He Who is Ever Present

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Bill Smith; Psalm 139 He Who is Ever Present

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Good morning,
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Recast. Welcome. Welcome to church. So glad you're here.
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Hi, I'm Rob Knold. I'm an elder here at Recast, and it's my privilege to welcome you this morning to God's house.
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This is a chance to worship God together collectively as the body of Christ here in Matawan, and we're just so glad you came.
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If you're new here, I just want you to know you're welcome, and we'd love to get to meet you.
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Hopefully, there's a connection time later in the service, and we'd love to shake hands and introduce ourselves. I'm very privileged this morning to introduce
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Bill Smith as our preacher this morning. He also preached last week. Bill Smith is involved with a ministry.
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It's Youth for Christ, and he has been working with Youth for Christ now for 31 years in this area, in the
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Kalamazoo area, and we're just so grateful for Bill Smith, who's been a regular attender member here for a number of years and has preached on various occasions.
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As part of his job, he brings the word of God to young people in Kalamazoo and especially in some of the troubled areas, and I'm just thrilled with his ministry.
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I'm encouraged by his faithfulness to God's word, and I'm really excited that he'll be preaching today to tell us more about God, this amazing
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God we serve. Bill, welcome. Come on up and share your heart with us as an introduction to the worship this morning.
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Thank you, Rob. Good morning, everybody. I'm excited to be able to share once again and continue to explore
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Psalm 139 together. This psalm has been a tremendous encouragement to me through the years.
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Knowing the reality that God sees us, He hears us, He knows us,
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He loves us, He knows what each day holds. He's the ever -present one.
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Last week, we focused on God's omniscience, that He knows us inside and out.
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He knows all things. This week, we are going to focus on His omnipresence, which really kind of helps us understand
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His omniscience. You know, being in youth ministry for 31 years, working with troubled kids for those 31 years, just seeing so much darkness and so much heartache and so many troubled families, and then, you know, having challenges in our family like every family has, right?
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A tremendous comfort to me has been knowing that God is present and that when
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I seek Him out, when I set apart time to get alone with my
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Father in Heaven, that He is there waiting and that He walks like Psalm 23 says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you, oh
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God, are with me. And that has kept me going these 31 years and I hope for some more years to come,
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Lord willing. If you would open your Bibles, we are gonna read Psalm 139.
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If you don't have a Bible, there's some under the seats in front of you. And if you need a copy of God's Word, we would love for you to take that home with you.
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Psalm 139, and we will read the entire Psalm once again.
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Starting in verse one. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me.
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You know when I sit down, when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar.
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You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh
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Lord, you know it altogether. You have me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me.
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Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it. Where shall
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I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there.
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If I make my bed in Sheol, 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.
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If I say surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you.
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The night is bright as the day for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts.
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You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
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Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when
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I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance.
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In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them.
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How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
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I awake and I am still with you. Oh, that you would slay the wicked,
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O God. Oh, men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent.
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Your enemies take your name in vain. Do not I hate those who hate you,
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O Lord? And do not I loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with a complete hatred.
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I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart.
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Try me and know my thoughts and see if there is any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
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Amen. Last week, we looked at verses 1 -6.
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How God knows us inside and out. And we discovered, and many of us knew this truth, that God is the omniscient one.
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He's the all -knowing one. He is the one who searches the hearts. As in Romans, He's called
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He who searches the heart. He knows you and I inside and out.
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I don't have to go and explain my feelings to Him. I pour them out before Him because I need help.
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But He fully understands us like no one else can. He knows just what we need and He knows how to help us.
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He knows every thought that we think. And He hears every word that we speak.
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In fact, it's written that He knows what we're going to say before we even say it.
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And so, yes, He hears you. He hears your prayers.
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Hey, it doesn't matter if you're four or five or six or seven or three. I love to hear my grandkids pray.
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As soon as they were able to talk, they start talking to God.
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It's that simple. He knows our state of being, our feelings, our heartaches.
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He knows it all and He cares. He sees every move that we make. He knows what I'm going to do before I do it.
