Is Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (Aids) The Judgment of God?
cures AIDS, in the time since the disease was first recognized, new methods to treat the disease have been developed. Health-care professionals focus on three areas of therapy for people living with HIV infection or AIDS: antiretroviral therapy using drugs that suppress HIV replication; medications and other treatments that fight the opportunistic infections and cancers that commonly accompany HIV infection; and support systems that help people deal with the emotional issues and practical considerations of living with a fatal disease.
Studies have shown that the most effective treatment for AIDS uses a combination of three drugs taken together, which are often referred to as the AIDS cocktail. This triple therapy increases drug strength while reducing the chance for drug resistance. HIV-infected patients who have undergone triple therapy have sustained good health for longer periods of time, with some patients who were near death being able to return to work and normal physical activity. But many people find it difficult to deal with the unpleasant side effects produced by these drugs. Common side effects include nausea, diarrhea, headache, fatigue, abdominal pain, kidney stones, anemia, and tingling or numbness in the hands and feet. Some patients may also develop diabetes, while other patients develop fat deposits in the abdomen or back, causing a noticeable change in body shape. Some drugs produce an increase in blood fat levels, placing a patient at risk for heart attack or stroke. Some of these patients suffer more misery from the drugs than they do from AIDS and the high cost is often beyond the means of those with low incomes or with no health insurance.
Some studies show that under certain circumstances, administering antiretroviral drugs within 24 hours (preferably within one to two hours) after exposure to HIV can protect a person from becoming infected with the virus. Although the effectiveness of post-exposure antiretroviral therapy following sexual exposure to HIV, such as in rape cases, remains uncertain, the CDC recommends that health-care personnel exposed to HIV infection from a needle stick or other accident take antiretroviral drugs. Yet the genetic variability of HIV hampers efforts to develop an effective vaccine. A vaccine effective against one type of HIV may not work on a mutated virus.
All that hate me whisper together against me, trying to hurt me. They say that an evil disease is clinging to me; and now that I’m sick, they say I’ll rise up no more. Psalms 41:7-8
A person diagnosed with HIV infection faces many challenges, including choosing the best course of treatment, paying for health care, and providing for the needs of children in the family while ill. In addition to these practical considerations, people with HIV infection must cope with the emotional toll associated with the diagnosis of a fatal illness. The social stigma that continues to surround a diagnosis of AIDS because of the disease’s frequency among homosexuals, promiscuous heterosexuals, or drug users cause many people to avoid telling others, except those closest to them, about their illness. Even those closest to them may not find out until it’s obvious. Counseling centers and churches often provide counseling to help people with HIV infection or AIDS understand their feelings, problems, and coping mechanisms. Family counseling can help deal with the emotions of family members who are upset by the diagnosis of HIV in someone they love. Grief counseling also helps people who have lost friends or family members to AIDS.
So we beg you, Christians, and encourage you by Christ Yeshua, that as you’ve gotten from us how you should walk to please God…God wants you to give up sexual sin, so that everyone of you would know how to keep their body set apart, with blessing and honor; Not in the need of excitement, like other people who don’t know God. I The 4:1-12
With a vaccine for AIDS years away and no cure expected any time soon either, experts believe that the most effective treatment for AIDS is to stop HIV infection from happening in the first place. Health officials focus public education programs on changing dangerous behaviors linked to HIV transmission, particularly promiscuous and unsafe sexual practices and needle-sharing by intravenous drug users.Education programs teach how to use condoms effectively to have a protective barrier against HIV during sexual intercourse, though they don’t always explain that condoms may break and cause infection if one partner has HIV. Needle-exchange programs, which provide clean needles, enable intravenous drug abusers to avoid sharing HIV-contaminated needles, but they do nothing to discourage drug use. To reduce the accidental transmission of HIV during medical procedures, the United States has strict guidelines for health-care settings, though even these methods are not foolproof. Only safe-sex campaigns sponsored by churches, health clinics, schools, and others, which encourage sexual abstinence or monogamy (sexual relations with only one partner), preferably with one who is known to be uninfected, are truly effective in the fight against AIDS. Christians should have compassion on those infected with AIDS, but teach them what Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, “Go, but don’t sin any more.”
From the early days of the identification of AIDS, the disease has been connected to behaviors that are considered immoral in the Scripture. Consequently, a diagnosis of AIDS was often a mark of disgrace. Some people believe the disease is God’s punishment for behaviors that are immoral, such as homosexuality, promiscuity, and drug use, though many innocent people are affected by the sins of the guilty, as well. This often causes a social stigma from the disease, which can hurt those people who are infected, but are innocent from any sin known to cause AIDS. So should Christians avoid those with AIDS? According to the following passage in Cor., we should only put out of the church those who call themselves Christians, yet continue in their openly immoral behaviors. We should never abandon those who are innocent of sexual sin or have repented of their sexual sin, nor should we shun entirely those outside the faith, because they can still be reached for Christ and change their behaviors.
I wrote to you before in a letter not to keep company with the sexually immoral: Yet you can’t stay away from the sexually immoral of this world totally…because then you would need to completely leave the world. But I’ve written to you not to keep company with anyone called a Christian, who is a sexually immoral person…so don’t keep company with these kinds of people. I’ve no business judging those that aren’t in the faith. I only judge those who are thought of as Christians. But those who aren’t in the faith God judges. So separate those evil people from among you. I Cor 5:9-13
Romans 1:24-32 is one of the clearest passages Christians base their judgment of the immorality of promiscuity and homosexuality on, but being careful to not condemn the innocent should be remembered.
So God also gave them up to the evil they wanted out of their own hearts, to shame their own bodies among themselves…Because of this God gave them up to the evil they wanted, so that even their women changed the natural way of sex into what is against nature: And in the same way the men also, not wanting to have sex with a woman naturally, but wanting to have sex with each other; men with men, doing what is clearly wrong, and getting diseases in themselves from their wrongs, which they rightfully deserved as punishment. And as they didn’t like to remember God, God gave them over to an ungodly mind, to do what isn’t natural; Being filled with all ungodliness, sexual sin, evil, greed,
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tags: Acquired, Aids, Immunodeficiency, Judgment, Syndrome
