you through Israel. And I've heard this. I've never been.
But I hear you go through Israel. And the tour guide will just for fun. It'll say, we've got to go up to Jerusalem. Why?
I can't go to Jerusalem to pray. I can pray in my bedroom in Dartmouth. I can pray in my car while I'm driving through town. But yeah, you have to go to Jerusalem.
Why? Because it's a local call. Thanks to Luther for snickering a little bit. I thought it was kind of funny when I heard that.
But God does not live in Jerusalem. Only. God is everywhere. You have access to God from everywhere.
So again, am I a God who's only close at hand says the Lord? No, I am far away at the same, this is what the NLT says. Jeremiah 23, 2324. I want to read from the NLT.
Am I a God who's only close at hand says the Lord? No, I am far away at the same time. Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in the heavens and the earth says the Lord?
He is everywhere. People make pilgrimages. They climb steps to the cathedral. They travel to Rome.
They go to holy sites all around the world. And try to get close to God. But God is not in these particular places. God is everywhere.
He is as close to you today as he would be if you were to go to Rome, if you were to go to Jerusalem, if you were to go to China, if you were to go anywhere. And there's no excuse really for us to think that our nation is under God alone. And we have some superiority. That is God is God.
He dwells everywhere. He's accessible to anyone who will come. And he will live inside anyone who will receive him. So that's the question.
Where is God? So here's the profound answer. He's there. Where?
There. Where's there? There. Where did I leave my notes this morning?
There. Where did I leave that there? There. It just defines just about everywhere.
He mentions three particular things that will not hide us from God. Death won't hide us from God. Distance won't hide us from God. And darkness won't hide us from God.
Back to the passage. I'm going to read this once more from chapter 139 verses 8 to 11. 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 other most parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me. Your right hand shall hold me. Surely if I say surely darkness shall fall upon me. Even the night shall be light about me.
Indeed the darkness shall not hide from you. But the night shines as day. The darkness and the light are both alike to you. So first of all, death doesn't hide us from God.
God is in heaven. How do you get to heaven? You have to die. That's the only way you're going to get there.
Well, unless the rapture takes place this afternoon. But most people who have gone to heaven have had to die. There's only a couple that have not. Death.
You die. You go to the presence of the Lord. Don't we rejoice on a Christian passes away and say they've gone to be with the Lord. That's where God lives.
God's in heaven. But also, the word that's used here for hell is she-old, which is the grave. And the ancients believe that when you were taken and placed in the grave, that's your wrapper that's just kind of put there in the grave. And you're gone.
You're totally gone. But God is also present in the earth. He is also present there. He's on both sides of the grave.
Because we will all face him when we die. We will face him when we die. If you die and go to heaven, you will face God. You will be in his glorious presence forever and ever.
If you die and do not go to heaven, you will still face God. You will be judged by him and sent away from his presence. I'll talk about that in a minute. Death is just a threshold.
It's a transition into another form of living. Death will confront everyone, the unbeliever, with the reality of judgment. The Bible says in Hebrews, chapter 9, verse 27, it was read this morning. It's appointed to men and women to die once.
But after this, the judgment. Everybody has an appointment to die. It's 100% effective. Death, it will take everyone.
But death for the believer is a homecoming or a homegoing. It's the completion of our walk with Christ to forever be with him and to forever now be like him. We will be in the direct unfiltered presence of God. Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 7 and 8.
For if we walk by faith and not by sight, we are confident, yes. And please, rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. When the believer dies, they are forever present with the Lord. For the believer, we look up.
That is where our home is. That is where we're going. I was talking to someone last week, and I said, how are you doing? I'm looking up.
We have to look up, don't we? Because if I look around, oh boy, it's discouraging. Every time I look at the news, there's something more that just perplexes my whole being. I'm thinking this world is like, it really is headed on a fast track to a bad place.
But if I look up, that's my home. That's my home. I remember when we bought a home, our first home. We looked at it.
We made the offer. The offer was accepted. And we had a month to wait before we moved in. And it was up on a hill.
It was kind of sliding down the hill. But it was on the hill. It was a starter at home. But I remember I would drive by every day on my way to work.
And what would I do? I would look up at my home. I'd look up. There's my home.
It's going to be my home. I can't wait. Just happen to be on a hill. So good illustration.
