Living In A Bubble

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry with the title “Living In A Bubble” (Genesis 3:6; 4:1-12). The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel.

One of my interests is ornithology: watching birds and identifying them. But we all know that most birds are very shy, and don’t let you get near them. So I was thrilled when our nephew made an app available to us, which identifies birds by their song: you just press “record”, hold it up in the direction of the sound, and it’ll give you the names and pictures of all the birds that are singing near you! In this way, we made an amazing discovery in the Kabacki Forest, when one of the birds we recorded was a beautiful yellow and black bird I would never ever see (a golden oriole), because it’s so shy. But it was there, and we heard its song!

 

You know, it struck me that God is a bit like those birds: you can’t see Him, but you can certainly hear His voice! But can you identify it as God’s voice when you hear it? My Ania likes birds too, but she’s not as passionately interested in them as I am. So when we identified that rare bird, I immediately remembered its song. Five minutes later I asked Ania to imitate the bird’s song, which sounded like a flute, but she couldn’t remember – I had to remind her! Then ten minutes after that, I asked her again, and she’d forgotten again. You see, that’s how it is with God’s voice: you’ll only hear it if you want to hear it. If you’re not really interested in hearing God’s voice, you won’t hear it. You’ll only hear your own voice.

 

The story of Cain and Abel is very depressing. I used to think that God rejected Cain’s offering because he was just born a bad guy, and so he went on to murder Abel. But the truth isn’t so simple. We can observe that children aren’t born evil – but some of them grow up to be bad as they go wrong in life, as is confirmed by God’s words to Cain: “You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you”. So Cain had chances to do what is right. But instead, he preferred not to listen to God’s voice, and in the end he murdered his brother. He was trapped in a bubble which he himself had created. A bubble (in my sense) is a fake reality in which a person lives, willing it to be the true reality. In such a bubble, a person says, for example, that there’s no God, no life after death, no sin; or that something untrue is true, even though it’s obvious that it isn’t.

 

As if to prove that he knew he was doing wrong, Cain deliberately lied to God, who asked him where his brother was. Cain lied: “I don’t know”. But he’d just killed him! And in the typical fashion of a guilty person who goes on the attack to cover up his guilt, he actually attacks God: “Why are You asking me this? Am I my brother’s keeper? Leave me alone!” You see, he’s creating a false narrative. But God spells the truth out to him: “You are cursed and banished, and everything you will try to do will ultimately go against you”. Cain can no longer make decisions for the right – he’s gone too far; and now only God can save him, if it so pleases Him.

 

According to the story, Cain’s parents were Adam and Eve. Notice that they too at first had a choice – whether to obey God or listen to the serpent. As we saw in our opening verses, Eve had a clear choice – but she chose to disobey God. “She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it”. The rest is human history.

 

You might say: “What’s wrong with desiring to have wisdom?” The answer is “nothing” – provided you try to get wisdom by following the Lord. But Eve tried to get wisdom by disobeying God; and in so doing, she and Adam created the first bubble that so many people live in today: the bubble of fake news; of alternative reality; of basing your whole mind on a fundamental lie – that we will not die spiritually, if we go our own way. And already in their son Cain, we see the consequences of constructing a fake bubble around you, which you gradually come to believe is the truth! But it isn’t.

 

Because I’m older than you young folks here, I see more clearly how people change over the years. Sometimes I’m overjoyed when a person who wasn’t doing much spiritually becomes more alive, active, and an obvious delight to the Lord. But sometimes, sadly, I see the opposite: persons who start off well, and then they go off the rails as they create a fake bubble to live in, until they can no longer distinguish truth from falsehood. They start to believe the narrative they themselves have created, and hear God’s voice less and less, until it becomes totally inaudible to them. As with Cain, this will end in disaster for them. And when they do wrong things, they don’t even feel remorse or repentance.

 

The spirit that leads us to create a false reality bubble around us is, of course, the spirit of Satan, represented in the Genesis story by the serpent. He’s the father of lies, and he’s a territorial spirit – not in the sense of geographical territory, though it becomes like that when people around you believe the same lies. This can happen in a small group, as one person spreads the same lies to another. Or it can happen in a nation, as when North Koreans are indoctrinated to be atheists, or in Muslim countries where the Koran’s lie is spread that Christians believe that God begat a baby son called Jesus. But the real territory that Satan occupies is the human mind. Inside us, not outside! The great human battle is for control of people’s minds! Satan lures us with the attractions of this passing world: dreams of success; honour; prestige; riches; and especially of power: power in your home; power in your work; power in your community; political power; power in the church; financial power. And Satan has an ally right inside us!: our own “self”, just itching to cooperate with him. That’s how easy it is to go wrong!

 

But Satan’s great enemy, also battling for our mind and soul, is the Lord Jesus Christ, who has only one weapon to fight with – the most effective weapon of all: His own blood! The blood of Jesus defeated Satan on the cross and continues to defeat Satan, conquering millions of hearts and bursting fake reality bubbles that people live in. The blood of Jesus can burst the bubble of your sinful fake life, wash you clean of your sins, and turn you to obey the Lord, by giving you repentance, sorrow, and shame for what you have done.

 

So, if you’re trapped in a bubble of your own making, what can be done? When we celebrate Communion today, it means we’re celebrating the fact that Jesus gave His body and blood for us, to save us and wash us clean. It’s a recognition that Jesus can burst our bubbles and give us repentance and help us hear God’s voice again. He alone has the power to do that. If we genuinely reach out to Him in all our helplessness and despair, He will come to our aid.

 

But if – despite calling ourselves Christians – we’re really interested in continuing to serve our own interests, which are actually the interests of Satan, then watch out!: our road to God and to salvation will be blocked. May the Lord grant us all repentance to be able to hear His voice, and obey it, and turn back, before it is too late. Amen.