David Diga Hernandez - When God Seems Distant

Well, if you’ve ever felt, as I said, that God is distant from you, then I truly believe this program is going to help you experience a breakthrough. One of the ways we will achieve this is by examining what Scripture teaches about the presence of God. I genuinely believe that as you come to understand the three different expressions of God’s presence, it will bring you a breakthrough in your thinking, emotions, and the way you live your Christianity, especially during those seasons when you feel like God is a million miles away. We’ve all been there: you’re praying, and it seems like no one is responding; you’re worshiping, and a sense of His majesty eludes you in some way. There seems to be this disconnect, and you feel like you’re missing something, like you’re doing something wrong. You may have even looked up to the Lord and said, «Lord, are you angry with me? God, where did I go wrong? Did I miss something in your will?» If we’re not careful, we can allow fear to overtake our thinking to the point where we wonder if we’ve missed the absolute centered, perfect will of God. Today, I want you to find freedom from that sort of thinking. I want you to rest in the peace of knowing that when He promised, «I will never leave you nor forsake you, ” He meant it, and to this very day, He keeps that promise. So now, let’s go ahead and look at what King David wrote about the presence of God. What many people do not recognize about King David—or perhaps what they do not often discuss—is the fact that he was very close to the Holy Spirit. You can really tell from his writings that he shared something very special with the Lord. In fact, there are times in Scripture when King David references things such as, „The Lord said to my Lord, ” and he begins mentioning the Trinity and God speaking to God, as well as the angel of the Lord. I believe King David had much more revelation than what he wrote about in the Book of Psalms. One of the Psalms that stood out to me specifically for this lesson was Psalm chapter 139, and we’re going to read this from the New Living Translation. Psalm 139 begins at verse 7: „I can never escape from your Spirit. I can never get away from your presence. If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night, but even in darkness, I cannot hide from you. To you, the night shines as bright as day; darkness and light are the same to you.“ Here we see what is called the omnipresence of God, a theological term simply meaning the everywhere presence of God. When you read this Scripture, even when he talks about making his bed in the grave or Sheol (some translations say Hades), there seems to be this impression that God is even present in hell. Some theologians have said that one of the most frightening things about hell is that God is present there to enact justice. But regardless of what you believe about hell, the truth is that there is nowhere you can go to escape the omnipresence of God. Whether or not God is conscious in hell, the truth is that He is, to some degree, aware of what is going on there, even if it is just in a very shallow sense. The Scripture tells us that there is nowhere you can go to escape the presence of God. When I read that, it seems to contradict some other things we’ve discussed. Let’s look for a moment at 1 Corinthians 6:19. We’ll address that contradiction in just a moment, but first, let’s examine 1 Corinthians 6:19, where the Scripture says, „Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?“ Here we see the omnipresence of God, which is His everywhere presence, and we also see the indwelling presence of God, which is the Holy Spirit within us. In fact, the Scripture states in Romans 8:11 that the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you. So, there is this very literal indwelling; even though it may not be physical, it is still a spiritual indwelling presence that rests inside of you. We see both the everywhere presence of God and the indwelling presence of God. So, why then does the Scripture refer to instances such as when Cain committed the first murder ever recorded in history? He committed this murder, and then we see that Cain went away from the presence of the Lord. Another verse that seems to contradict this is in Psalm chapter 51, so let’s return to King David for a moment. What struck me about this is that King David knows about the omnipresence of God—in fact, he is the one who wrote the Scripture we just read. He is discussing here about…