You and I, as Christians, believe that God is Omnipresent. But recently my son asked me: dad, how can God hear all people at the same time and be everywhere. Yes, this is a difficult question for a father, who himself is unlikely to be able to fully understand this with his own mind, much less explain it to his son. In fact, a child is more likely to accept this truth with childish faith than an adult will understand it with intellect.
The Omnipresent God is simultaneously everywhere in His integrity and Eternal Unchangeable nature. The word presence means here, close to something or someone, next to something or someone. And presence everywhere is omnipresence. God is everywhere, close to everything, next to everyone, surrounding everything and everyone. He fills the whole earth, and creation cannot contain Him. Everything created is in Him, and He is in His creation, but is not part of it. God has no boundaries or limits in space. He has no size or spatial dimensions, and is present in every point of the universe with His entire being.
God is our habitat, like the sea for fish and the air for birds.
God is above all, under all, beyond all, within, but not in, without, but not excepting, above, but not raised up, below, but not brought down, completely above, leading, completely below, supporting, completely within , filling.
Gildebert Lavardinsky
God is indivisible, and we cannot say that one part of Him is here and another there. If God's omnipresence had this form on the scale of the universe, then He would be divided into countless parts, and only an infinitesimal part of Him would be present in a certain place. But God is everywhere at the same time. God exists and He is here!
The Bible says that everything is from Him, by Him and to Him. How can a person who can only be in one place, at one specific moment, understand this truth?
We are like Lilliputians before Gulliver. God is so huge that He holds this small earthly ball in His hand and watches every person as we watch an anthill. After all, small ants can only see what is under their noses, but from our height we can observe the big picture. God looks upon us, and His eyes scan the earth to save and sustain the righteous.
God sees and hears us
For the eyes of the Lord scan the whole earth to support those whose hearts are completely devoted to Him.
1 Chronicles 16:9
In Genesis 16, Sarah, Abraham's wife, bore him no children. In the east, it is especially important that a woman gives birth to an heir who will continue the line and work of his father.
And so Sarah told Abraham to go in to her Egyptian maid, so that she might have children by her. Abraham listened to his wife. This is not always the right thing to do, but the father of our faith listened to her words. Hagar conceived and began to despise her mistress. Sarah began to oppress the servant, and she ran away into the desert.
And the Angel of the Lord appeared to Hagar at the source of water and began to speak to her so that she would return to her mistress and submit to her. The Angel of the Lord said that God heard her suffering and made a promise about her son. And Hagar said: You are the God who sees me.
The Lord always hears our prayers, even if we do not say the words. He knows our thoughts and dreams.
How often people commit sins, thinking God does not see what they are doing. I once talked with my Muslim friends who did not want to eat during the day during Ramadan. They said that if Allah sees, He will punish them. And when night came, they sat down at the table: they ate and drank wine. I asked, what about Allah? But they told me that it was dark now and Allah couldn’t see them. I don't mean to make fun of them, but often our perception of God is very limited by our natural understanding.
When we want to do a bad thing, we should think about it. God is near and He sees. No, not to immediately punish us. Our sins hurt Him because He loved us so much that He gave His Son Jesus Christ to die.
God sees us in order to support, strengthen and preserve. We may sin and fall, but God lifts us up and forgives us. We become weak and He gives us strength through His Word. We lose hope, but God inspires us to continue to live and believe.
When Lazarus died, Christ came to his tomb. There was a cave, and a stone lay on it. Jesus said to the Father: I knew that You would always hear me and raised Lazarus. We can be confident that God hears our prayers because we are united to Christ.
Jesus
What do we know about Jesus? We know why Jesus came! He came from God for the sake of our salvation. He died for our sins on the cross and rose again on the third day!
But, through this, through life, which many have witnessed and you and I read in the Bible, show us God.
No one has ever seen God; The Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed. Jesus revealed God as Himself. (John 1:18)
...for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9)
Jesus said to him: I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me. If you knew Me, you would also know My Father. And from now on you know Him and have seen Him. (John 14:6-7)
We see that both the life and teachings of Jesus show one important point - Jesus and the Father are one! (John 10:30)
He imitated his Father in everything. He knew Him!
When we say that our goal as disciples of Jesus is to be like Jesus, these Words of Christ are definitive!
By knowing Christ, we come to know God! To be like Jesus, you need to know Him and imitate Him.
We can see the Lord in creation
Psalm 15 says that David always saw the Lord before him, for He is at his right hand, i.e. Around him. Fullness of joy in the face of God and bliss at His right hand forever.
Not only does God see us, but we can see Him with our hearts. Despite the fact that God is present everywhere in this world, not all people can feel and realize God. People became blind and deaf because of their sins. Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, and their hearts are hardened.
God's reality is everywhere, but people are unable to see it. If we look at the sun for a long time, we can burn the retina of our eyes, and then we will not be able to even distinguish surrounding objects.