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He knows, again, every word that I speak. It says that He is before us and behind us.
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The truth is that we are always surrounded by His presence. That's going to be our focus today.
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It says that His hand is upon us and He has promised to never let us go.
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He is the Omniscient One. So faithful, so true, that He loves us and He bears with us and He continues to hold us through the ups and downs of life.
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Knowing this truth, we can have confidence that He hears our prayers. And for me, that is huge.
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That I know that He hears when I'm praying. Well, how is it possible that He can have that kind of knowledge of all 7 .6
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billion people on this earth all around the globe at the same moment?
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That's the beautiful truths that we're going to explore this morning as we dig more into Psalm 139.
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So I would like to pray and then we will go into our worship time this morning.
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Father, just thank You that You are here present with us. That You have been with us every moment since we were here last
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Sunday. Hearing us, Father, seeing us, knowing our heartaches, knowing that groaning within us,
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Lord, as we have all struggled in different ways. You are an ever -present help, it says in Your Word, and I thank
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You so much for that. I know that You have helped me and my family through a tough week.
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And You were there every moment, loving us, holding us. And that's who
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You are. You're the best parent ever. You're the best Savior, mighty to save.
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You're the best physician. Lord, You know just how we need
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Your healing touch in our lives. And even this morning, Father, I know there's some very weary hearts in here, people going through tough things.
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Father, looking at our world kind of going crazy, and that all weighs on us.
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And I just pray that this morning we could take joy in knowing that You are the ever -present
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One. And even now, hearing our praises as we sing and worship You, Father, thank
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You. Thank You for our church family this morning, that You love us,
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You know us each by name, every one of us. You knit us together in our mother's womb, as it is written in this psalm, that You are our maker,
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You are our Father, our friend. We love You, Father, and just pray this morning that You would encourage us as we meet with You, that we would walk out of this building this morning wanting to know
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You in deeper ways, Father, with a heart to seek You in deeper ways.
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And so we just pray all together that You would do something special here this morning as we so desperately need
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You. We love You, we thank You, and we praise You this morning. In Jesus' name, Amen. As Rob mentioned,
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I have the privilege of serving at Youth for Christ. And through the years,
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I've had opportunities for different ministry outreaches. I served at a school called
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Vine Street Alternative School that was behind the old Centro. It was a middle school, high school for young people who had been struggling in the other middle school, high schools in Kalamazoo.
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We called it Club, Campus Life Club, after school. I got to know a lot of those students through those years, and I liked to walk through the hallways.
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I would go there and have lunch with the kids, and I'd like to look at their artwork and their writings and things like that.
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And one day I was reading some of the things that they had posted in the hallway, and a young man that I knew, his name was
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Juan, had written this beautiful tribute to his dad.
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And I was so touched by that because a lot of the young people that I work with, they don't have good relationships with their dad or if their dad is even in their life.
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So when I saw Juan, I asked him about it, and he told me this story. He said when his family moved to Kalamazoo, he didn't speak very good
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English, and he was in elementary school, and they lived close enough to walk to school, so he didn't have a bus to get on, and so he would have to walk to school every day.
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And he said that kids would tease him because of his broken English. He didn't speak
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English very well, and he was new, and he was small, and he would get picked on a lot.
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But he said every day his dad would walk him to school, and as long as his dad was by his side, nobody messed with him.
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He felt safe. But unfortunately, his dad couldn't stay with him all day at school, but his dad would come back and walk him home, and as long as his father was with him, he felt safe and protected and at peace.
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And it made me think of our Heavenly Father, that knowing and understanding the presence of the
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Father, that He is always with us, what a tremendous difference that can make in our lives, that we don't have to walk this life alone, that we don't have to live in fear, because we have a perfect, loving
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Heavenly Father who is with us every moment. That's kind of what
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I want to explore with you all this morning, the omnipresence of God.
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Let's start in verses 7 through 12, so go ahead and open up to Psalm 139 once again.
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Verses 1 through 6 states the truth that God knows everything about us, and so the question would be, how can
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God have that complete knowledge to know every thought that I think and to hear every word that I speak?
