In the sermon 'Inescapable: The Omnipresence of God,' David Green explores the profound concept of God's omnipresence using Jeremiah 23 as a focal text. The sermon addresses the human tendency to seek hiding places away from God's sight, emphasizing that God is present everywhere and nothing escapes His notice. The text warns against false prophets who speak from their own hearts, leading people into vanity and distorted theology. Green highlights the dual nature of God's omnipresence as both a warning to sinners, who cannot hide from God's judgment, and a comfort to believers, assuring them of God's constant presence and faithfulness. The sermon underscores that the truths of the Old Testament are still relevant today, as modern Christianity faces similar issues with false teachings. Green calls the congregation to recognize the unshakable comfort in God's omnipresence, which assures believers they are never alone and that God is always present in every aspect of life, from the mundane to the profound.

Chapter 23. Jeremiah chapter 23. Jeremiah chapter 23. Before we get into our text, a question for each of you, and that is where do you go when you don't want to be found? Where do you go when you don't want to be found?

Everyone, whether you're young or old, has a hiding place, some corner of life where you believe, at least for a moment, that you're unseen and unreachable. It's getting harder and harder to find such a place in the world that we live in. We're always connected by cell phones and Here in the city of Brunswick at least, we've got all these new cameras that they've installed in every street corner and lamppost it seems, but we all like to find a quiet place, at least for a few minutes out of our day where we can just be still, away and by ourselves. A place where we can't be found. This morning, our text here in Jeremiah 23 is going to remind us that there is no place that exists.

There is no such place that exists. And then if you have ears to hear it, it's going to tell you why this is the best news that you've ever received. My subject today is on the subject of the omnipresence of God. As I was studying for this sermon, as I often do, I was looking to see who else had been at this text. As you can imagine, If you dig long enough and hard enough after 2, 000 years of church history, a lot of people have been in different places and different times.

I found a sermon written by John Wesley called On the Presence of God, taken from this very text. But even Wesley, one of the most prolific preachers in Methodist church history, confessed that he felt unworthy to preach on such a vast subject. And after digging perhaps longer than I should have, but I became interested, I found that he never preached that sermon. He wrote it. And he preached pieces out of that sermon, but he never preached it.

I don't often find myself in agreement with Wesley. But I do feel the awesomeness of the subject as we approach unto God and his omnipresence. And I do feel unworthy to preach this. However, preach it we must. And so, Jeremiah chapter 23 verse 16.

That's where we'll begin. And we'll go down to about verse 32. Verse 32. Thus says Yahweh of hosts, Do not listen to the words of the prophets, who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into vanity.

They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of Yahweh. They keep saying to those who spurn Me, Yahweh has said, you will have peace. And as for everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, They say, evil will not come upon you. But who has stood in the counsel of Yahweh that he should see and hear his word? Who has given heed to his word and heard, behold the storm of Yahweh has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling storm.

It will whirl down on the head of the wicked. The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until he has done and established the purposes of his heart. In the last days you will clearly understand it. I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied.

But if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have caused my words to be heard by my people, and would have turned them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds. Am I a God who is near, declares Yahweh? And not a God far off? Can a man hide himself in hiding places, So I do not see him, declares Yahweh. Do I not feel the heavens and the earth, declares Yahweh?

I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy a lie in my name, saying I had a dream, I had a dream. How long is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy a lie even these prophets of the of the deception of their own heart who intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams, which they recount to one another just as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal. The prophet, The prophet who has a dream may recount his dream, but let him who has my word speak my word in truth. What does straw have in common with grain, declares Yahweh. Is not my word like fire, declares Yahweh, like a hammer which shatters a rock.

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets declares Yahweh, who steal my words from each other. Behold, I am against the prophets declare Yahweh, who take their tongues and declare Yahweh declares. Behold I am against those who have prophesied lying dreams declares Yahweh and who recounted them and led my people astray by their lying and reckless boasting, yet I did not send them and I did not command them and they do not furnish this people the slightest benefit declares Yahweh." So reads the infallible, the inerrant, the all-sufficient word of the living God. You'll notice in our text that the word omnipresent is not there, but it's in our title. The full title being Inescapable, The Omnipresence of God.

