Near at Hand

In the Apostle Paul’s address at the Areopagus (Mars Hill) we hear him address the men of Athens. At the time Paul speaks it was still the cultural and intellectual center of the Greek world. It is likely he is addressing pagan Gentiles so he simplifies his theology to help them understand what he is saying and uses one of their own altars to make a point. Basically he used one of their altars as a sermon prop.

Acts 17:22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us…

The verse goes on but I stop at verse 27’s… “He is actually not far from each one of us…” The Greeks in Athens had built altar to an Unknown God…a mysterious, impenetrable or an unknowable deity. As if this one form of divinity was unknown to them. It is such a simple verse and such a simple sentiment that carries directly into our day and is symptomatic of the same thing it showed in Athens. It is the product of a lack of faith. A simple idea: God, mostly forgotten in times of loss, suffering and during the bad times in life. He is forgotten in a way that makes Him seem ‘unknown’ or more specifically unhelpful or callous. This is not the God of the Bible. As if to put an exclamation point on the opposite God came among us. For a brief three decade period about two millennium ago Jesus actually descended from his throne taking on the attribute of flesh and made his habitation among men. He became Immanuel or God among/with us. Not distant but immediate and immanent. He was and still is relational. From his relationship with humanity in Genesis to the ending verses of Revelation where He tells us He is coming back to us. In truth he never leaves us as He is always with us in Spirit (John 15:26-27).

Revelation 22:12-13 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

Paul’s intent appears to be that he was about to tell his audience more about a God whom they worshipped but did not know much about, namely, Yahweh. Paul seems to have meant that he would inform them of a God whom they did not know but had built an altar to honor. In either case, Paul began with the Athenian interest in gods and their confessed ignorance about at least one god and proceeded to explain who that One God was. It was Yahweh and he was not unknown or unknowable. He is the true God who created all things and had determined when and where all things would be…including them. Including us when we are distraught, when we are struggling, when we are alone and even when we are dying. As a matter of fact He first died for us so that He would be there when we died to take us to be with Him forever. He is never far off but…here…now. If He is in any way distant and not available to us it is because we pushed Him away and chose to have little or nothing to do with Him.

God's purpose in regulating times and boundaries (v. 26-27) was that people would realize His sovereignty and seek Him (cf. Rom. 1; John 6:44; 12:32). He is a God who has absolute ownership of the universe in all is physical, temporal and spiritual aspects. An ownership flowing out of necessity due to His relationship to it as its Creator (Romans 10:12). Completely filled with His presence that anything in it would not be able to escape Him. Eternally present in place and time. He is a God who has guided all our movements by an invisible hand. He, who had called us into existence, and who, far from being indifferent to and ignorant of our fortunes, has in actuality determined our appointed seasons and the limits of our earthly and eternal habitation. He has fixed the periods of our rising, falling, decaying and the limits of our territory both in place and time. Yet somehow, we can feel completely isolated and ostracized because of our sin and the blinding darkness it can bring.

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet-Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. ~Lord Alfred Tennyson

Even David, God’s anointed lost sight of Him at times during his darkest days. Pain has a way of distracting a person. In the midst of his affliction David rested in confidence in the Lord even though he saw no immediate relief from his predicament, possibly illness or a suffering brought on by his own sin. Blinded by life his heart laments in words but his soul tells him that God will never abandon him.

Psalm 13:1-2 “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me. How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”

David felt like God was distant to him and that He had forgotten him, like God was hiding His face from him but was this true? No, because later in this same psalm, David wrote that “I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation” (Psalm 13:5) and because of that, he wrote “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me” (Psalm 13:6).  David’s point was that even though God felt distant from him, the reality is God is closer to us when we’re crushed than when things are cruising along and going well.

It is therefore sadly ironic that a God who would do so many things to make Himself evident and available to men would go so often overlooked, ignored in blindness or forgotten. Unable to recognize their Maker while all the plain evidence needed is placed in our paths. He is a God who literally came looking for us. He did so from the very beginning in Genesis 3:9 when where man first fell in sin….the very sin that causes us to run from Him and not seek him out. He is a shepherd who knows His sheep. His sheep should know their shepherd... but most do not. They don’t recognize his voice. They do not obey his commands. An especially troubling behavior when the wolves arrive to scatter the flock, running to-and-fro in mindless chaotic movement, scared and directionless. Those weak will be restored and those dying will be comforted. A God who will find even the last that seek the safety of home.

Ezekiel 34:11-12, 16 “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness….I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

Even when men have left you to your end in your time of dying because there is nothing more they can do for you…He is there.

Romans 14:8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

Isaiah 62:12 …And you will be called, “Sought out…not forsaken.”