God is Far Away and Very Near

Life. Interrupted. Week 6 Day 3

Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know." Genesis 18:16-21

Why did God have to “go down” to Sodom and Gomorrah? Isn’t God present everywhere all of the time? It doesn’t seem that God would have to go in order to know.

God didn’t need to go, but Abraham did not understand that God was omnipresent (present everywhere all of the time). God revealed Himself to humans in stages. Theologians call this “progressive revelation.”

In Abraham’s mind, the only way that God or anybody else would know what was going on in Sodom was to go and see. Rather than blow Abraham’s mind with a lecture of the Non-Moral Attributes of God (see Bible Doctrines 1 at BrookwoodU), God spoke to Abraham in a way that Abraham would understand.

By virtue of when and where we live, we know more about God than Abraham did. The great thing about God is that He is omnipresent. He is over everything. But, God is also close and personal. He lives in those who believe.

Isaiah said it best: “For this is what the high and lofty One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15).

God is big enough to handle everything that we face, and He is personal enough to care about everything we face. He can handle what you’re facing today.