Omnipresence simply means, according to Mr. Webster in his 1828 dictionary, present in all places at the same time. Present in all places at the same time. Taking this text as our outline, let me just give you a preview of where we're going to go today. We're going to take this text and divide it up into four sections this morning.

First of all, the problem. There was a problem, and as we'll see, There is a problem, and that is false prophets and distorted theology. That's point number one. Point number two will be God's omniscience. Nothing escapes His sight.

If you're not sure what omniscience is, we'll get to that definition, but it's right there in the point. I'll kind of give you a clue. The third point, God's omnipresence. He fills heaven and earth. He fills heaven and earth.

And then fourthly, dual application. A warning and comfort. A warning and comfort. Mark it down and remember this, if you take home anything from this sermon, the God of Jeremiah 23rd, the God that we serve, fills heaven and earth. He's too near for the sinner to hide, and He's too faithful for the saint to fear.

And which of these truths defines your life today? Depends entirely on whether or not you are His. You see, we take a text from the Old Testament, and there are people out there who say, oh, well, that's old stuff. That doesn't relate to me. There's nothing in here for me.

This isn't about us, but it is. Because the God, Yahweh, He is here today. The truths of the Old Testament are still true today. We must pay close attention to what the Word of God has for us here in this text. And so as we dive in, we see the problem.

As I read this text, you noticed, I'm sure, that before Yahweh names His own character, He identified the problem that makes this doctrine necessary. I'm not going to re-read the entire text, but look there with me at verses 16 and 17. Chapter 23 verses 16 and 17. Thus says Yahweh of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into vanity.

They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of Yahweh. They keep saying to those who spurn me, Yahweh has said, you are peace. And as for everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, they say evil will not come upon you. In this text we see that God Yahweh is addressing the false prophets who spoke from their own hearts rather than the Word of God. These individuals were interested in their own agendas and really pacifying the sinners of their day, those who were doing evil.

They were claiming dreams and visions rather than the Word of God. God. This is not again some distant problem that was going on in the Old Testament. Modern-day Christianity finds itself in much of the same problems as what the Old Testament saints found themselves in. We must not think ourselves to be better than those dear saints of old.

In fact, as we go from the Old Testament to the New Testament and look at the New Covenant warnings that are given in the New Testament. We're reminded that the Old Testament saints had to be warned about false prophets, but so do we. We also have to be warned about false prophets. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, and we won't turn to all of these, but I've got them up here on the screen at least in part. But in Matthew chapter 7 and verse 15, and you can jot these down if you'd like.

Jesus said, beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. False prophets who come to you, Not who came to you, past tense, but who come to you. Paul told the church of Corinth in 2 Corinthians 11, verses 13-15, For such men are false prophets, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, and no wonder, For even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness whose end will be according to their needs.

And of course we took a lot of time in Galatians not that many months ago. You'll recall Paul's Letter to the churches of Galatia. Chapter 1 of Galatians 6-10, when He wrote to them and He said, I marvel! I'm shocked that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is not really another. Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel, we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, So I say again now, if any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, let him be accursed. For Am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.

One that I didn't put up on the screen, but over in 1 John chapter, or sorry, 2 John, verses 9 and 10. You remember we were there not many weeks ago. And you recall what John wrote to the elect lady. 2 John, 9 and 10. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God.

The one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house. Do not give him a greeting. As we think about our day and age, there are those who say, well the Old Testament doesn't matter and you show them New Testament warnings and still they're not convinced. And they say, well, we're in the age of enlightenment, and all of these things, and we're in the information age, and all of this and that.

But still, there is trouble. There are the Benny Hinn types, the Joel Osteen types, the Greg Locke types, spreading false gospels, false teachings. False gospel, false teachings. There are those and many other things in between, many parading pretending to be pastors, and groups pretending to be churches. They teach or parrot a distorted theology much like they were living in those days.

The days of Jeremiah and the days of Jesus and the days of Paul in the days of John, we must also be on guard and realize that these warnings are still applicable to us. And back in the context of Jeremiah chapter 23, the people were so influenced by idolatry that they believed that they could commit evil in secret without detection, Having adopted some strange concept of God's awareness. Imagining Him as having some human level perception. Remember watching a video on the History Channel or one of those one time about the Inquisition? There was a terrible time of persecution by the so-called Roman Catholic Church.