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And verses 7 through 12 explain it. So let's just read through that, and then we're going to take it apart kind of a verse at a time.
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So the question is asked, where shall I go from your spirit, or where shall
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I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
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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.
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If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you.
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The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
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Now notice that the psalmist makes this personal, and I want you to make this personal as well.
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He asks the question, where shall I go? So personalize this.
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The question is such an important question. The question basically that he is asking is, is there anywhere where God is not there?
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Is there anywhere in all of creation where I am not in the presence of God?
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And this word spirit in verse seven is a very important word as far as helping us to understand the omnipresence of God.
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In the Hebrew, it is ruach. It's an interesting word because it's translated, not just spirit, so it's translated spirit 232 times in the
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Old Testament. So it's used that way the most, but this word is also translated from the
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Hebrew to the English with the word air and breath and wind.
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92 times in the Old Testament, this word spirit is translated wind. So you have to think what is the commonality between these things?
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Well, the first thing that I think of is that they are all invisible. They're see -through.
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You can't see the wind, you can't see breath unless it's really cold and you see the moisture, and you can't see air, but it's real, right?
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And these things are life -giving. And so the
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Hebrew takes this word for spirit, so the essence of this Hebrew word is that God is spirit, he's invisible, he's not material.
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He is ruach, he's like the wind. We can't see the wind, but we can see the wind move things, can't we?
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We can feel the wind when we step into it, and as we begin to seek God, we can begin to experience his moving in our life.
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That's when I knew that God loved us when I saw him begin to move in my best friend and set him free from drug addiction.
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I couldn't see God, but I could see his spirit moving, and when I opened my life to Jesus, I began to feel the spirit of God moving in my life.
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And I couldn't believe the peace that he had brought to this troubled heart of this 20 -year -old young man who was so lost, and I began to feel that wind of the spirit in my life.
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So he asked the question, is there anywhere I can go where your spirit is not there? Now Jesus, he met this woman at the well, and many of you know this story, and she was a
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Samaritan, and Jesus was speaking to her, and she was surprised that Jesus would even speak to her because the
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Samaritans and the Jews, they just simply did not like each other. And they started up this conversation.
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I wanna come into this conversation, so put a bookmarker in Psalm 139, and come with me now to John chapter four, verse 20, and we're gonna pick up this conversation, this encounter that Jesus was having with this woman, and know that this woman was an outcast in her village.
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She was looked down upon. She came out to get her water when she knew the other ladies wouldn't be there because she'd been with many men, and she just, she was not accepted among the other ladies in her village.
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And she's having this encounter with Jesus, and she becomes amazed at what
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Jesus is saying, and she says, you know, you're a prophet. And then she asks
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Jesus a very important question. And we'll pick it up in verse 20. She asks
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Jesus, our father's worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
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Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the
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Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the
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Jews. But the hour is coming, and it's now here. When the true worshipers will worship the
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Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
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God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
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Her question to Jesus basically was, where do I need to go to find
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God? My people say that up on this mountain. If we go up there and we seek
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God, he'll hear us. But you Jews say you have to go to the temple, and so she's saying, where do
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I need to go to find God? And Jesus says, you're thinking of this wrong.
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God is a spirit, and as spirit, he is everywhere present. He is not limited by time or space.
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I don't have to go to a temple to meet with God. I don't have to climb a mountain and shout up into the heavens for him to hear me, because the truth is that he is an ever -present spirit.
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Solomon, when they were getting ready to build the temple, spoke these words in 2
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Chronicles 2 .6. He said, but who is able to build him a house since heaven, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him?
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Whom am I to build a house for him, except as a place to make offerings before him?
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And so David and Solomon both acknowledged that this temple, this place of worship, was not the house of God.
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It was a place of worship, a place to come and learn his word and to offer the sacrifices.
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But God is so beyond a temple, he's so beyond a church, that the heavens and the earth are contained within him.
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But the Jews began to get this wrong impression that really, to really meet with God and connect with him, the temple was the place to go.
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And it was a beautiful place to seek God. And they began to feel like God was not present among the other nations.