But I'd look up at my home. And it would cheer me on the way to work. That's why I'm going to work today, because I'm going to have a mortgage to have to pay on that home. But I would look up at my home.
Do we look up to our home? Or do we get stuck looking around the apartment that's temporary? Do we just look around here and say, oh, what a place. Yuck.
And we spend all our days just talking about the woes of the world. And forget that we have a home in heaven. Believers, your best days are ahead. I don't care what you're living through right now.
Your best day is ahead forever. We are confident it says, well, please, rather to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. If you are not a believer, the opposite is true. If you are not a believer and you die in your sins, you will face judgment.
It is appointed to men and women to die once. And after this, the judgment, there's a very sobering verse. There's a lot of people that have this strange idea of death. And they have this idea that when I die, I just believe it's just done.
Or I'm going to come back to something greater, a king, usually. It's funny how people were kings in their past life. And now they're just schlepping through a job every day now. But they say all of this stuff, this weird idea is about what death is.
But death for somebody who does not believe in God is a terrible thing. It's an awful thing. It says in Revelation, chapter 20. And I've never read this in an NLT before, but I kind of like the way it puts it.
It says, and I saw a great white throne, and the one sitting on it, the earth and the sky fled from his presence. But they found no place to hide. And I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God's throne. And the books were open, including the book of life.
And the dead were judged. Note that, it's the dead. Those who died were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up its dead.
And death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death.
And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the book of life was thrown in the lake of fire. That's a very, very sobering reality of what death really is for somebody who does not believe. That is the reality of what the scriptures teach. It doesn't teach reincarnation.
It doesn't teach annihilation. It doesn't teach that you just die. And everything ceases to be. It teaches that there is a judgment.
It teaches, as we read, that for the believer, its presence with the Lord. For the non-believer, it's this. A second death, a lake of fire. It's a horrible thing.
And you can avoid that today. If you are not a believer, you will face this. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. If you trust Him, His payment for your sins, you will be saved.
The second thing is that distance does not hide us from God. Distance does not hide us from God. He says here, if I take the wings of the morning, the rising of the sun in the east, that's what he means by that, the wings of the morning. Now, I don't know whether he's speaking of, I put the little C squared there to remind me, of if I try to go at the speed of light, 300,000 kilometers per second.
God, you're still there. If I could possibly travel that fast. I think he's probably just talking about the east. That's where the sun rises.
If I go as far to the east as I possibly can, you know what? That's infinite. When you head east, you always are going east. You never stop going east.
And then if I turn around and go to the other most parts of the sea, from where David lived, the Mediterranean sea was to the west. So if I turn and I go to the west, and I keep going to the west for infinity, you are there. God is as far as you can go east, as far as you can go west. He never ceases to be.
There is no place that I can go where God is not. Geography doesn't matter to God. Remember, he is everywhere. He has not secluded or isolated to a single place.
Remember those who tried to hide from God. There was Adam and Eve. They sinned. I think we'll hide from God.
Not kind of a dumb thing. Hide from who? From your maker? And he comes in and he says, Adam, here's a rhetorical question.
Where are you? I mean, God's asking, where are you, Adam? I know right where you are. And I know what you've done.
And I know all of this. And then, remember, King, the verse that's in, it's funny how some of these things were mentioned this morning. But here's Cain. He had killed his brother.
And God comes and says, what have you done? Well, you know, my brother's keeper. God knows exactly what you've done. He was there.
He saw it. He witnessed it all. And then we already spoke of Jonah. I think I'll try to run from God.
I'll get on a ship. Even in the belly of the whale. And finally, in the belly of the whale, he realizes, OK, you know what? God, you're here.
I give up. Salvation is of the Lord. Whale goes, and he comes up on the sea, and does what he's supposed to do. Then we read that darkness doesn't hide us from God, verses 11 and 12.
Darkness is interesting. Darkness limits our visibility. I used to love to drive it nice. If I was going on a trip somewhere, I'd think, ah, you know what?
I'm going to just drive all night. It's nice. Now I don't like to drive it nice. I'm old, I guess.
But my visibility is limited. It's not like it used to be. But you know that there are more adults afraid of the dark than they are of heights? 11% of adults.