And what those guys would do as they beat and tortured and even killed others in the name of Christ. They had the crucifixes on the wall, and I'm sure you've seen them. They're not like the crosses that you see sometimes in places that are just the crosses. The crucifixes have what is supposedly Jesus actually on the cross. And when they came into the room to beat or to kill a Christian for what they deemed to be heresy.

They would take a cloth and cover up that crucifix so that Jesus wouldn't see what they were doing in his name. Superstitions, you see. A bad theology which led to terrible behavior. Which led to terrible behavior. In our day, there are families sitting in the ruins of decisions they have made because of preachers who told them.

God said so. They saw him on TV, They heard him in the pulpit or wherever. They emptied their savings account because a man on the stage said, it was a seed. Sow your seed and reap the blessings, he said. They walked away from a marriage because a prophet said that God was releasing them.

They staked their entire spiritual life on a promise that was never from the mouth of Yahweh God. Do you know there are people out there who follow false prophets? They say, Jesus is coming back this day. Sell everything you have because this day is the day that Jesus is coming and they'll do it. They'll really do it.

And when it all collapses, the preacher moves on to the next crowd. But the damage isn't just financial, It isn't only marital. It isn't just family problems. It's all of that, but it's the kind of problems that make people say 20 years later, I used to go to church, but you'll never convince me to go back. This is what Jeremiah 23 is talking about.

And even in a sound church like ours, whether it's this one or any other Baptist church across this country, There can be folks with distorted theology. It may sound different and look different, But it's there. I'm talking about living as if God isn't everywhere. I'm talking about pornography on Saturday night and church on Sunday. I'm talking about slander and bitterness or even cursing on the tongue in secret but praise and worship in public.

Week after week as if God doesn't notice. God doesn't notice. Look again at verse 16. In Jeremiah chapter 23. It says, Yahweh of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you.

They are leading you into vanity. They speak of a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of Yahweh." Yahweh does not simply say they are merely mistaken. He says they are leading the people into vanity. Into emptiness is what that means. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of God.

The problem was never just bad theology on a stage somewhere or from a pulpit. Yeah, that's part of it. But the problem was a heart problem. Understand, Belief determines behavior. Belief determines behavior.

The problem is what bad theology does to people when it collapses under the weight of real life. And the antidote then and now is not a better feeling or a more inspiring preacher. You see, that's why all these people go from one movement to another movement to another movement. What people need are the words, the actual words of the living God. It brings us to point two.

God's omniscience. Nothing escapes his sight. The false prophets were preaching peace when there was no peace. And they did it because they quietly constructed a God, lowercase g, who could neither see nor reach the people. Sometimes they openly professed other idols such as Baal and whatnot, but other times they still invoked the name of Yahweh.

But Yahweh does not merely refute their message. He takes it in this text and He dismantles it. He not only dismantles their message, but He dismantles the God behind it. Here God, as He says plainly in Jeremiah 23 and verse 21, he says, I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied.

Verse 22, But if they had stood in My counsel, then they would have caused My words to be heard by My people, and would have turned them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds. He's very direct, isn't he? This isn't a God who is somewhere distant up in heaven, wondering what in the world is going on. He knows what's going on. Exactly what's happening.

Just don't worry so much about that. It's okay. You can just pay attention to the sermon. Okay? Look at verse 23 of Jeremiah 23.

23 of Jeremiah 23. He says, am I a God who is near? Declares Yahweh. And not a God far off? He answers his own question.

Am I a God who is near? Not a God far off. And he doesn't stop. He goes on in verse 24a, Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him? Declares Yahweh.

This establishes how utterly ridiculous it is to think that you can hide from Almighty God. The Sovereign of the Universe. Remember we looked at the sovereignty of God. The sovereign of the universe is aware. He knows all and is fully aware of it all.

That's what we mean when we speak of God's omniscience. See, God's omniscience means He knows everything. So if God is sovereign, as we looked at last time, the Almighty God, it only fits that he would be omnipresent. He's everywhere. And if he's everywhere, it only fits that he's omniscient.

He knows everything. Nothing comes as a surprise to God. Whether near or far, the people and their deeds are known to God. The text before us directly confronts the false prophet's fronts the false prophets' core error. They operated as though God's vision was limited.

