Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?
The omnipresence of God
I. Lay down some positions.
1. God is intimately and essentially in all parts and places of the world. One of the heathen, being asked to give a description of what God was, tells us most admirably, “God is a sphere, whose centre is every-where, and whose circumference is nowhere”: a raised apprehension of the Divine nature in a heathen! And another, being demanded what God was, made answer, that “God is an Infinite Point”; than which nothing can be said more (almost) or truer, to declare this omnipresence of God. It is reported of Heraclitus the philosopher, when his friend came to visit him, being in an old rotten hovel, “Come in, come in,” saith he, “for God is here.” God is in the meanest cottage as well as in the stateliest palace; for God is everywhere present and sees all things.
2. God is not only present in the world, but He is infinitely existent also without the world, and beyond all things but Himself (1 Kings 8:27; Isaiah 66:1-2).
3. As God exists everywhere, so all and whole God exists everywhere, because God is indivisible.
II. Rational demonstrations.
1. God is present everywhere.
(1) From His unchangeableness.
(2) From His preservation of all things in their beings.
2. But God exists not only in the world, but infinitely beyond the world also.
(1) From the infiniteness of His nature and essence.
(2) From the infiniteness of His perfections.
(3) From His almighty power.
(4) From His eternity.
III. Answer some objections.
1. These places which speak of going to, and departing from, places, seem to oppose God’s ubiquity, because motion is inconsistent with God’s omnipresence (Genesis 18:21; Habakkuk 3:3). I answer: These and the like Scriptures are not to be taken literally, but as accommodate to cur capacity and conception, even as parents, when they speak to their little children, will sometimes lisp and babble in their language; so God oftentimes condescends to us in speaking our language for the declaring of those things which are far above cur reach.
2. The Scripture tells us that hereafter in heaven we shall see God as He is: but is not that impossible? I answer, Such Scriptures are not to be understood as if the capacities of angels, much less of men, are, or ever shall be, wide and capacious enough to contain the infinite greatness of God. No, His omnipresence is not comprehended by angels themselves, nor shall be by man for ever; but it must be understood comparatively. Our vision and sight of God here is but through a glass darkly; but in heaven it shall be with so much more brightness and clearness that, in comparison of the obscure and glimmering way whereby we know God here, it may be called a seeing of Him face to face, and knowing Him as we are known by Him.
3. It may seem no small disparagement to God to be everywhere present. What! for the glorious majesty of God to be present in such vile and filthy places as are here upon earth? To this I answer--
(1) God doth not think it any disparagement to Him, nor think it unworthy of Him, to know and make all these which we call vile and filthy places; why, then, should we think it unworthy of Him to be present there?
(2) God is a Spirit, and is not capable of any pollution or defilement from any vile or filthy things. The sunbeams are no more tainted by shining on a dunghill than they are by shining on a bed of spices.
(3) The vilest things that are have still a being that is good in their own kind, and as well pleasing to God as those things which we put a greater value and esteem upon.
(4) It reflects no more dishonour upon God to be present with the vilest creatures than to be present with the noblest and highest, because the angels are at an infinite distance from God. There is a greater disproportion between God and the angels than there is between the vilest worm and an angel; all are at an infinite distance to His glory and majesty.
IV. Application.
1. Is God thus infinitely present everywhere, and thus in and with all His creatures, then what an encouragement is here unto prayer. The voice in prayer is necessary--
(1) As it is that which God requires should be employed in His service, for this is the great end why our tongues were given to us, that by them we might bless and serve God (James 3:9).
(2) When in private it may be a help and means to raise up our own affections and devotions, then the voice is requisite, keeping it still within the bounds of decency or privacy.
(3) In our joining also with others, it is a help likewise to raise and quicken their affections; otherwise, were it not for these three reasons, the voice is no more necessary to make known our wants to God than it is to make them known to our own hearts; for God is always in us and with us, and knows what we have need of before we ask it.
2. As the consideration of God’s omnipresence should encourage us in prayer, as knowing that God certainly hears us, so it should affect us with a holy awe and reverence of God in all our prayers and duties, and in the whole course of our lives and conversations. Certainly it is an excellent meditation to prepare our hearts to duty, and to compose them in duty, to be much pondering the omnipresence of God, to think that I am with God, He is present in the room with me, even in the congregation with me, and likewise in my closet, and in all my converse and dealings in the world. How can it be possible for that man to be frothy and vain that keeps this thought alive in his heart? (Bishop Hopkins.)