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In fact, they considered the other nations and the other places on earth as God -forsaken.
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And when Jeremiah and Isaiah were given the prophecy that Babylon was gonna come in and conquer
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Israel and that their people were gonna be taken captive to a foreign land, they were very troubled because they would not be able to go to the temple and connect and worship with God.
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Surely God's not in that pagan nation of Babylon, they thought, that was their thinking.
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But God comes to the prophet Jeremiah to make this clear. Turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 23 now.
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Jeremiah chapter 23, verse 23. So we've kind of been asking
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God questions like where can I go from your spirit? Where should I worship, this mountain or in the temple?
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And now God is going to ask us a question. We pick it up in verse 23.
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You notice the quotation marks, and the prophet Jeremiah heard the voice of God. That would be something, wouldn't it?
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To hear the literal voice of God. And he has done that many times in years past, but now we have his complete revelation.
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And so he speaks to us through his word. Verse 23, God asks this question, am
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I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?
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Can any, can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him, declares the
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Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth, declares the Lord? And he's asking this question, like this is an obvious question with an obvious answer.
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That yes, God, you cannot hide from God. We saw that last week. You cannot go anywhere on this earth where God is not there.
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And he's telling Jeremiah, I will be there with you in Babylon.
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I am in that nation also. God is everywhere present.
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God fills all space. There's not a spot which he is not present. An unbelieving philosopher asks this question, where is
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God? To which the believer said, let me first ask you, where is he not?
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He's everywhere present. The darkest, deepest prison to hear this morning,
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God is everywhere present. Carl Linnaeus, and I'm probably saying his last name wrong, he was a very famous botanist, physician, zoologist from the 1700s, and even today, they are still studying his writings and using things that he discovered.
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He testified in his conversations, writings, and actions, the greatest sense of God's presence.
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So strongly, indeed, was he impressed with the idea that he wrote in Latin over the door of his library, live innocently,
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God is present. Live innocently, God is present.
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In other words, everything we do is in his very presence. And that changed things, doesn't it?
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The way we treat people, he sees it, the way we treat family members.
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Are we honest in what we're doing? He's present there when we're watching television, or we're exploring the internet.
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He sees every webpage that comes up, he knows.
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Shouldn't that, knowing that God is there present, shouldn't that make a difference, right?
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Because he sees and he knows. Let's go back to Psalm 139 now.
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Not only does it ask the question, where can we go from your presence, or excuse me, your spirit, but where shall
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I flee from your presence? Not only is he everywhere present with his spirit, but he is fully aware everywhere.
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So we could have an understanding that, yes, God's spirit fills the heavens and the earth, but not his eyes, his face, his attention toward me.
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This word presence is in the Hebrew panim, and it literally means the face, that's what this word means.
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So the literal translation would be, where can I flee from your face? That's interesting, isn't it?
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It's this word, this Hebrew word is translated 390 times in the Old Testament with the word face.
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In 76 times it's translated presence, in 30 times it's translated countenance.
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So it's the idea of being right there in someone's presence, having their full attention.
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The question is literally, where can I flee from your face, God, where you're not beholding me with your full and complete attention?
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Not only is God's spirit present everywhere, but he is fully present everywhere. I learned a new word in the last week.
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Ubiquity, you ever heard that one? Okay, I hadn't really heard it, I'd never used it before.
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I had to even go to the dictionary that pronounces it for me properly, and I think
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I'm saying it right. But ubiquity is a word that theologians use to describe this characteristic of God, and it's the state of being everywhere all the time.
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God is a great example of ubiquity, an all -knowing deity that exists in every nook and cranny.
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So it's the idea of not only being present somewhere, but being fully present, fully aware, in every place in all of creation.
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R .C. Sproul, if you ever get a chance to read any of his writings, he's written some really good teachings on who
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God is. And I was recently reading out of a book that he had written entitled
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Discovering the God Who Is. And this is where I discovered the word ubiquity, and this was before I was even working on this message, and I just highlighted this paragraph because I liked it so much.
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He says, ubiquity more clearly expresses what we mean by the immensity of God.