When in fact nothing, No secret place, no hidden motive, no concealed deed escapes divine scrutiny. This was true then and it's true now. I think of myself as I stand up here and preach. I can see a lot from up here. And I observe a lot from up here, more than Y'all realize.

But I'm limited, ain't I? I can make observations and I can say, oh, well, I don't believe that he's listening. I don't believe that she's paying attention or whatever. I can make observations like that. But I could be wrong.

Maybe you are listening. It just looks like you're not. God knows. God knows your heart. God knows what's going on.

What's going on. Spiritual status of everyone in this room and everyone listening online, God knows. And while He's here with us now today, He's with everyone who is listening, regardless of where you are in the world. As he speaks to these folks in Jeremiah 23 to say, I see you would have been enough. A God who sees everything is already a terrifying reality, but Yahweh doesn't stop at vision, he presses to presence.

The latter part of verse 24, he says, Do I not fill the heavens and the earth, declares Yahweh. This is no longer a God looking down from heaven at a distance over the whole earth. That would be power, right? Again, thinking back to my introduction when I said something about Brunswick. The city of Brunswick has all those cameras everywhere and all the talk on social media and the radio and everything.

Everybody's talking about big brothers watching you. That's power. Somebody's got the control with those cameras to be able to have facial recognition, license plate readers, and all of those things integrated into those cameras to be able to watch. But Big Brother can't be everywhere, can they? No.

God is not just looking down from heaven at a distance. This is a God who is already there. This is his omnipresence. Am I a God who is near, declares Yahweh, and not a God far off? He is the God who is near and far all at the same time.

And he sees everything. Can a man hide himself in the hiding places? So I do not see him, declares Yahweh. He fills heaven and earth. Do I not fill the heavens and the earth, declares Yahweh?

Heavens and earth, That's the way the ancients described the whole of the universe. God is not man, limited to time and space. And he's not some local deity, some pagan god confined to a shrine or a temple. Why? He's not even the made-up Jesus, limited to some made-up Jesus, limited to some church building somewhere that so many worship on Sunday morning, and then forget about the rest of the week.

Our God, our God is both near and far. The God of the Bible, our great triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the God that we serve. Yahweh, our Creator, knows all of His creation, He oversees every bit of it, and He fills heaven and earth. You ever think about that and meditate on it? Just how awesome that is.

Many ways we could look at that. I thought about the astronauts that recently went up into space and circled around the moon and all that. I don't know if I'd ever want to make a trip like that, but I've stood at the edge of the ocean. We live next to the Atlantic Ocean here. It's one thing to do it in the daytime, go in the day.

But have you ever gone at night after dark alone, just stood at the edge of the ocean When the water seemingly has no end and the sky has no ceiling. You can see the stars and it seems like the stars go on forever and you look out across it and you can see you can't see much but you can you can make out maybe some distant lights of ships on the horizon ships on the horizon and whatever. You stand out there and your smallness of who you are just kind of hits you as you think about it. Here we are. It's not frightening, but it's leveling.

It's reality. You feel the weight of something that has no edge, just goes on. No edge, just goes on. It's the nearest that we can get to what Jeremiah 23, 24 is saying, except the ocean has a floor And in a shore, a boundary that God has set, but God has none. He says, do I not fill the heavens and earth?

He's not contained by what He has made. He overflows it. Here's what that means for you and me. You've never been in a place that he was not already in. The hospital room, He was there before the diagnosis came.

The graveside, He was there before you arrived. The darkest night that you've ever lived through. He didn't show up late, he was there. The God who fills heaven and earth is not a God who responds to emergencies. We have lots of those, don't we?

But he's already present in everything that has not happened yet. It's not a small comfort. It's not a small comfort. It's an unshakable one. When we think about the omnipresence of God, there is dual application.

In Jeremiah 23 this doctrine is not abstract. It's not just words on paper. In fact, Yahweh God puts it to work immediately. Look there, verse 25. I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy a lie in my name, saying I saying I had a dream, I had a dream.

He was present in every room where a lying dream was recounted. He'd been present at every whispered false prophecy and that had two very different implications depending on who was listening. For those who were apart from God's will, that's bad news. It's very bad news. There is nowhere, nowhere to hide from God.