Officially, on surveys, have said, I'm afraid of the dark. Why? Well, you feel vulnerable. You can't see what's going on around you.
There are people that I've never been through one of these tests, thankfully. But you go into an MRI machine, or you go into a body scan machine, and you're stuck in this confining thing. I know it's not completely dark, but it's very unsettling. It's very unsettling for people in darkness.
Now I'm a guy who likes it because I sleep with a sleep mask so that I can't see any light, and that helps me sleep. But there's people that just feel vulnerable, and you're afraid of the dark. People don't like dark, in general. But God is there in the dark.
The darkness is just like the light to him. It doesn't matter. You can't hide in darkness. I remember when the astronauts, this is how old I am, the astronauts from Apollo 8 circled the moon.
They're the first people to go to the moon. And they got to see the dark side of the moon, the side that does not receive much that we know of. It doesn't face the earth that it doesn't do. So they got to the dark side of the moon.
They're in darkness and blackness, and they're going around there. And then when they came around, what did they do? They opened up a Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void.
They opened up the scriptures, and they read the Bible. Why? They acknowledged that even though they were 240,000 miles away from the earth, and just passed by the darkest side of the moon, in a tiny little space capsule, God is here. God is in outer space.
God is in the space capsule. God is everywhere. His substance is everywhere. Interestingly, after that, there was a cosmonaut that went into space, and he said, I didn't see God, by the way, when I was there.
I looked for him and didn't see him. Well, all he had to do was open the door, and he would have seen God in a moment. He wouldn't have survived that. So God was there, even though the cosmonaut did not believe.
But everywhere, even in the darkness of space, in outer space, but here's another place that can be dark. Spiritual darkness. And that can make you feel vulnerable. That can make you feel like, where is God?
Where is he? He's distant. God is not around me at all. Have you ever gone through a time of spiritual darkness?
I have. It's hard. It's difficult. And you're in darkness, and you forget that God is there, but he is there.
Jeremiah cried out in lamentations at one point, and he said, I'm just going to paraphrase this. He said, my prayer is just go to the clouds, and that's as far as they go. It's a woeful place to be. But you know what?
The fact is that darkness, even spiritual darkness, does not conceal us from God or from Christ. He is there if you call upon him. He is there. We need to be reminded of that.
So David is saying, even during the dark times, God is there for us. He is there for the believer. The other thing is darkness often sets the stage for sin. Statistic after statistic, major crime goes up when it's dark.
It spikes from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. I used to drive my sons to college, and we would listen to the news on the way in. And it would be, so and so was stabbed, had such and such a place.
And there was a shooting on the street on that time. And I said to the guys, you ever notice when these happen? Like 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 150 a.m., sin loves darkness. But there is no darkness with God.
His light reveals it all. Jesus said that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. But even in the dark, even the darkest place that you might think you are, our deeds are seen and known by God. There is no such thing as darkness with God.
So I want to come to a conclusion on this. So what does this mean to me? I'm here. I'm at Northrop Bible Chapel, and it's almost quarter after 12.
If you're visiting with us, by the way, our services go to 1230, just so you know, I'm not 15 minutes over time. So we're sitting here. So what does this mean? Well, first of all, because God is omnipresent, here's the great hope.
You are never alone. You are never alone. Sometimes you feel alone. You lose your job.
You lose a loved one. You get a bad diagnosis from the doctor. Somebody leaves you and breaks a relationship. And you think, I'm all alone.
You are not all alone. If you are a believer, God is with you. You have his presence. You have his assurance that he is with you.
Isaiah chapter 43 verse 2, it says, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. As you go through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. Nor shall the flames scorch you.
The trials of life can be as difficult as rivers. That can be as overwhelming as a flood. That can be as torturous as walking through a fire. But in all of that, if you are a believer, God is with you.
And you can be assured that he is with you in those trials, in that difficulty. And because God is omnipresent, you can travel and live courageously. We don't need to be bound by fear of the presence or fear of the future. One of the things that I find today, one of the reasons I actually don't even put the news on, is there's this, it's a fear generator.
Like a fear generator. It's just like it's fired up and just gonna pump fear out all day long. COVID-19, crime, shootings, monkeypox. It's all this stuff, throwing at us all day long.
The scare us half to death. Folks, if you're a believer, you should not be in fear of any of this. You should not be in fear at all. We have nothing to fear.