The Lord is Light. And in His light we see light. When Christ passed by blind Bartimaeus on the road. He began to shout: Son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus asked him: what do you want from Me? And he answered: Lord, that I may receive my sight. Christ healed not only his physical eyes, but also the eyes of his heart.
God opens our eyes so that we can see and feel His presence filling the earth. Where our attention is directed, our heart and our life will be directed. We will either live only by what we see around us - natural life. Either we will see Him and begin to seek the supernatural reality that is constantly being revealed to those who seek it.
One day I was depressed and despondent. I was on the subway by train. When the train arrived at my stop, I stepped onto the platform. And I saw on the other side an advertisement on which it was written: Don’t believe your eyes, but believe my words. I felt such joy in God's presence that it simply overwhelmed me. God spoke to my heart. For some, this was just advertising. But for me there were the words of God, because He took them and spoke them to my heart.
I understand that many will think this is crazy. But as my pastor said: it’s normal when you talk to yourself, but if you start talking to yourself, then you have problems.
But God's signs are everywhere, because He fills this world with Himself. When a person has come to know God's presence, He will begin to see God everywhere.
I once read Mother Teresa’s book “No Greater Love.” The words of the book saturated me with God's love and His presence. Some writers and preachers teach about God academically. After the sermon, you feel like after a lecture at the university. And after reading a certain Christian book, you become a theologian. And we need such sermons and such books to understand theology and theology.
But the soul of man needs the bread of life. Just as a deer thirsts for water, so our souls thirst for God. Saint Teresa wrote that when she ministered to the poor and sick people in India, she was serving Christ. Because she saw Jesus in them. In every person she met, she saw God, a reflection of His essence. This helped her continue serving and not give up during difficult times.
After the crucifixion of Christ, two disciples walked along the road to Emmaus. And they were crushed by the death of their teacher. But then Christ approached them and began to communicate with them, but they did not recognize Him. He walked with them along the road and explained the Scriptures about His resurrection. But they did not even understand that it was He, since their eyes were held. Afterwards they sat down to rest and eat. Christ broke the bread and gave it to them, then they received their sight and saw the Savior.
After He became invisible to them, they said, “Didn’t our heart burn when He spoke to us and explained the Scriptures?” Christ spoke to them through the Word of God, but they did not understand that God in the flesh was speaking to them. But when He gave them bread, their eyes were opened.
Jesus said that He is the bread of life, and whoever eats Him will live forever. Often words are powerless, not because there is no life in words. No, the disciples themselves said: where should we go, You have the words of life. But often we are unable to understand what God wants to tell us. Then He begins to speak through images and symbols. No wonder Christ taught people through parables. Bread is a symbol of life, which strengthens and saturates the human body, as Christ satisfies the soul.
God's signs and symbols of His presence are everywhere because God is knocking on our hearts and using this world to open the kingdom of heaven to us.
God reveals his essence to people.
Each generation was given the opportunity to understand Him in its own way—this is the universality of God's plan of salvation.
God exists.
(Isaiah 48)
The main problem of Israel's faith throughout history was the attempt to answer the question of who God is. It reached its peak in the confrontation with the Mesopotamian powers, Assyria and Babylon. The main questions were: “In whose hands is history?” and “Who will Israel serve—the one true God or the gods of the pagan states?” This chapter confronts God's people with the reason for their exile—their own sins—and the fact that God foretold this would happen. However, God also assures them of deliverance after they are cleansed from sin.
Judah's Stubbornness (48:1–11)
Verses 1–11 once again provide evidence of God's supremacy discussed in previous chapters. God predicted events long before they happened.
“Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who come from the fountain of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord, and who confess the God of Israel, although not in truth or in righteousness” (48:1).
“Hear this,” God demands through his prophet Isaiah (v. 1). In this chapter, certain forms of the Hebrew root meaning “to listen” (shama) are used 11 times. The implication is that God is speaking. He revealed Himself and His will in human speech. This truth carries with it the command that we must listen to the Word of the Lord. But we must not only listen, but also obey!
The names "Jacob", "Israel" and "Judas" indicate, respectively, the character (stammering, cunning), the people of the covenant, and the specific audience to whom the address is addressed (Motiers). God’s message to this audience is this: You “swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, although not in truth or in righteousness.” They called themselves the Lord's covenant people and claimed to cry out to Him, but there was no "truth" (authenticity) or conformity to "truth" (God's standard) in this claim.
