Bothered and Moved

I was moved.
Yesterday, as I walked into the room Stephen Lewis was speaking to me from our television set. He was speaking to a large delegation about AIDS and the world’s responsibility to do something. He was wrapping up the 16th International AIDS Conference held in Toronto, Ontario these past weeks. Without a doubt this has been a tremendous effort by all the conference delegates to come together, share their perspectives on what they know about AIDS from their countries and then begin doing something.

Rarely do you get the opportunity to see someone like Stephen Lewis have this great an effect on the entire world. His words were loaded and carefully chosen. The force of each phrase and each sentence cut through the audience in front of him as well as the audience world wide that watched from afar. Without a doubt all that heard what he said were moved.

I was bothered.
As he spoke he explained to his audience that each country needed to do something tangible to help stop this pandemic of AIDS sweeping the world. His message and others that have caught my attention have related how very little has been done to slow the spread of the deathly plague sweeping our world today. His call was for governments to get out and be responsible. In his un-minced words he pointed to politicians and governments that had done nothing. With each powerful statement his audience erupted with applause.

• I was bothered as the conference placed the huge responsibility on the shoulders of the politicians.
• I was bothered as they specifically pointed to our Prime Minister Stephen Harper, ridiculing him for not being at the conference and not making funding announcements during this time.
• I was bothered as they heckled and booed Bill Gates with his statement about the ABC and Uganda… (Abstinence from sex outside marriage, first; be faithful to your spouse, second; use Condoms, third)
• But… most of all I was bothered by what they didn’t say – about promiscuity in our world.

Revolution…
In about 1953 a revolution began. From what we know of AIDS and the rapid infection of our world, that was about 25 years earlier. It began with a group of people that believed they should liberate people to a world of free and easy sexual activities. No one person has been more responsible than a man by the name of Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame. The revolution began in 1953 with the launch of the first Playboy magazines and with it the idea that it was okay to jump outside Godly relationships to have your freedom in sexual matters.

Before I rant on I ask a question, “Why wasn't Hugh Hefner(Playboy #1) there – at this conference on AIDS?”

Has anyone asked him to contribute to the cause with some of his millions?

53 years later, after he helped start this sexual revolution and promoted the rage of free and easy sex, see what we live with?!!! Did he contribute anything to the AIDS conference and to the relief of the suffering of women? Take a look at the last MacLeans magazine – August 14, 2006 (pink cover & black bunny) and read the story about this old man of the revolution - and see how he treats women. You don't need to go to Africa to see men acting like idiots toward women.

Bothered and Moved

• I am moved to make this a matter of prayer.
• I will pray for my Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
• I will pray for direction in my own involvement with AIDS and how I might help as a Christian.
• I will be faithful to my wife.
• I will be an example.

What will you do?

If each family would begin a counter revolution of holiness we could change a world too - more than all the dollars demanded from governments and great conferences that are held anywhere.

Pastor Murray Lincoln