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Its literal meaning is equal awareness. The idea of this, wherever God is present, he is fully present.
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That is, he is present in the fullness of his being. When believers live in Los Angeles, they enjoy the fullness of the presence of God.
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At the same time, believers in New York also enjoy the fullness of the presence of God. He can be everywhere equally present.
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I like that. When I meet with him in the morning, in my special little corner, in my special little chair,
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I love this little spot. Now, once it gets nicer, it's out on the porch or the deck.
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I love to have my quiet time out there. And I open his word. God is fully present there.
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And I know he smiles when we open his word, and he's ready to speak into our lives.
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He's ready for us to have a genuine encounter with him, not just a, oh, I need to do my devotions today, and I read a little, and I say a short prayer.
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Is that a genuine, sincere connection with him? That's what he longs for, for us to meet with him, because he is there, fully present, wanting to speak into our lives.
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Now, the psalmist is going to go through a series of places asking, is
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God here, is he here, is he here? Look at verse eight,
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Psalm 139. He asks the question, if I ascend to heaven, you are there?
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Actually, he's making the statement now at this point. If I ascend into heaven, you are there?
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If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there? Well, I would expect him to be in heaven, right?
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And oftentimes, we do think of God as being way up there, somewhere in the heavens, but not so much so near me.
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But the truth is that he is. This word heaven in the
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Hebrew, it means the surrounding atmosphere, the earth's atmosphere, the sky.
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Sometimes this word heaven is translated sky. It also means the outward atmosphere of what we would call space.
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The stars, the planets, all are contained within God. They're all within him.
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He is everywhere present in the heavens. In this heaven, this air that surrounds us.
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He's just like, I remember this little, from my Awana days, this little simple saying, just like the air,
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God is always there. I like it. It rhymes, it's nice. Just like the air,
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God is always there. He fills the entire universe. Now, then he talks about if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
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Now, now, this is getting, okay, Sheol, all right. What is Sheol? Well, the
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Hebrew definition was Hades or the world of the dead. And back under, in Old Testament times, they considered
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Sheol as the holding place. So there were two sections of Sheol.
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There was the place of paradise. Jesus told the story of the rich man, Lazarus, who died and found himself being tormented in these flames.
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So that was the dark side, the side where unbelievers were kept in Sheol until the final judgment.
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And then there was the place of paradise. Jesus called it Abraham's side.
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And you know the story of the poor beggar who went there and he was comforted in this paradise. That's Old Testament theology.
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We know today that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, if we're believers, children of God, under the new covenant.
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But David, under Old Testament theology, says, is God in Sheol? Now, this word
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Sheol, it didn't just have reference to the grave, though. It was used figuratively.
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It was used of the dark places of the earth. And I wanna talk about that a little bit.
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But you know, as I was studying this out and this concept of Sheol, and I referenced the treasury of David last week, and that's a beautiful commentary on the
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Psalms. Charles Spurgeon, any of his books are really good, deep teachings.
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I liked what he said about, is God in Sheol? And so I'm going to read a quote from the treasury of David.
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He said, if I make my bed in hell, Sheol, it's often, that's what they would sometimes, or at least in the
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English, we would refer to it as hell. Behold, you are there, descending in the lowest imaginable depths among the dead.
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There should we find the Lord. Thou, says the psalmist, as if he felt that God was the one great existence in all places.
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Whatever Hades may be, or whoever may be there, one thing is certain, thou,
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O Jehovah, art there. Two regions, the one of glory and the other of darkness, are set in contrast, and this one fact is asserted of both.
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Thou art there. Thou art there. I just did a funeral yesterday for,
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I kind of considered him my dad. I grew, his son is my best friend, and Dayton was a believer, and that was an easy funeral to do, because I was able to tell him, hey,
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I got good news for you all. Dayton is more fully alive than we are, because he is fully alive in the kingdom of God and the presence of Jesus.
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Now, this word sheol, it's often translated the pit or the grave. This idea of the pit, it speaks of the dark places of the earth, so this same word that meant the place of the dead also meant the place of the living dead, the place of darkness, the place of despair, the place that the drug addict finds himself or herself in, so trapped and so in darkness, experiencing this slow death.