“For they say that they come from the holy city, and rely on the God of Israel; The Lord of hosts is His name: “I declared the former things long ago; it came out of My mouth, and I proclaimed it and suddenly did it, and everything came to pass. I knew that you are stubborn, and that the veins of your neck are iron, and your forehead is copper; Therefore, I announced to you long before it came, and presented it to you, so that you would not say: “My idol did this, and my idol and my graven image commanded this to be.” You heard - look at all this! And don't you admit it? But now I am telling you something new and hidden, and you did not know it. It happened now, and not long ago and not in a day, and you have not heard that you did not say: “Behold, I knew this.” You neither heard nor knew about it, and your ear was not open before; for I knew that you would act treacherously, and from your very mother’s womb you were called an apostate. For my name's sake I put aside my wrath, and for my glory's sake I restrained myself from destroying you. Behold, I have refined you, but not like silver: I have tested you in the furnace of suffering. For My own sake, for My own sake, I do this, for what a reproach would be against My name! “My glory I will not give to another”” (48:2-11).
The people seemed to think that loyalty to God meant loyalty to the city of Jerusalem (v. 2). But aren’t we doing the same thing when we talk about ourselves as part of the “Christian” community? It is not the temporary location of our dwelling that determines righteousness, but the disposition of our heart.
God foretold the fall of Jerusalem, the Babylonian captivity, and the return of the remnant several centuries before all this happened (v. 3). This is the main theme of the chapter. At the time God needed, His prophecies were fulfilled - many times and in a way that Judah did not expect due to its stubbornness (v. 4). He did this so that no pagan could say, “My idol did this, and my graven image and graven image commanded this to happen” (v. 5). False gods are unable to foretell anything and carry it out.
God revealed His purposes in His time (v. 6). He did this so that no one could boast: “Behold, I knew this” (v. 7). Verse 8 states the purpose of the predictions. “They are not given that we may know the future, but as a confirmatory testimony, that we may and have trusted God” (Oswalt).
God did not want to reveal His hidden plan to them; He said, “I knew that you would act treacherously” (v. 8). The root Hebrew word translated “treacherously” is bagad. It is used of a breaker of a known obligation (1 Sam. 14:33), a traitor (Is. 33:1), and a spiritual adulterer (Hos. 5:7). What a charge has been brought against Judaea!
By restraining his wrath, God did not destroy His people as they deserved (v. 9). He did this “for [His] name’s sake…and for [His] glory’s sake.” If God had not protected them, the nations would have boasted that the Lord was unable to save His worshipers. The pagans would attribute their successes to their gods. God didn't allow this. He reproached the people of Judah for their infidelity, but did not destroy them. He spared them so that they could fulfill the purpose for which they were chosen - to bring the true Servant of God into the world.
God “tried [them] in the furnace of suffering” (v. 10). However, He did not do this to the extent necessary to purify the silver, and therefore the silver turned out unclean. Impurities remain. In verse 11 we see that God acts “for His own sake.” (The phrase “for Thyself [Himself]” is said twice to draw special attention to it.) In the original Hebrew text, in the exclamation “for what a reproach would there be against my name!” the words “in my name” are missing. They are added in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament). This is logical, since God twice stated that He was doing this not because of the righteousness of Israel, but so that there would be no complaints against Him from the nations. The same idea can be seen in the story of Moses' intercession with God on behalf of the rebellious Israelites. Moses said that the nations would attribute the destruction of Israel to God's failure to protect His people (Num. 14:11–19).
God's faithfulness (48:12–16)
Verses 12–19 foreshadow the deliverance described in the last three verses.
“Listen to Me, Jacob and Israel, My called: I am the same, I am the first, and I am the last. My hand founded the earth, and My right hand stretched out the heavens; I will call them and they will appear together.” Gather together and listen: who among them predicted this? The Lord loved him, and he will do His will over Babylon and show His arm over the Chaldeans. “I, I spoke and called him. I have brought him, and his path will be prosperous. Come to Me, listen to this. I didn’t speak secretly at first; from the time this happened, I was there.” And now the Lord God and His Spirit have sent me” (48:12-16).
“Listen to Me” (v. 12) is a command (the same word as “listen” in verse 1) that emphasizes the need to give undivided attention to the word of the Lord. “I am the first, and I am the last,” God declares for the third time in Isaiah’s prophecy (see 41:4; 44:6). In each case, this statement suggests that there is no other god who declares his will and performs the great acts of creation (v. 13) and redemption.
The Lord commissioned Cyrus to carry out “His will upon Babylon” (v. 14). In this sense, we can say that “the Lord loved him.” This does not speak of the king’s salvation, but only of his election for the Lord’s purposes. Cyrus will be successful because God declared, “I, I have spoken and called him. I have brought him” (v. 15). The emphatic pronoun “I” at the beginning of this sentence is repeated twice. The conjunction translated "and" also has an emphatic meaning (as in Isaiah 46:10, 11). God commanded Cyrus to allow the remnant to return from captivity.