Omnipresence of God
I. The important truth which is here set forth.
II. The striking and emphatic manner in which this great truth is here presented (verse 7).
III. The effects which the contemplation of this sublime theme should produce.
1. Let the believer draw from it the consolation which it is so peculiarly adapted to impart. “Fear not, for I am with you.”
2. The omnipresence of God is adapted also to admonish.
3. This subject is full of terror to the ungodly. (Expository Outlines.)
The encompassing, all-pervading God
This psalm is as near an approach to Pantheism as the Bible ever gets; yet it is wholly distinct from Pantheism. It does not make everything a part of God, but insists that God is in everything and every place. The writer feels Him in every movement of the circling air, and hears Him in every sound. God is here, and there, and everywhere, in the heights and in the depths, in the darkness and the light, filling all star-lit spaces and searching each human heart.
I. The spirit and presence which no man can escape. It is a bit of his own story. He had not always found peace and joy in the overshadowing of Divine love. There had been a load upon his conscience, and torturing guilt in his heart. He had endeavoured to run away from the wrath which his sin had provoked, from the unsleeping justice which pursued him, from the witness of God in his own reproaching conscience. He had tried to silence the rebuking voice, to quiet the disturbing fears, to forget his own thoughts and hide himself from himself. And the effort had been vain, impotent, impossible. Everywhere he heard the still small voice, and felt the Unseen Presence. Everywhere God makes Himself felt by men, in kindness, if possible, and if not, then in wrath. Men must believe in Him; they cannot help it. Kill their religion a hundred times, and it has a hundred resurrections. It is in all men. It is the fire which never goes quite out. Atheism is never more than a wave on the sea of humanity, which rises, falls, and quickly disappears. God will not let Himself be denied and forgotten. He speaks in too many voices for that; through nature and conscience, sins, penalties, and guilty terrors; through life’s changes, uncertainties, sorrows, and misfortunes; through pain, and death, and human gladness, and human mystery; through returning seasons and unerring laws; through the works of righteousness and the wages of iniquity, He is ever about us. His presence is in every heart, and He laughs at the folly which thinks to escape Him.
II. Rest and confidence and joy which His Spirit and presence give to those who recognize Him every-where, and walk in His light and love. If a man aspires after goodness, he will wish to be always near the one Source of goodness. If he is making a brave fight against his sins, he will always want to feel the mighty hand upon him from which alone comes victory; and if he is worn and worried with the dark problems and mysteries of life, nothing will satisfy him but the thought that Divine light and wisdom are moving and working in all that darkness. Get to feel that His light and wisdom are everywhere, that His love, pity, and forbearance are everywhere, that His providential care is everywhere, that His ear is everywhere open to your prayers, and His mercy is everywhere on the wing to bring you answers, and then your remotest thought will be how you can escape Him. Your every-day cry will be, “Come nearer, make Thyself felt. Compass me about, hold me fast.” It is the all-pervading presence of God that makes life bearable to him, and the one thing which makes the Christian life possible. If God were not in your place of business your hearts would grow hard as nails. If God were not in your homes your sweetest affections would become stale and sour. If God were not in your places of temptation you would never enter them without falling. If the Spirit of God did not visit you in the thronging streets and the giddy world you would degenerate into coarse worldliness. If He were not everywhere, painting Himself afresh on your hearts and minds, you would lose all sense of His beauty. If He were absent from your scenes of sorrow, if you did not feel His hand holding yours in hours of pain, and by the death-bed side, you would be overcome with fear or die of heart-break. We live because He lives everywhere. We hope because He revives His promises in us everywhere. (J. O. Greenhough, M. A.)
The cry of the sage, the sinner, and the saint
Look at this language as used--
I. By the sage The philosopher has asked a thousand times, is God everywhere? Or is there a district in immensity where He is not? Taking the language as his question, he assumes--
1. That He has a “presence,” a personal existence: that He is as distinct from the universe as the musician from his music, as the painter from his pictures, as the soul from the body.
