“The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.” – Jeremiah 28:8

CCORDING to Avert, an international AIDS charity, one in 150 of the world’s population is infected with the HIV/AIDS. That is an estimated total of 39,500,000. Nearly three million succumbed to this deathly pandemic this past year. That is a rapid rise from the 30,000 deaths Time Magazine reported in February 1987. The death toll from AIDS will soon surpass  the 25 million killed by the bubonic plague

AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is a retrovirus that attacks the human immune system. Although the first known case was discovered in 1959, it was not recognized as a burgeoning epidemic until 1981.

On February 1, 1999, BBC World News reported that an international team of scientists had traced the origin to a sub-species of chimpanzees from the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), Researchers estimate that there are about 80,000 of these infected chimps.

While these sub-species carried the virus, it did not make them sick. It is thought that it became transmitted to humans who ate some of these infected chimpanzees.

Initially the virus was spread among the human population through male homosexual activity. However it was not long before it was transmitted by these homosexuals to their female partners. It is also carried through blood transfusions using infected blood and also by drug addicts using dirty needles.

Because of these methods of transmission, HIV/AIDS carries a social stigma. Many regard it as divine punishment for homosexuality, while that homosexual organizations counter that that charge amounts to homophobia.

The Quest for a Cure

The quest for a cure to this dreaded disease can be roughly divided into two areas – treatment and prevention.

Despite the development of several antiretroviral drugs and their use in the Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), the best these can do is not cure the disease, but delay the effects of the illness. During 2006 alone over $500 million was funneled through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whose website records over $2 billion in total grants, including some 37 other foundations and large contributors. In addition, in 2003 the United States made a commitment $15 billion over 10 years to fight AIDS.

Preventive measures have mostly been in the areas of sex education, with the emphasis on “safe sex” and the use of condoms. A new dimension was added in 2003 when an initiative began to place more emphasis on abstinence in preventing the spread of this disease.

Consequences

Apart from the moral issue, there can be no denial that the pestilence of AIDS sprang initially through homosexual intercourse, and was augmented later by promiscuity. Every action brings natural consequences. Thus, smoking increases the incidence of lung cancer and the eating of calorific and fatty foods is likely to result in obesity. The scriptural principle is put simply in Galatians 6:7, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

King Solomon reiterates the same principle when he writes, “the work of a man’s hand comes back to him” (Proverbs 12:14 RSV). Thus, modern day pestilences are not so much an act of divine vengeance as they are natural results of unwise, and often sinful, behavior.

Many students of the Bible see that the promised blessings of a kingdom of world-wide peace are preceded by a great time of trouble that will remove the present, and often unjust, system of things.

That trouble, though a judgment of God, is largely the exaction of the natural consequences of man’s own actions. Political oppressions result in revolts of the populace. Economic excesses eventually have their day of reckoning. The hypocrisy of corrupt religious institutions ultimately results in their collapse by disillusioned parishioner actions. In the same way, bad choices in living style bring about their own disastrous consequences. AIDS is but one example of this.

Today’s Morality

The Apostle Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, predicts a sharp decrease in moral standards “in the last days.”

Today’s media bear daily witness to these conditions. The breakdown of the family unit is but one cause. Today half of the children in the United States live or have lived in a single-parent household. One third of children are born to unmarried parents.

Homosexuality is prevalent. There are over four million homosexuals or lesbians living in the United States according to the 2000 census.

Homosexuality and the Bible

Homosexuality was rampant in ancient Greece, particularly between older men and young boys. While such actions were at first considered repulsive in Rome, gradually it became popular there also. Nero, Caesar from 54 to 68 A.D., was the first Roman emperor to marry a male. Edward Gibbons states that of the first 12 emperors, only Claudius was exclusively involved with women.

This was the situation in Rome when the apostle Paul wrote his epistle to the church there. He addresses this moral lapse in the first chapter of his epistle: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet” (Romans 1:26,27).

It is clear from this passage that Paul and the early church considered homosexuality a sin. This sin, he said, would bear its consequences, that they would receive “in themselves that consequence of their error  which was meet.”

Although Christ died for homosexuals too, it is logical to look on AIDS as one of those recompenses of error.

The Cure for AIDS

Abstinence from homosexual and promiscuous relationships is the only sure cure. But extensive education in right choices with strict enforcement is needed to implement this cure.

Such education lacks the necessary enforcement today. But that is exactly what is promised in Christ’s soon-coming kingdom, for when his “judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9).

In the meantime man must learn the consequences of unrighteous and unhealthy living, so he can compare them with the righteous laws of that kingdom and its blessed consequences of health, happiness, and life

For more information on this subject, send for your free copy of Why Does God Permit Evil? from the Pastoral Bible Institute, 1425 Lachman Lane, Pacific Palisades CA 90272.