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God is there in that pit. I'm guessing that if you've been on this earth for very long, you have experienced this pit, this place of darkness, where you feel like God is not there.
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He's there. He's there in the lowest and the darkest of times.
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He's there for when that drug addict turns and cries out for mercy and salvation.
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We find this word in Psalm 30. Turn there with me, Psalm 30. Look at verses two and three of Psalm 30.
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This is David's cry to God. David knew this pit. He knew this darkness, this place of the living dead.
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Verse two, oh Lord, my God, I cried out to you for help, and you have healed me.
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Oh Lord, you have brought up my soul from sheol. You restored to me my life from among those who go down to the pit.
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David isn't talking about rising from the grave, but he says I was in that pit,
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I was in that sheol, and I cried out to you, and you heard me, and you rescued me, and you healed me, and you brought me out of that dark place because the moment
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I cried out, you were ever present. You were just waiting, saying my child,
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I love you, I can help you, I can rescue you from this darkness. That's beautiful.
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Look at Psalm 40, verses one through three. Another Psalm of David.
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Boy, he went through some dark times, hiding out in caves. He had the whole Israeli army after him at times.
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Even after he became king, his own son, Absalom raised up a revolt against him, and he had to flee for his life out of Jerusalem.
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He made a lot of mistakes, had a lot of failures, got himself into some pretty deep pits in his life.
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But again, his testimony, Psalm 40, verses one through three, he says I waited patiently for the
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Lord, and he inclined to me, he heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
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He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the
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Lord. Yes, he can lift us out of those depths of despair. Turn back now with me to Psalm 139.
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Let's look at verses nine and 12. He says 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.
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Again, this thought that God is everywhere present among every nation, among all people.
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We are as near to God as our soul is to our body. This makes it a dreadful work to sin, for we offend the
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Almighty to his face, and commit acts of treason at the very foot of his throne. Charles Spurgeon said that as he studied this out.
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And I thought, wow. Yes, he sees the good, but he also sees the ugly.
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He said this makes it a dreadful work to sin, for we offend the Almighty to his face.
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Remember, he is always facing us. He sees us when we're being ugly and selfish, hurting people, and commit acts of treason at the very foot of his throne.
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And I know we don't wanna do that. We need to be aware that we are always fully in his presence.
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He promises his hand leading us at the end of verse 10. Wherever we go, it says, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
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And he promises his children, his sons and his daughters, I will never, never leave you, nor forsake you.
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I will not let you go. Jesus said, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
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It says in Acts 17, 28, for in him, God, we live and move and have our being.
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The very atmosphere that we live in is the presence of God. For a fish, their atmosphere is water.
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For a bird, their atmosphere is air. For us, our atmosphere is the very spirit and presence of God.
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That is how near that he is. So Cheryl and I, for many years, we were
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Juana leaders, and we worked with sparks. K through two, kindergarteners through, what a fun age, what a cute age, right?
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And I got to often do the Bible lessons, and every year I would do the same lesson, and I tried to find the picture book.
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It was a big book like this, and it was entitled Boy Afraid. And I just so vividly remember this because it was about a boy who was afraid of the dark, and he hated bedtime because he knew that his mom was gonna shut the light off and leave the room, and he would lay there with the covers over his head.
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I remember that as a kid, like thinking there was monsters in the closet or under my bed, being afraid of the dark, and knowing that so many of these children were afraid of the dark.
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And in this story, his mom realized what was going on, and one night she said, Johnny, can I read you something from God's word?
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And she began to read Psalm 139, and she came to the verses 11 and 12.
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If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you.
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The night is as bright as day, for darkness is as light to you. And the little boy thought about that, and he said, mom, can you read that again?
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And she read it, and he said, God is here with me in the darkness,
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God sees me here, I don't have to be afraid.
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And that day, Johnny learned that God was there in the darkness. God is there in our dark times.
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This Hebrew word for dark is koshak, and it literally means dark or darkness, but figuratively it means misery, destruction, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness.