2. That His presence is detected as far as his observations extend. He discovers Him far up as the most powerful telescope can reach, and down in the most infinitesimal forms of life: and he concludes that He is present where the eye has never reached, and where the imagination has never travelled.
II. By the sinner. In the mouth of the sinner this language means--
1. Thy presence is an evil. His presence makes the hell of the damned. The rays of His effulgent purity are the flames in which corrupt spirits burn and writhe.
2. Escape from Thy presence is an impossibility.
III. By the saint. In the impossibility of escape I rejoice; for “In Thy presence there is fulness of joy,” etc. (Homilist.)
The omnipresent God
I. God in all modes of personal existence. These are all covered by the contrast between heaven and hell, than which no words would suggest a completer contrast to every thoughtful Hebrew. Heaven was the scene of the highest personal activity; it was the abode of Him with whom was “the fountain of life”; there dwelt cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels, all rejoicing in the highest exercise of thought and the noblest powers of service. Hell--or the grave, the place of the dead--was the end of thought, the cessation of employment, the abode of silence and corruption. And yet, dark and lonesome as was the thought of dying, there was this one ray of comfort in the prospect--that death was of God’s appointment; as much as the heaven of His own abode, it was beneath the rule of God. There are times when to us, too, there is unspeakable rest in the assurance that God is in the appointment of death as truly, though not as clearly, as He is in His own heaven. How many who dreaded the desolation of bereavement have found that God is there. They are not alone, for the Father, the Saviour, the Comforter, is with them; the discipline of bereavement is as Divine as the sweeter training of companionship. Did we but see what noble issues have been wrought for men by death; how it has refined affection and chastened passion, and given scope to patience, and cultured hope; how it has surrounded men’s pathway with angels, and breathed a saintlier spirit into common lives; we should gain a nobler vision than before of the presence and meaning of God in death.
II. God in the yet untrodden ways of human history. The ninth verse gives us an image of the psalmist, standing by the sea-shore, watching as the rising sun broadens the horizon, and brings into view an islet here and there, which, by catching the sight, serves but to lengthen still more the indefinite expanse beyond. The fancy is suggested, half of longing, half of dread, what would it be to fly until he reached the point where now the farthest ray is resting, to gaze upon a sea still shoreless, or to land in an unknown region and find himself a solitary there? But he is not daunted by the vision; one presence would still be with him. Vast as the world may be, it is contained within the vaster God; his fancy cannot wander where he would be unguarded and unled. He still could worship; he still could rest. How wonderfully history confirms faith. The lands towards which the psalmist strained his wondering vision have come at length into the record of civilization. Even while he was musing God was preparing the countries in which, in due time, the Gospel was to develop, and the races by whom it should be spread. Could he now take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, he would find God here, revealed in the progress of Christendom, and the force of Western civilization. When Christ sent the apostles on their untrodden way He gave them a blank page on which to write their history. He did not reveal to them “the times and the seasons”; He only assured them that wherever they went He was with them. All was obscure except their faith that, as seed will grow, and leaven will spread, so the kingdom of God should advance. The presence of God in human history meant the reign of Christ in human history; where have the faithful gone and not found their God?
III. God in the perplexities of our experience. Most men probably look on spiritual conflict at first as a necessary evil; something which it were well if we could avoid, but which, since we cannot avoid it, we must go through with what heart we may; and they look to God to keep, and, in due time, to deliver them. But when, in the review of their struggles, they perceive what progress they have made by reason of it; how it has enriched their character, not only strengthening their piety, but also enlarging its scope and adding to their graces; when they find what a wise and benignant influence it has enabled them to exercise; what power of comfort it has given them, they begin to see that the conflict itself was of Divine appointment, and to cherish a larger, nobler view of God’s purpose and of man’s discipline. They perceive that the obscurity, equally with the clearness, of a spiritual experience is ordained of God. (A. Mackennal, D. D.)
