GOD, OMNIPRESENCE OF
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead, And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last.
—Rev. 1:17
1975 Edinburgh’s Course Opener
Dr. John Baillie made it a practice to open his course on the doctrine of God at Edinburgh University with these words: “Gentlemen, we must remember that in discussing God we cannot talk about Him without His hearing every word we say. We may be able to talk to our fellows, as it were, behind their backs, but God is everywhere, yes, even in this classroom. Therefore, in all of our discussions we must be aware of His infinite presence and talk about Him, as it were, before His face.”
—David L. Currens
1976 No Eyes To See Him
Augustine was once accosted by a heathen who showed him his idol and said, “Here is my god; where is thine?” Augustine replied, “I cannot show you my God; not because there is no God to show but because you have no eyes to see Him.”
1977 No Room For Another
To the query “Why is there but one God?” a child answered: “Because God fills every place, and there’s no room for another one.”
—Selected
1978 No Place To Flee
A heathen chief said to Rabbi Josiah, “My gods are greater than thy gods.”
“Why?” asked the sage.
“Because,” replied the heathen, “when your God appeared in the thorn bush Moses hid his face, but when he saw the serpent, which is my god, he fled before it.”
And Rabbi Josiah answered:
“When our God appears we cannot flee from Him: He is in the heavens and on earth, on sea and dry land; but if a man flees from thy god, the serpent, a few steps deliver him.”
—Current Anecdotes
1979 So Great Yet So Little
One of the most infamous freethinkers of England was a man by the name of Anthony Collins, who died in 1729. He was author of the well-known “Discourse on Freethinking.” This Collins one day met a poor working man on his way to church.
“Where are you going,” asked Collins.
“To church, sir,” answered the workingman.
“Is your God a great God or a little God,” asked Collins in an attempt to confuse the mind of the poor fellow. But the church-goer gave him the perfect answer:
“He is so great, sir, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, and so little that He can dwell in my heart.”
Collins later admitted that this simple but sublime answer of an uneducated man had more effect upon his mind than all the volumes of argument he had read in favor of religion.
1980 The Third Person Is God
Once when Lord Moynihan, great British surgeon, had finished operating before a gallery full of distinguished visiting doctors he was asked how he could work with such a crowd present. He replied: “You see, there are just three people in the operating room where I operate—the patient and myself.” “But that is only two!” his questioner commented; “Who is the third?” Moynihan responded, “The third is God.”
1981 So Can God Fill Us
Standing on the deck of a ship in mid-ocean, you see the sun reflected from its depths. From a little boat on a mountain lake you see the sun reflected from its shallow waters. Looking into the mountain spring not more than six inches in diameter, you see the same great sun. Look into the dew drop of the morning, and there it is again.
The sun has a way of adapting itself to its reflections. The ocean is not too large to hold it, nor the dewdrop too small. So God can fill any man, whether his capacity be like the ocean, like the mountain lake, like the spring, or like the dewdrop. Whatever, therefore, be the capacity, there is opened up the possibility of being “filled with the fullness of God.”
—J. H. Bomberger