Some two thousand years before Christ, the cities of the plain, including Zoar, Zeboiim, Adamah, Sodom and Gomorrah, were well populated and the land about them was fertile and productive. The Book of Genesis relates that these cities were "joined together in the vale (valley) of Siddim, which is the salt sea" (Gen. 14:3).

Due to the extreme immorality of the inhabitants of Sodom, God caused the city to be destroyed. This is recorded in the 19th chapter of Genesis. This region was at the southern end of the Dead Sea, which over the centuries has expanded and engulfed the remains of these cities. After heaven's destruction of these towns, they were uninhabited, and even in New Testament times, were yet visible. Tacitus makes reference to them in his History, and Josephus also makes mention of them in his Wars.

Our Savior made reference to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Matthew 10:15. The evil, the depravity and the wickedness of Sodom became a "by-word" from ancient times to the present. The city of Sodom lent its name to the sin and depravity of homosexuals down to the present. Homosexuality is condemned in the New Testament, in the following passages: Romans 1:24-32; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 2 Peter 2:10 and Jude 7-8.

Sodomy In The U.S. and The World

San Francisco seems to have the dubious reputation of favoring homosexuals through the passage of "gay rights" legislation. Since that time, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, a noted and respected medical publication:

"Infectious hepatitus - A, increased 100 percent, Infectious hepatitus - B, increased 300 percent; Amoebic colon infection, increased, 2,500 percent; 70-80 percent of the 75,000 patients seen each year in V.D. clinics were homosexual males; and 20 percent of homosexual males carried rectal gonorrhea."

Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)

In the continent of Africa, many natives engaged in a religious, pagan ritual, wherein they inter-mingled the blood of a species of green monkey, with their own blood. This introduced what is termed a "retro-virus' into the human bloodstream, which in turn, rendered the auto-immune system of the human useless. These individuals no longer possessed the ability to resist infection and disease in their bodies. It is now estimated that probably above 30 percent of sexually active Africans have the AIDS virus.

The African natives ultimately, many of them, migrated to the Island of Haiti, and this location became a veritable 'Mecca' for homosexuals from the Eastern Seaboard. These men brought the AIDS plague back to New York and Miami, primarily, but also to other East Coast cities. In turn, those men who were 'bi-sexual' contracted the virus from other males, and then passed it on to the females with whom they co-habited.

Today, it is estimated that there are 35,000 U.S. citizens who have contracted AIDS; at least fifty percent of these will be dead within two years. In addition, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, now estimates that some one million and a half Americans are now carriers of the AIDS virus. They may not have developed the disease themselves, as yet, but they are carriers of the virus.

Enter The Drug Culture

It is further estimated that of the bisexuals and the homosexuals, some seventy percent are carriers of the AIDS virus; but also, 60 percent of the drug users also carry the virus. From Manhattan Island, New York, one in every fifty persons joining the military is reported to have AIDS. The national average is now one in six hundred and fifty, enlistee..

Sin Lies At The Door

The African Pagan ritual that started all this, was a sin! The practices of homosexuals are sinful! Promiscuity is a sin! Even the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, has announced that an effort must be made among the citizenry, to educate the public concerning sexual standards. Dr. Koop urged that everyone limit himself to only one sexual partner! The Bible has been teaching that same truth for centuries! But our society has become too sophisticated to pay attention to God's Word!

Isn't it a shame that the educators of our children continue to oppose teaching the Bible's moral standards to America's children?

In the Middle Ages, the black plague decimated the continent of Europe; cholera, typhoid, smallpox, T.B., and other epidemics ravaged the lands. Now, in this modem and enlightened 20th century, human-kind itself, has brought this plague upon itself. Our society is paying an extremely !1igh price for flouting or ignoring Bible teaching concerning immorality. One religious publication has asked: "Is AIDS God's active judgment on brazen homosexuality? Or is the AIDS epidemic simply a natural event that has occurred because of sin already in the world? Or both?" (The Lutheran Witness, April, 1986)

Guardian of Truth XXXI: 17, p. 534
September 3, 1987