Jeremiah 23:23-24 “Am I only a God nearby,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord.”

True or false? People can know what God is like. Before we look at how Jeremiah helps us answer that question, perhaps we should take a moment to consider a more basic question: Is there a God at all? Does he really exist? How we answer that question will determine how we judge Jeremiah.

In this chapter, Jeremiah has some harsh words for other prophets who claimed to speak for the Lord. If God is just a figment of our imaginations, just the collective good ideas and sincere wishes of good people, then shame on Jeremiah for criticizing them. Why couldn’t their ideas be just as good as his? But if God really does exist–and we all agree that he does, I believe–then some things are true about him, and others are false. Then people shouldn’t say just anything they want about him.

But that seemed to be the way it was in Jeremiah’s day. The prophets that Jeremiah was criticizing were not the prophets of some pagan gods like Baal or Molech or Asherah. They were prophets who, like Jeremiah, claimed to be prophets of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob–the God who delivered his people from Egypt and promised to send them a Savior.

These prophets weren’t denying all the most important teachings of God’s word. They didn’t deny that God had promised to send his people the Messiah someday. They didn’t speak against the sacrifices at the temple, or the celebration of the important feasts.

But they did pick and choose which parts of God’s message to deliver, and they added something of their own. One of the most serious problems was their refusal to call the people to repent. They told them what they wanted to hear. Jeremiah warns in verses 16-17: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you…They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says: You will have peace.’ And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’”

You see, Judah had been through two “revivals” in the last hundred years under Kings Hezekiah and Josiah. Outwardly the people seemed much more religious, much more devout about going to the temple and worshiping the Lord.

But inwardly little had changed. The people still worshiped the false gods on the side. There was still a laundry list of sinful attitudes and behaviors which they cherished. Maybe these other prophets didn’t worship the false gods themselves. “But,” the prophets thought to themselves, “who are we to tell these very religious people that they were wrong?” Who were they to judge someone else, and tell him that what he was doing is a sin?

It seems that these prophets had forgotten what God is like. Maybe they themselves didn’t believe that anyone could be sure. That’s why God sent Jeremiah with these questions: “Am I only a God nearby,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord.”

The point of each question is the same, isn’t it. Since God is everywhere, there is no place anyone can go to hide from him. People can hide their sins from others, but every time they sin, God is an eyewitness. He is right there with them. So prophets who claim to speak for him should not think that God is unreal, or somehow unaware of the message which they preach.

Can people really know what God is like? Yes! True! He reveals himself here, but this was nothing new. How he feels about sin, or the fact of his holy presence in all places at all times, was nothing new. He had revealed it in his word time and time again in the past. These things remain true today, and will continue without end.