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It's translated dark, darkness, night, and obscurity. God, again, he is there, he's with us in the dark times, ready to see us through, ready to help us.
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He's there in times of darkness and despair, the darkness that sin can bring into our lives, he can bring us out of that,
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God is fully aware. So think about, how do you get rid of darkness?
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I remember we were doing chapel in the old juvenile home that has, many years ago, since been torn down, and we used this basement room, they call it the all -purpose room, and it was basically the basement of the juvenile home, and one night a thunderstorm came through, and we could hear it booming, and all of a sudden the lights went out, and I'm telling you, it was pitch black, there was no windows, there was nothing, and you couldn't see the hand in front of your face, and I'm down there with about 40 of the young people from the juvenile home and the staff, and we're like, total silence, and all of a sudden, boom, the lights popped, the generator kicked in, and man, that darkness was gone, just like that.
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The only way that you can get away, get rid of the darkness, you can't shovel it out, you can't sweep it out, you can't push it out, you can't philosophize it out, the only way to get rid of the darkness is to turn on the light.
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Man, Jesus met this woman, she was in darkness, she had been caught in adultery, it says in the very act in John eight, and they dragged her to the temple right before Jesus, and they said, the law says that we should stone such a woman as this, but what do you say?
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And he said, he who is without sin casts the first stone, and they all dropped their stones and walked away, and this woman, in her guilt and shame, being trapped in this darkness, in this sinful relationship, standing before Jesus, and he says, does anyone condemn you?
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She said, no one, Lord. He said, neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. And then he made this promise in John eight, 12, he said,
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I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.
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And so it's Jesus that drives away that darkness. It's the presence of God, it's us coming into his presence through prayer, that the darkness flees.
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Sometimes I'll just say, Father, command the evil one, command the demons to flee from this place, because there's something going on beyond the human eye.
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And as believers, we have authority to pray that prayer, and he's the light that drives away that darkness.
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And he can take away the darkness from our lives. We don't have to fear the darkness, because God is there.
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Well, let's continue on here in Psalm 139. Not only does he see what's in the darkness, but he is fully aware of us.
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Verses 13 through 16 talk about God being our creator, that he knit us together in our mother's womb.
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He knows how we are wired, each one of us individually, and we are all wired differently.
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And he knows us, he understands us, he knows what we need, he knows how to help us.
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Praying for God, for that kind of leading and transformation, because he is there.
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He knows what each day holds, that's what it says in verse 16, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
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God knew them, he knows which each day holds forth for us.
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Psalm 48, 14, for this is God, our God, forever and ever he will be our
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God, even to death. Okay, so, you know, look at me,
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I got some gray hairs, right, okay, and they're here too, and you know, I watch my dad age and go through that phase of his life, and my mom, and now we're dealing, experiencing that with Cheryl's mom, and you know,
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I was kind of dreading the old age, anybody there, okay, you know what I'm talking about, and I found this promise, and I just have to share it with you, please look at Isaiah 46 with me.
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Isaiah 46, verses three and four, you know, because I'm in the word every day, and I just continue to read through the
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Bible, and I start again, and God, such an amazing book, he shows us new things every time we go through passages, even that are familiar, and I was reading, and you know, experiencing this with my dad, and seeing all of his health failures, and all of his doctor visits, and it was getting me depressed,
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I'll be honest with you, and I was reading in the word Psalm 46, and I came to the scripture, verse three,
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God says, listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, believers, children of God, who have been born by me from before your birth, and carried from the womb, even to your old age,
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I am he, and to gray hairs, I will carry you, I have made you, and I will bear you, and I will carry you, and save you.
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I'm like, ah, let me read that again. He said, I've been carrying you all along,
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Bill, I will carry you until that final day, I will carry you through that phase of your life of old age, and I don't have to dread it,
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I don't have to fear it, he promises that he'll be with us every day.
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Verses 17 and 18 of Psalm 139, how precious to me are your thoughts,
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O God, how fast is the sum of them, if I should count them, they are more than the sand. When I awake,
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I am still with thee. How precious, that word precious in the Hebrew means valuable to be prized.
