In rejecting the millennial reign of Christ Jesus, our nation has progressively lost its moral compass. We are at such a nadir spiritually that the drastic prophetic actions of the immoral Levite are what might even be needed. Over 70,000 children are dismembered through abortion each year in Australia. If the death of one woman is horrific, how much more the treatment of those whom we have been entrusted to love and care? There is none more defenceless than a baby, and so the callousness and cruelty associated with how they are currently being treated is all the more reprehensible.

The title of this article may sound hyperbolic, but it’s not. It is my contention that the nation of Australia is currently experiencing the wrath of God. This is demonstrated by the prevalence of wickedness which exists throughout our land. While things could always get worse, it’s my hope in writing this that in the Lord may use it to lead his people to repentance and so revive the work of the Gospel in this place (2 Chron. 7:14).

The reason I believe that we are as a nation under judgment can be found in the apostle Paul’s words in Romans 1:18ff. Note that Paul says that “the wrath of God is being revealed”, i.e. at this present time. How exactly is this demonstrated? By God giving us over to the sinful desires of our hearts – in particular, withdrawing the goodness of His grace which restrains us from doing whatever our sinful desires want to do.

In the context of Paul’s letter to the Romans this is expressed sexually when men and women become inflamed with lust for one another, and is an integral component of what Paul means that we are receiving in ourselves the “due penalty for their perversion” (Rom. 1:27).

All sexual acts outside the holy and sacred covenant of marriage are wrong. But there is something ‘unnatural’ about homosexuality and thus, particularly degrading and even shameful. However, it’s not just homosexuality which is an expression of God’s wrath and righteous judgment. Paul goes on to write:

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practise them. (Rom. 1:28-32)

This is an apt description of the people in every nation throughout the Western world today, including for those of us who live in Australia. I completed an undergraduate liberal arts degree, majoring in anthropology, at a Lutheran university in the United States of America. In my course, we learnt that there were four main ‘rites of passage’ which every culture throughout the world observes. These involves ceremonies surrounding birth, puberty, marriage and death.

The Culture of Death

Just consider what has taken place then throughout the West since the turn of the twenty-first century:

a) Regarding birth we now have late term abortion even for psycho-social reasons where the mother’s mental health is viewed as being at risk.

b) Regarding puberty we have politicians and doctors championing transgenderism where children are being surgically castrated and permanently sterilised.

c) Regarding marriage we have the misnomer of ‘gay marriage’ involving people of the same biological sex when they cannot naturally form a family.

d) Regarding death we have doctor assisted suicide or, as it’s appropriately referred to in Canada, M.A.D. ‘Medically Assisted Death’.

Western civilisation has entered into what is appropriately referred to as a ‘culture of death’. Not even Aldous Huxley in his dystopian classic Brave New World perceived just how morally depraved we would quickly become.

Learning from God’s Word

There is a biblical precedent to all of this which is especially apt. And that is the horrific incident found in the book of Judges chapter 19. The sordid tale involves a Levite (who was from the tribe of Israel which provided religious scribes and priests) and his concubine whom he callously allows to be sexually abused throughout the night by a group of Israelite men who were initially trying to rape him.

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