The present God
There was something almost to be envied in the simple, easy, undoubting faith in the ever-present Spirit of God that breathes in the devotional portions of the Old Testament. Science had not begun to be. Men saw and felt circumambient force on every side, and with the instinctive wisdom of their ignorance this force was to them the varied yet immutable God, Himself unchanged, yet in manifestation ever new. We think ourselves, in point of intelligence, at a heaven-wide distance in advance of them. But has not our ignorance grown faster than our knowledge--as every new field that we explore in part abuts upon regions which we cannot explore, and every solved problem starts others which cannot be solved? If science has ever been antagonistic to faith, it has not been by superseding it, or even by interfering with it, but simply because the new knowledge of nature that has flashed with such suddenness and rapidity upon our generation has so filled and tasked the minds of not a few, that they have ignored for the time the regions where light still fails and faith is the only guide. But there are among the grand generalizations of recent science those that help our faith, and furnish analogies that are almost demonstrations for some of the most sacred truths of religion. Among these truths is that suggested by our text--the presence of the Divine Spirit with and in the human soul. Now, to the soul of man, bathed in this omnipresence, receiving all thought and knowledge through its mediation, living, moving, and having its being in it, what can be more easily conceivable than that there should also be conveyed to it thoughts, impressions, intimations, that flow directly from the Father of our spirits? It has been virtually the faith of great and good men in all time. They have felt and owned a prompting, a motive power, from beyond their own souls, and from above the ranks of their fellow-men. Inspiration has been a universal idea under every form of culture, has been believed, sought, recognized, obeyed. At all other points there has been divergence; as to this, but one mind and one voice. You could translate the language of Socrates concerning his demon into the most orthodox Christian phraseology without adding or omitting a single trait, and not even St. Paul was more confident than he of being led by the Spirit. But there is no need of citing authorities. Who of us is there that has not had thoughts borne in upon him which he could not trace to any association or influence on his own plane, seedling thoughts, perhaps, which have yielded harvest for the angel-reapers, strength equal to the day in the conflict with temptation, comfort in sorrow, visions of heaven lifted for the moment above the horizon like a mirage in the desert? These experiences have been multiplied in proportion to our receptivity. As the message on the wires is lost if there be none to watch or listen at the terminus, so at the terminus of the spirit-wire there must be the listening soul, the inward voice, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” But while we thus acknowledge God in the depths of our own consciousness, can we not equally feel His presence in the glory, beauty, joy-giving ministry of His works? Are they net richer to our eyes every year? Has it not happened to us, over and over again, to say, “Spring, or summer, was never so beautiful before”? This is true every year to the recipient soul. Not that there is any added physical charm or visible glory; but it is the Spirit of our Father that glows and beams upon us, that pours itself into our souls; and if we have grown by His nurture, there is in us more and more of spiritual life that can be irradiated, gladdened, lifted in praise and love, with every recurring phase of the outward world. Is not this ordained, that the vision of Him in whom are all the archetypes of beauty, and whose embodied thought is in its every phase, may be kept ever fresh and vivid--that there may be over new stimulants to adoration and praise--that with the changing garb of nature the soul may renew her garment of grateful joy, her singing robes of thanksgiving to Him who has made everything beautiful in its time? But God is still nearer to us than in the world around us. “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” When I reflect on the mysteries of my own being, on the complex organism, not one of whose numberless members or processes can be deranged without suffering or peril; when I consider my own confessed powerlessness as to the greater part of this earthly tabernacle in which I dwell, and the narrow limits of my seeming power as to the part of it which I can control; when I see the gates and pitfalls of death by and over which I am daily led in safety; when I resign all charge of myself every night, and no earthly watch is kept over my unconscious repose--oh, I know that omnipotence alone can be my keeper, that the unslumbering Shepherd guides my waking and guards my sleeping hours--that His life feeds mine, courses in my veins, renews my wasting strength, rolls back the death-shadows as day by day they gather over me. Equally, in the exercise of thought and emotion, must I own His presence and providence. (A. P. Peabody, D. D.)
Universal presence of God
The laws and forms of nature are only the methods of God’s agency, the habits of His existence and the turns of His thought. Each dewdrop holds an oracle, each bud a revelation, and everything we see is a signal of His presence, present but out of sight. Every colour of the dawning or the dying light; every aspect of the changing seasons and all the mysteries of electricity make us feel the eternal presence of God. “Shores,” says one, “on which man has never yet landed lie paved with shells; fields never trod are carpeted with flowers; seas where man has never dived are inlaid with pearls; caverns never mined are radiant with gems of finest forms and purest lustre. But still God is there,” (R. Venting.)