by Charles R. Swindoll
Ever get the feeling that you have a simple answer to a problem, but you wonder why nobody else has mentioned it? Maybe you don't understand all the facts, you think. Or maybe your answer is too simple. Then again, perhaps they've made the thing too complicated.
Well, that's the way I feel about the tragic problem of AIDS.
Now, I realize there are exceptions, that some people contract AIDS who were not promiscuous. Because they are innocent victims and in the great minority, I need to make it clear that I do not include them in the thoughts I'm sharing here. My comments are directed toward those who deliberately participate in sexual activities outside the God-ordained bonds of heterosexual marriage.
There is only one, simple, twofold solution to the problem of AIDS. It isn't novel or easy. And it certainly isn't original with me.
The twofold answer is marital fidelity or sexual abstinence.
I am always stunned when I hear about more requests for federal funds to promote "AIDS education," How much education is needed to shake your head and say the simplest word in the English language? We don't need to educate folks on how to hop in the sack safely. No big deal. "Just say no."
Are "morality," "chastity," "virginity," and "decency" forgotten words? Have we totally forgotten the fact that centuries ago God established strict codes of moral conduct because He knew that sexual promiscuity spread disease and caused death? Are we so blinded by rationalization that we have blocked out of our minds the calamitous demise of societies that tolerated illicit practices—Sodom and Gomorrah, ancient Greece, debauched Rome?
God's message still speaks with forceful and insightful relevance: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification . . . that you abstain from sexual immorality" (1 Thess. 4:3). "Flee immorality" (1 Cor. 6:18). "Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Heb. 13:4).
The problem of AIDS is horrible, but understanding the ultimate cause is not complicated. To borrow from the prophet Hosea (who knew the tragic consequences of sexual impurity), our land has sown the wind and we are now reaping the whirlwind. The storm will not subside unless we return to marital fidelity and sexual abstinence.
The total cure is repentance.
God's moral codes never go out of fashion.
Excerpted from Day by Day with Charles Swindoll, Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. (Thomas Nelson Publishers). All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.
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