He's everywhere. You can't run from God. But to those who are in Christ, those who love the Lord, this is great comfort. God is with you and you're never alone. So this passage, the doctrinal, this doctrine functions as both judgment against the false prophets and assurance for the faithful remnant.

Down in verse 29, he says, he says there, is not my word like fire, declares Yahweh, like a hammer which shatters a rock. The Word of God is much more powerful than the terrible theology of the world and the lies of the false prophets. You and I can stand there on the promises of God and the truthfulness of His Word, knowing, beloved, that our God is Always, always where he says he'll be and that's everywhere. As we think about this, thought about In a courtroom, the most dangerous person to the defendant is not the prosecutor, it's the eyewitness. That's why in high-level cases, a lot of times it's the eyewitness that ends up suspiciously being killed.

The prosecutor works from evidence, from inference, from argument, But the eyewitness was there. He saw it. And if that eyewitness is credible, there's no cross-examination and undoes what he saw that undoes what he saw. The defense can question the motive, the memory, question the angle of vision, all of those sorts of things, but with God you cannot question omniscience, you cannot question omnipresence. You can't question.

You can't cast doubt on a witness who was not only present but who is presence himself. This is what we're talking about today. Look at again at verse 25. I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy a lie in my name saying I had a dream I had a dream. He doesn't say word He doesn't say, word has come to me from afar.

He was there. He was there. The false prophets of Jeremiah's day discovered that. The false prophets of our day will discover as well. And so will every person in this world who has been conducting their life on the assumption that the hidden things stay hidden.

They don't. But here's the turn. And this is where, this is where we must point out some good news here. The same witness who stands against the unrepentant sinner is the same God who stands with His people. I can't stress this enough.

He saw everything. He sees everything, and yet he still sent his son, Jesus. He knew full well the record before the foundation of the world, and he redeemed his people anyway. For those who are in Christ, this unimpeachable witness is not your prosecutor, he is your father. He's not going anywhere.

As we look at this text and consider the text before us, we come to a conclusion. I started out this sermon mentioning John Wesley's sermon that he never preached, publicly anyway. What does it mean that God fills heaven and earth? Jeremiah 23 gives us the answer in two halves of one verse. Right there in verse 24, can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him declares Yahweh.

Do I not fill the heavens and the earth declares Yahweh. There is nowhere to go There are no hiding places. There is no Saturday night far enough from Sunday morning. There is no thought entertained in the dark that did not have a witness. The false prophets of Jeremiah's day built their entire ministry on the assumption that God was manageable, local, limited, containable.

They were wrong. They were dead wrong. And the men and women, boys and girls of today, Whether you're here in this room or listening online, or living the same way, that same lie. You're wrong in the same way. The God of Jeremiah 23 is the God of today.

Too near for the sinner to hide. Too faithful for the saint to fear. And which of those truths defines your life today depends entirely on whether you are His. If you are His, understand what this means before this God. He who fills heaven and earth was present to every sin you ever committed.

Not from a distance, not with partial knowledge. He was there in the private moment, in the hidden place, in the thought you never spoke aloud. He saw it all. And none of it drifted beyond the reach of his knowledge. But the same omnipotent God, the same omnipresent God, the same sovereign God, the same omniscient God, entered his own creation.

The one who fills heaven and earth compressed himself into a human life, born of a virgin, tempted, tested, and tried. And one day, on a Roman cross, The God who had witnessed every sin you ever committed, every sin that I committed, laid the full weight of that record upon His own Son, and punished it there, punished Him there in full for us. For all who will repent of their sin and trust in Jesus Christ, hears what this God now sees when he looks on you. Not the hiding, not the shame, not the record of sin that he witnessed, but his son, his righteousness, His blood. The God that in your sin you could not escape becomes in Christ the God you cannot lose.

Turn to him today. He is not far off. If you're his, If you're his, then hear the other half of this doctrine. What a blessed doctrine it is. Let it hold you.

The God who cannot be escaped is the God who will not leave you. He is present in the hospital. He's present in the marriage that is in trouble. He's present in the dark night when you cannot find him by feeling. He was there before you woke up this morning and you'll be there tonight when the day ends.

You're never, never alone, not even for a second. Walk out of this room today, carry that with you. Take it with you through the week, whatever storm you go through, because it's true whether you feel it or not because he said so you're never never alone may God and a blessing to the preaching of His Word.