Jeremiah the prophet wrote; “Again the word of the LORD came to me, inquiring, “What do you see?” “I see a boiling pot,” I replied, “and it is tilting away from the north.” (Jeremiah 1:13) Tomorrow the voters go to the polls in Australia. While there are quite a few political parties in Australia the main two are the Liberal and the Labour party. Right now there are some policies being put in place by the Labour party that will restrict what Bible believing Christians can say and do if these policies become part and parcel of Australia law. Australia has always been known as “the Lucky Country” and by that it means that people from other countries can come to Australia and find work and the place to start a business and build families. Freedom of speech and religion, have always been one of the hall marks of democracy and this has been an integral part of living in Australia over previous years.
Someone has said that the people get the leaders they deserve. Australia by and large has a Judeo-Christian heritage by the fact that it was originally a colony of Great Britain. While Australia does not have a history of the great spiritual revivals that marked the long history of Great Britain, there has been a Judeo-Christian input that has affected the laws that have been made in the past to make it a place where freedom of religion and speech is expressed without fear of recrimination or censure. Aussies love their freedoms.
However, in the current political environment things are set to change if the Labour party is voted in. For the most part the average Australian does not know anything about Biblical values and the laws God has given in scripture for the well-being and success of any nation that walks in His will and purposes and according to His divine mandate set out in His Word the Bible. When you consider the 10 commandments there is no better set of laws that have been given to men by which they can maintain a fair and just balance in society. If there was no commandment such as “You shall not commit adultery” then a man could run off with another man’s wife without any due penalty for his transgression. If there was no commandment such as “You shall not steal” then someone could steal your car and get away with it. If there was no law that said “You shall not murder” then someone could murder another person for whatever reason and not have to face the consequences of their actions.
The very laws, as set out in the Ten Commandments that govern our western civilization, have given us the freedoms we enjoy today. Tomorrow the people of Australia will vote. The results will reveal the spiritual and moral thinking of the average Australian. The people will get the leader they deserve. God’s Word says; “Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any peoples.” (Proverbs 14:34) Today Australia is a post-Christian society. While there is thousands of Bible believing Christians praying and actively seeking to make the average Aussies aware of what is really being put forward by the Labour Government, the majority of Aussies are still ignorant by and large of the commandments and laws of God and what He requires from the leaders of nations. The spiritually unregenerate mind of the unbelievers in Australia have no Biblical moral and spiritual compass by which to guide their thinking. There is no reverence for God before their eyes or for His laws.
God loves the Aussies and wants to spiritually revive Australia but unless there is a spiritual awakening such as was seen in England under the Wesley’s, Australia is headed for trouble. Not only this but the Church by and large in Australia needs to turn back to the Biblical gospel preaching that has marked all genuine spiritual awakenings and revivals down through history. In 1959 the Lord Jesus sent Billy Graham to Australia and thousands were saved at his meetings and many today date their new spiritual rebirth from that year at one of Billy’s meetings. This was years ago now.
Has there been a national spiritual revival since then? Have we seen a turning back to God in wholesale lots as we saw in the revivals under John and Charles Wesley? Repentance and holiness and a forsaking of sin and unrighteous living marked the spiritual awakening in Wesley’s time as he travelled from one end of England to the other on horseback, often in adverse conditions, to preach the Gospel of the kingdom, that separation of heart and soul to God by a faith working by love without which no man shall see The LORD.
The spiritual awakening and revival under Wesley saw society radically changed for the better. Businessmen, bankers, politicians, Colonial governors, members of Parliament, whose ceaseless, sacrificial labours benefited millions of their countrymen and women at home and abroad, came about because of Wesley’s uncompromising Biblical preaching. Right across England society as a whole was turned upside down as the spiritual awakening saw sinners saved and saints sanctified from all walks of life. England, after Wesley, saw many of his Century’s evils eradicated, because hundreds of thousands became Christians; their hearts were changed, as were their minds and attitudes and lifestyles.
The whole public realm was affected. Missionary organizations were established, Prison reform was activated, and child labour was abolished and slavery challenged. Many grog shops closed down. Prostitution, debauchery, immorality, theft, murder and corruption were eliminated to a wide degree. Independent fellowships, not merely religious institutions, were established where the Word of God was honoured and preached and where hundreds found salvation and sanctification through repentance towards God and through faith in the Lord Jesus and in the power of His blood to justify sinners before God, and to cleanse and deliver them from their sins. It is said that the spiritual awakening under John Wesley saved England from a revolution such as happened in France.
However, if a nation refuses to respond to the gospel and if the Church refuses to, or is just too lazy to preach the real Biblical Gospel then unrighteousness will prevail in this land and ultimately the judgement of God will fall. Just North of Australia today we have “a boiling pot tilting away from the North.” It is an empire in the character of the Ancient Babylonian Empire. It is Indonesia, a land which has the largest Islamic population in the world today. Could it be if a real and genuine Biblical spiritual awakening does not come to Australia that the contents of that boiling pot might spill out across this land? If a fundamentalist Jihad minded government comes to power in Indonesia then things may well change overnight and become a real threat to Australia and our way of life and freedoms that we often take for granted?
The elections will happen tomorrow and the party that is voted in may determine the future spiritual and national direction of this great nation that is one of the last bastions of freedom of speech and religion and democracy in the Southern hemisphere. If we as a nation do not turn back to the God of the Bible and to Biblical Christianity then it may well be that the axe is already laid to the root of this nation and it will be Islam that topples the tree and in that day Australia will no longer be called the Lucky Country because its luck will have run out!
