‘The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.’ Job 1:7
A few days ago, I sat down to write a 2025 Christmas reflection. I had barely begun that task when the reports started to come through about the horror of the massacre at Bondi in Sydney, a place I have often visited.
The indescribably horrific statistics (at the time of writing) are well known, 15 of the victims are dead including a child, and over 40 were injured. Many have stated their shock that such a thing could happen in Australia, but the reality is that it was only a matter of time. The question is, why?
As I watched the response from Politicians and senior Police, all speaking what were largely the usual platitudes – ‘this is a time for unity, everything will be done to prevent this ever happening again, our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims’ families’ etc, it was clear to me that they were missing the point.
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Recently in conversations in various contexts with friends and family members one topic has regularly been raised, particularly by those who are parents or who have grandchildren, nephews and nieces etc.
The issue in question is a fearful and deep concern about the future, in particular the trajectory of cultural and moral degradation of a society that they see unravelling before their eyes. The particular focus of this concern relates to an anxiety about what sort of society awaits their children and future generations.
For some reason, as I watched the scenes of carnage on the world-famous Bondi beach, a image came into my mind, the image of the inscription written on the ‘Kohima Epitaph’ carved on the Memorial in the cemetery at Kohima in North-East India. This memorial is for the members of the 2nd British Division who fell in the Battle of Kohima in 1944 and reads-
‘When you Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Your Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today”
It is a memorial for those who fought for our ‘Today’ but never came home and those who did, but whose lives were permanently damaged by their wounds, physical and emotional. As I remembered that inscription I thought that the ‘Tomorrow’ we live in Australia is not the ‘Tomorrow’ for which they gave their ‘Today’.
They fought for a society, a way of life marked by characteristics of service, sacrifice, obligation, self-denial, decency and mutually supportive community. Fundamentally, they fought for a Christianized society that was still shaped by a biblical moral guidance system. They fought against totalitarianism and tyranny, a major expression of which was the slaughter of six million Jews by Hitler. Now once more on Bondi beach we see the ancient cancer of anti-semitism stalking our streets.
Their ‘Today’ that they sacrificed for us has resulted in a ‘Tomorrow’ with little resemblance to the one they fought for. In fact, what has transpired is a society increasingly making parents fearful at the future their children will have to grapple with.
So what were the politicians and other leaders (and most of the media for that matter) missing in their post-Bondi statements? The answer to that question was in their use of the word ‘Evil’.
‘Evil’ is certainly an appropriate term to use in the context, however Evil is a spiritual category. The problem is not primarily about the access to firearms (ban guns and other weapons can be used), or the need for more laws or restrictions. It is about the ‘spiritual’ forces that drive people to plan and commit such horrific acts on other human beings, what the author of the Narnia series called ‘That Hideous Strength’, and the Apostle Paul described as ‘the powers of this world’s darkness, and . . . the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’.
The root of the massacre at Bondi is spiritual. It is not a lack of Law but a lack of Grace, the Grace that flows from the heart of God, and operates in a society shaped by a Biblical world view, where while not perfectly, the ‘Golden Rule’ (treat others as you wish them to treat you) was the default mindset, Grace that acts to constrain evil as was largely the case in western societies up to the end of the last century. One that, for example, exhorts ‘loving your neighbour’ (even your enemy) and ‘looking after the interests of others’, rather than one that teaches even children to hate Jews and that it’s ok to kill the ‘infidel’, the unbeliever, that is most of us.
The Bondi massacre is the fruit of the forces that have filled the spiritual Vacuum created by the intentional ejection of God from our parliaments, our homes, the education system and society in general, with the consequential loss of the Biblical moral operating system.
I have written many articles about this issue on this site. which I cannot repeat here, however, here are some of the major causes and consequences of the Vacuum-
- The rejection and retreat of the Christian influence (the SALT- Matthew 5:13) from a society in which behaviour was not controlled by more and more laws, rules and restrictions but by the Biblical moral operating system.
- Ignorance of the fact that Multiculturalism equals Multifaith-ism, (belief-system-ism), and what people believe affects how they behave (one nightly TV political commentator repeatedly says he doesn’t care what faith people have – He should!).
- The enthusiastic embrace of a ‘brainless’ Multiculturalism with its inane assumption that all cultures are of equal worth. As I have written before, even a limited knowledge of a range of cultures imported into Australia shows that this is a dangerous delusion. (See the Sound of Truth Dying)
- A weak, complacent, comfortable and impotent church. One which has lost sight of its primary reason for its existence, that is to make disciples, an endeavour which it has largely been failing in for decades, despite falling memberships and attendances.
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In Britain during WW2 there were groups of Hitler-supporting, Jew-hating Nazi sympathizers. However, that did not break out into the public protests, marches and other anti-semitic activities that we have seen over the last few years. Why? Because the basically Christian society then did not provide fertile ground for poisonous ideologies to take root. Ours now does.
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Nature abhors a vacuum and that is equally true in the spiritual realm. The rejection of Christianity has left a spiritual vacuum. This is now being filled with all sorts of manifestations of Evil, from the obvious to the cunningly subtle. Evil is a spiritual category (although you will see little to zero reference to that in current commentary). It cannot be eliminated this side of Jesus’ return, but it can be constrained by the re-evangelization of a society that has lost its Christian Soul.
However, a paraphrase of a quote from the great evangelist D. L. Moody is relevant-
“How many are there in the church today, who have been members for fifteen or twenty years, but . . . cannot point today to one single person they have made a Disciple (original ‘who has ever been lifted up (to heaven) by them.’)?
The question for those of us who claim the to be followers of Christ is, how many can we point to? If our answer is none then we are a big part of the problem. When Jesus said to his followers ‘Go and make disciples’ it wasn’t a suggestion, an optional extra for those who are keen, but a commandment.
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Evil is a spiritual category, one in which our politicians, Educators, Civic leaders generally, have become both spiritually and biblically illiterate and incompetent, and indeed ignorant of the forces at play. Forces that Jesus taught about and encountered often. But of course we are too advanced, intelligent and educated for that ‘Ancient Serpent’ stuff aren’t we?
The awful events at Bondi are but just one example of the now decades-long ‘slow-motion moral train wreck’ of the Degradation now poisoning western society The only thing that will turn this darkening tide is a strong and sustained new missional movement of the Gospel. Such a movement cannot arise from the impotence of the traditional churches, mired as they are in anachronistic and chronically ineffective missional forms and strategies last of any significant effect in the 20th century.
Such a movement can most certainly arise. But only when many more of those who claim the name of him whose name is in the word Christmas start to tell that greatest story ever told about the greatest offer that was ever made by the greatest person who ever lived.
So we must pray that the God who does ‘New Things’ (Isaiah 42:9) will indeed do a new thing to His glory.
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‘The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on Bondi Beach.’
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