This is red this morning. I was amazed at that. John well stood up at the Lord's Supper and Redness. Romans 835 and 39, 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 to be slaughtered or 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 creative thing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And if you want to, you can say amen. There is no reason for the Christian to be filled with fear. We have no reason at all to be filled with fear. We are conquerors through Christ who has died for us, who has given us life and who lives for us.
Because God is omnipresent, you are not accountable. Because He sees everything you do, He knows everything you've said. He's been there. You will be accountable.
There are no idle words before God. Because God is omnipresent, and I'm going to close with this, there are the Bible speaks of God's abiding presence with us. There are some great promises in the scriptures to encourage us that the Lord is with us. I can't emphasize enough how important it is for us to understand, if you're a believer, I can't emphasize enough how important it is for you to understand that in your trial, in your daily walk, in whatever you're going through, the Lord is there.
He is there. You can talk to Him. You can cry out to Him. You can question Him.
He has given you His very word right here to comfort your heart, to encourage your heart, to strengthen you, to give you guidance on the walk. It's a light for your path. It's the Word of God. He can speak to you through that.
He can put His Holy Spirit in you. Do not be discouraged, but be encouraged. The God knows you, and that He is there. He is there with you.
Let me read these passages from scripture. This is written to the children of Israel, but we can take it by illustration of a God who's with them. He is also with me. He says in Exodus chapter 3, verse 12, I will certainly be with you.
The word I like in that is certainly. I will certainly be with you. If I said to Him, I will certainly come to your house this afternoon. He knows I'm showing up.
If I said, I'll drop by. I might not. You don't know. But if I say, I'll certainly be at your house.
He knows for sure I'm showing up. In Joshua, he says, as Joshua was being charged to go into the land, he says, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. That's a promise from me. And then he says, do not be afraid, but speak.
And do not keep silent for I am with you. This is to Paul in Acts, Paul's facing trials, Paul's facing criticisms, Paul's facing prison, all of these things. Go ahead and speak. We have men who go down on the streets, and they speak the gospel with boldness.
Why? Because they know the abiding presence of God is with them. That's why they can do it. They're not doing this in their own strength.
Their weakest kittens, if you ask them, they're timid, scared, going down and doing this, but they do it in the power of God, because they know that God is with them. Deuteronomy 33 verse 27, the eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you. He thrusts out the enemy before you. It is he who cries, destroy them.
The first part of that first word I want to notice, the eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you. Finally in John 14 verse 16 to 17, he says, and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. The Holy Spirit will dwell in you.
God is with you, but perhaps this morning you're here and you think, I don't feel like that. I feel like he's far from me. You know, it's probably because you've moved away from him. It's not because he's left you.
You can return. It says of the Ephesians church in the book of Revelation that they left their first love. They didn't lose their first love. They left their first love.
And what does it say? It says three things. Remember? Remember him.
Remember the one who bought you with his own blood. Repent. Turn from the sin. Turn from the running and return to him.
You can do that today. If you're a believer and perhaps you just have gone through circumstances and difficulty, it says in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6, it says, believe that he is and he rewards those who diligently seek him. If you are not, if you've never come to Jesus Christ as your Savior, today is the day you can do that. The Bible says, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
You will know his presence forever. It will change your life dramatically forever. I didn't say your life will get better, but it will change your life because you will have the assurance of the presence of God forever in your life. For this life and for eternity, we talk yesterday, what's eternal life?
It does not start when you die. Eternal life starts the moment you say yes and surrender your life to Jesus Christ. And from that moment on, it's a quality of life, not a quantity of life. Your life will just be changed forever.
May you trust him today. Father, thank you this morning as we look at who you are and all that you have done, Lord, you are amazing God. You impress us upon our hearts. I thank you for your presence.
I thank you that when I've gone through trials, I thank you for my brothers and sisters who have gone through trials, even to the point of death. Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me. Father, we need to understand this more. We need to be reminded often that you are with us.
If there's anybody here this morning and they say, I haven't got a clue what you're talking about because I don't have the presence of God with me. Father, may they turn to the Lord Jesus, the one who died on the cross to take their sins. And may they come to him and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved and know his presence forever. We ask it in his name, amen.
Amen.