By Dr. John E. Morgan

Pastor–Collinsville Baptist Church

Oracoke Island.  It is the place in the U.S. that I would have told you is nearest to the end of the world.

My wife and I first went there twenty years ago.  It’s a twelve hour drive from here to the coast.  Turn south for an hour to Cape Hatteras.  By then, you are a long way from the mainland. But not yet at the end of the world.

We drove further south for the forty minute ferry ride to Oracoke Island. The tourist info web site says, “Getting to Oracoke Island requires definite predetermination.”

When you get off the ferry it is a thirteen mile drive through undeveloped dunes to the small village built around the little harbor.  It is so isolated that some residents still speak in an accent that sounds like Elizabethan English that goes back to the first settlement 300 years ago.  Twenty years ago there was little television or cell phone reception.

This was the end of the world.  An island of isolation.  Less than a thousand people living there.  Winters with almost no tourists.  On their own, even in hurricanes.

We went into a small general store that has been there for decades, heard that local accent from the workers.  The isolation allowed us to forget the problems of the world.  You could hide out there for years.  Forget about politics and wars and bills.

And then a woman ran out the door of a shop yelling, “He’s innocent.  O.J. is innocent”.  My shoulders sank.  Not at the verdict.  At the fact that even here at the end of the world I could not escape news of that trial.

Twenty years ago this month the country was infatuated with the trial of O.J. Simpson, a former football player charged with murdering his wife.  The trial had gone on for over a year.  I was sick of it.  I never understood why people were infatuated with it.  One great thing about Oracoke was that there was no O.J. news.  Or so I thought.  Not even here could I hide.

Psalm 139 says the same thing about our feeble efforts to hide from God.  “You know where I sit and when I rise; …where can I flee from your presence?”  Not the ocean.  Not the heavens.  It is impossible to hide from God.  He knows all our hiding places.

Sometimes when I enter a room, I hear someone say something like – watch it, it’s the preacher.  I find that really amusing.  First, I am an awful sinner, too.  You don’t have to hide from me.  And second, why would you worry about hiding from me when God knows everything you are doing?

The psalm goes on to say that is a good thing.  God knew us before we were born.  We are “fearfully and wonderfully made”.  God is with us 24/7 - when we sleep and when we wake.  He is always watching out for us.  He loves us.

So two lessons.  Don’t hide from God.  It won’t work.

Do Hide in God.  The end of the world is coming.