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God thinks about you, not only does he know your thoughts, but you are in the thoughts of God, isn't that something?
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That he thinks about you, he's fully aware of you. And David said, your thoughts, your word is precious to me.
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Psalm 19 says that the word of God is more precious than gold, and much fine gold, sweeter than the honey in the honeycomb, wow, what, we are blessed with the revelation of God, the thoughts of God, that we can be in them every day.
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What a blessing his word is, what a blessing it is that God knows me, and that he is thinking about us, and that he promises
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I will always be with you. So now, just briefly, because these words don't seem to quite fit in Psalm 139, and I'm always like, what, okay?
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David talks about the wicked in verse 19. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, oh God, oh man of blood, depart from me.
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They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, oh
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Lord? And do not I loathe those who rise up against you?
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I hate them with a complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Wow, that seems harsh, doesn't it?
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Well, you know, under the Old Testament, the believers had this awareness of the holiness of God, and the justice and judgment of God, and they weren't familiar with the grace of God, like we are blessed to be, knowing the coming of Jesus, and the cross, and when
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David looked at his culture, and when he looked at the violence, and the evil, and the wickedness that surrounded him, it abhorred him, after this revelation of the presence of God, to go home and look at pornography on the internet.
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After knowing this truth, isn't that abhorrent? And David was abhorred with the evil, and he cried out against it, for God to take vengeance.
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Now we know, in the New Testament, we're under the new covenant. We know the amazing grace of God.
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We know that we're to love the sinner, the lost, not their lifestyle, not what they're doing, but we're to love all people.
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Jesus put it this way, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so you may be sons of your
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Father, who is heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil, and on the good, and sends rain on the just, and the unjust.
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Knowing the amazing grace of God, and the love of God, and the price that he paid at the cross, yes, we should be abhorred by evil, says 1
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Thessalonians, abstain from every form of evil, child of God, but we are to love that one who's trapped in it, and pray for them, and seek to bring them the light, and I'm so glad that that happened to me, when
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I was lost, and trapped in my sin. Now in closing, this is our application, the last two verses, look at this with me.
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After this revelation of God's omniscience, and his omnipresence, and the revelation that David was created by God, and his days were numbered, or his days,
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God promised that he would be with him, and this abhorrence, in the light of God's presence of evil, he cries out to God, search me,
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O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
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He cries out to God, search me, O God, and know me. If there's an offensive way in me, show me,
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Father. We all have ways in us that are offensive, in the face of God, but he is long -suffering, and patient, and merciful, and forgiving.
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My first application is open your heart fully to him, be real, he knows you inside and out, he already knows your struggle, and he still loves you, and he's ready to help you change it, he's ready to help you get through it, and I have seen him set people free from the unimaginable darkness.
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Be totally and honest with him, number two, about the condition of your heart.
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I tell him things that I tell no one else about my struggles, because I know he understands, he already is fully aware of them,
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I can be totally honest, he's my loving father who wants to help change and transform me. Number three, ask him to show you those things in your life that need healing and transformation, ask him to help you, and to change those things.
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You see, we should never stop growing, right? We should never stop being transformed, there's still areas in my life, even though I've been walking with Christ for 40 years now, that need transformation, and that will be the case until he calls me home.
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Number four, take time every day to meet with your father, seek his presence, seek his face, open his word, listen to him, pour out your heart before him, he is waiting and longing to spend time alone with each of us.
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And then number five, daily and moment by moment seek his leading, seek his leading.
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I hope that you found some encouragement through that psalm, that's been my prayer for weeks as I've been praying over this and studying and putting down some thoughts,
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I hope it was a blessing to you, I hope even as I study this out, it's made a difference in my life in this last,
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I've probably been working on these for about four weeks now here and there as I have time, and it's made a difference for me, and I hope it does for you as well.
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So, Father, just thank you that you see us, you hear us, you know us, you love us, you prove that through the cross and the shed blood, that we are your sons and daughters and you're the best dad ever, ready to help us at any moment, fully aware, seeing us and hearing us.
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Father, help us to have the awareness of this revelation and to walk in light of your presence,