Is verse 16 a continuation of the prophecy about God's servant Cyrus? Or is this the saying of God's servant Isaiah? Or maybe this is a double reference to the prophet and the coming Servant? Homer Haley says, “These are the words either of the prophet Isaiah or of the ideal Servant who is to come.” Haley believes the last assumption is correct, but this cannot be stated categorically. If the latter assumption is correct, then this verse serves as a bridge to the prophecies about the ideal Servant, the Messiah, who is the main focus of the rest of the book.
God's Description of What Could Have Been (48:17–19)
“Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is useful, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh that you would heed My commandments! Then your peace would be like a river, and your truth would be like the waves of the sea. And your seed would be like sand, and those who come from your loins would be like grains of sand; his name would not be blotted out, nor would it be cut off from before Me" (48:17-19).
There are many references to God in verse 17. “Lord” is the covenant name of God. "Redeemer" and "Holy One of Israel" are descriptive terms. “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you profit” is a phrase that establishes identity and purpose. The word "law" in the Old Testament is Torah, which means "teaching, instruction." God's purpose is to teach His people how to manage their lives well.
“Oh that” (v. 18) are probably the three saddest words in the language. People sigh: “Oh, if only I had paid more attention to the children when they were growing up”; “Oh, if only I showed my wife (husband) more love and attention”; “Oh, if only I read the Bible more and prayed more”; “Oh, that I might serve others more.” This list goes on and on, describing your regrets about lost opportunities. “Oh that Israel would “attend to the commandments” of the Lord: then the result would be “peace” and “righteousness.” The word “peace” (shalom) does not mean the absence of troubles. It is the general welfare that flows from the presence of God. “Truth” basically means following an ethical and moral standard—in this case, the standard given by God. “And your seed would be like sand,” says God (v. 19). This is what He promised to childless Abraham in Gen. 22:17: His offspring will be as numerous as the sand on the seashore.
New Exodus (48:20–22)
“Come out from Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans, proclaim and preach this with a voice of joy, spread this message to the ends of the earth. Say: “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.” And they do not thirst in the deserts through which He leads them: He brings out water for them from a stone; cuts the rock and water flows. “There is no peace for the wicked,” says the Lord” (48:20-22).
When Cyrus frees the Jews from Babylonian captivity (v. 20), a new exodus will come for them. This will be a time of great joy. They will joyfully exclaim: “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.”
Just as God provided water during the exodus from Egypt, so He will provide for the captives returning from Babylon (v. 21; see Ex. 17:1–6; Num. 20:8–11). But He reminds us: “There is no peace for the wicked” (v. 22). Joy and peace will have a condition (see v. 18). Returning to Canaan will not automatically mean righteousness. Those who continue to act wickedly will be punished.
"For My Name's Sake"
Chapter 48 speaks of the culmination of the Babylonian captivity. God will allow Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and take the Jews away for a severe trial to a place where they will come to know God and radically change their views and behavior. Then He will send Cyrus to lead His people back to Jerusalem.
Why did God not allow Babylon to destroy His people? The answer is given in verse 9: “For My name's sake My wrath was put aside.” God did this because His essence did not allow Him to do otherwise. His love and mercy prevented Him from fully venting His wrath. He taught them because that is His nature. When they strayed from the true path, He declared His will to them. Later He said: “Oh that you would listen to My commandments! Then your peace would be like a river...” (v. 18). He sought to guide them to spiritual health.
He gave them a testimony for His name's sake. He told them what was going to happen. “I declared the former things long ago; out of My mouth it came, and I proclaimed it, and suddenly I did it, and it all came to pass” (v. 3). By His grace, God provided them with evidence of His essence in opposition to the pagan gods around them.
He punished them for the sake of His righteousness. “Behold, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tried you in the furnace of suffering. For My own sake, for My own sake, I do this...” (vv. 10, 11). God's nature demanded that the people be brought back to God.
He refrained from destroying them for His name's sake. “For my name’s sake I put aside my wrath, and for my glory’s sake I kept myself from destroying you” (v. 9). Although God would ultimately act in wrath, His grace in patience did not destroy the Jews.
In all of this, the wonderful nature of God is revealed. Take a closer look at His perfect love! Is it possible not to praise Him? How could Israel not praise Him? God did what He did so that His people would see Him more clearly and bow before Him in humble praise. Have you come to know His essence, do you praise Him?
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God is Omniscient. God knows everything
God knows absolutely everything. The Bible says it this way:
And there is no creation hidden from Him, but everything is naked and open before His eyes: to Him we will give an account. (Bible, Hebrews 4:13)
God not only knows all existing information, all secrets, answers to all questions. But He also knows all the thoughts of all people. Nothing is hidden from Him. He knows something that maybe no one else knows about me. God knows me better than I know myself.
If our heart condemns us, then how much more does God, because God is greater than our heart and knows everything. (Bible, 1 John 3:20)
Moreover, God not only knows everything in the present, He also knows the future and the past. God created time, but
