GYC SE 2012: Not Very Far

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GYC Southeast

Doug Batchelor

Not Very Far

I'd like to thank Alan for such a very kind introduction.

And it wasn't all true, but it was very kind nonetheless.

And it is a privilege to be back here with you at Southern Adventist University.

I'm delighted and honored that some of you came out.

And we are looking forward to our program in the fall.

And I hope that you'll be now praying for that series where we're going to be looking at what the ultimate purpose is and talking about how to take it from theory to experience in your Christian life.

In our time this weekend, I'd just like to talk to you from my heart about what I think is really something that is very important that we forget, and that is the truth that God is much nearer than we think.

It's easy for us to forget the presence of God.

Years ago when I was living up in the mountains, I kind of feel like I'm in the mountains now, these beautiful bushes here.

I remember reading a book someone gave me and it talked about practicing the presence of God.

And they said that if you could come to the place where you could just really believe in and recognize that God is with you all of the time, the Christian life is a delight, And it's really the key to knowing and loving Jesus, and that's where the power comes from.

But sometimes we become so preoccupied with our horizontal perspective that we forget how God really, how close God really is.

Because after all, there are so many people in the world, and the world is so big, and the universe is so big, God must be so busy.

I heard something that it's really not new news, but I read it more thoroughly for the first time just this last year about a fascinating experiment that happened with the Hubble telescope a few years ago where, you know, it costs a lot of money to focus that telescope for a period of time in some direction, and the various learning institutions and universities, they want to rent time, it's very expensive, takes a lot of energy.

And they decided to do something a little risky.

They said, we're going to focus the telescope at a part of the sky where we don't think there is anything.

And so they found a piece of the sky, I believe it was near the Big Dipper, and for you and I it would be a piece of the sky about the size of a grain of rice when you hold it out at arm's length.

And they locked down the telescope and they focused on this 1 spot and opened the aperture for 10 days to capture enough light.

They said, we may get a whole lot of nothing, but let's find out what happens.

And after leaving the telescope focused there for 10 days, they evaluated those light images that had transferred, And they found that in that little spot, the size of a piece of rice at arm's length, there were 3, 000 galaxies and each galaxy they calculate as an average has 200 billion stars.

Well a few years later they upgraded the Hubble telescope and they thought, let's try this again.

And so now they, this was 2004, They focused the telescope at another part of the sky in the constellation Orion, about the same size.

As a matter of fact, they said it was more like the size of a grain of sand.

And they left it open, I think, for 11 days this time.

They found a piece of sky where they thought they would see nothing.

With their Earth-based telescopes, it was blackness.

And they focused it there to capture all the light for 11 days, and they found 10, 000 galaxies in what they thought was nothing.

Keep in mind galaxies can have millions of stars, some as many as a trillion stars, so they average it out to 200 billion stars.

Some calculations are that the observable universe is 24 billion light years across, meaning if you travel the speed of light, 186, 000 miles per second, you won't get a ticket because they can't catch you.

It means that if you go that speed, think about how far you go in a second, 186, 000 miles, it's going to take you 25 billion light years to get across that.

That's just mind-boggling, and our God made all of that.

And we probably are tempted to think like the deist that, You know, He just goes from place to place in the universe and He spins things into motion, and then He goes off and does the next thing.

But I want you to know that God is very involved in your life and is extremely interested in the minute details of your life and lives.

He's very close to us, and we tend to forget it.

And I would just like you to know how close He is.

You know, There's another verse in the Bible similar to our scripture reading.

I am a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God far off.

I've never heard anyone say that that's a memory verse we should remember, but I think it's a wonderful verse.

Have you ever felt like God was too far away?

He's promising us, I am a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God far off.

You know, sometimes I forget until something happens providentially to remind me that God is a God near at hand.

You've maybe heard about this theory that we are all really no more than 6 degrees apart by separation.

What that really means is 6 degrees of separation is a concept That there are no 2 people in the world that really are separated by more than 6 introductions of someone that you know that knows someone that knows someone, and you do that 6 times and you could theoretically connect to everybody on the planet.

Quick story to illustrate how that works.

Last year, family went on, not even quite a year ago, family went on a little mission trip to Central America, mixed it with some vacation, took Karen and the boys, went to the country Belize, did some preaching, saved some time for some diving.

We've all, the younger bachelors have got our scuba licenses, for that matter Daniel also has his license, and wanted to take some time.

So we went to this place we found that was at south end of Belize, driving down dirt roads for long ways, found this resort out in the middle of nowhere, but some good diving areas, and it was wonderful.

Checked in, went out on the beach, and, you know, have you ever wished you could kind of get away from it all?

There's a little part of me that's a hermit, if you didn't know that.

And so for me, that was very attractive to just...and I don't like being cold.

But it was so nice because I put on a bathing suit, went down from the hotel to the beach there on the Gulf of Mexico, laid down on a cushioned lounge chair, wasn't very windy, light breeze, warm water lapping, not hot, not cold.

I just laid there and thought, peace, and I can finally relax.

Well I was in a lounge chair, Karen was in a lounge chair next to me, and there's nobody on the beach, And we're all by ourselves.

Kids were out on a dock up the beach somewhere else.

And these 2 people came walking up the beach.

And as they came by, the man, it was a husband and wife, he stops and he says to his wife, he said, honey, there's Doug and Karen Batchelor.

He had to be there Because for 1 thing, you know, I don't usually like get out there in just a bathing suit in public.

You know, Joe Cruz wrote about me swimming, and so I kind of looked both ways.

I had their name on my desk at home, and I thought, I need to call these folks.

I'll do it when we get back from our vacation.

Now I run into them at the remote corner of the world out in the middle of nowhere What are the chances of that and it turned out to be 1 of those providential meetings and their dear friends today So many things happen every day that we take for granted, and God is trying to tell us that He's real, that He's a God close at hand, and He is interested in the small things in your life.

You may think these are silly, but for me, I think sometimes God has to do things like this for me to realize that he's real.

I play racquetball with a friend, and I have a can that I put my racquetballs in.

It actually keeps them pressurized, keeps your racquetballs fresh because nobody ever wants to play with a stale racquetball, right?

But it's got an o-ring on a little rubber seal.

And so I was finishing a game with a friend 1 day and I put my racquetball back in to keep it fresh and I'm putting the lid down and all of a sudden it popped and I took the lid off and the seal blew out.

I said to my friend, well, I guess I've got to buy another racquetball can, because the seal's blown out.

And he looks at it, and he says, well, you know, my job is that I also repair jacuzzis, and I happen to have a couple of seals in the back of my truck.

Let's go see." You know how many size O-rings there are out there?

There's like an infinite number of O-ring possibilities.

And the fact that my friend just happened to have in the back of his truck the exact O-ring that fit my can so I didn't have to pay $11, shows me the Lord loves me.

It was a perfect size, Still there today.

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Not Very Far

Transcript

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