An internet news service ran a column with an interesting title: "If God is everywhere, why do so few people find Him?" It sounds like a good question, so let's try to answer it.
God is everywhere. That is, God is omnipresent. "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament [space] showeth his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1). Again, "The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory" (Psalm 97:6).
The whole creation witnesses to the God who brought it into being and who sustains its existence. Paul said, "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead; so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:21).
No man has any excuse for not recognizing that God is. The witness is all around him and within him. Apart from God nothing has any meaning or any purpose. Apart from God there is really no such thing as logic, morality, history or destiny.
So, why then do so few people find God? The answer in Scripture is unequivocal: "There is none that seeketh after God" (Romans 3:11). Men do not find God because they do not want to find Him. They may be forced by the sheer force of the evidence to acknowledge that God is but they are not willing to have God on His own terms. Men want a god, but a god of their own devising, a god they can accept or explain, not the one, true and living God of Scripture, who has fully, finally and exclusively revealed Himself in His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
This has always been the case. It is a myth that man is searching for God. Ever since Adam's fall, man has been running from God. It is God who does the seeking. He started with Adam and has continued seeking and saving that which was lost. Today, in our society of self-seeking, men are more than ever unwilling to seek the true God. The terms God sets down are offensive to them. "Repent and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15) was Christ's opening public sermon in His earthly ministry. He has not changed His call. Repent? To most people today that word means nothing. The concept of having offended a holy God whose wrath justly hangs over them and must soon fall on them to their eternal destruction is entirely foreign. Most people have an overweening and utterly baseless sense of their own goodness. Jesus said that He did not come to call the righteous to repentance; only sinners need apply for grace. And that's one major reason so few people ever come to know God in Christ-they have never felt their need as sinners.
Many who profess to want to know God are seeking Him in the wrong place. Mother Theresa was acclaimed as a saint but confessed that she never felt anything of the nearness or fellowship of God or His Son. She thought she would find God as she worked for the poor and she failed. She went to the wrong place, like many others thinking she could connect with God through her good works and religious rituals. Such an effort must always fail. Any supposed knowledge of God so gained is a delusion. God may be known only in Jesus Christ, His Incarnate Son. He is God's last word to the world (Hebrews 1:1-2). He calls sinners to repentance and faith in His atoning sacrifice and death-shattering resurrection. All who heed His call will most certainly know God and to know Him is to have eternal life.
