Editorial
March/April, 1981
Volume 16, Number 2
There is a great deal of commotion among churchmen in our day about nuclear energy and its possible cancer effects, but hardly a word is said about the evil of smoking.
Cigarettes defile the human body. The smoker is committing suicide on the installment plan. The most familiar troublemakers in tobacco smoke are tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide. There are also several lesser-known cancer producing substances. Recently nitrogen dioxide and hydrogen cyanide have been recognized in cigarette smoke. These gases are so destructive that they were the primary ingredients for the poison gases used in World War I. Experts have determined that 92% of the smoke from cigarettes is composed of a dozen deadly gases. Nicotine is such a deadly poison that it is the main ingredient in many insecticides. Sixty milligrams (.0002 ounce) injected intravenously is enough to kill a human being. The only reason smokers don’t all drop dead from nicotine poisoning, is that the body is constantly oxidizing much of it out of the system.
In addition to the poisons that are associated with the use of tobacco, smoking is the cause of many fires, some of which cost human lives. According to the National Commission on Fire Prevention, 57% of all residential fires are caused by smoking, and in the 1970’s, 33 persons per day lost their lives as a result of these fires.
The two reasons listed above should be enough for people who are not even Christians to stop smoking. In addition, there are several other reasons why a Christian should not smoke:
(1) The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). Certainly the use of a substance which is known to cause disease and to shorten life is defiling the temple of God.
(2) The disciple of Jesus is admonished, “Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Can the Christian smoker honestly say he is smoking to the glory of God?
(3) The believer is to be an example to others. We are instructed: “in all things showing thyself a pattern of good works” (Titus 2:7). We are to live so that we could without embarrassment ask anybody else to live like we do.
(4) Christians are to seek the welfare of others.
God’s Word says, “Love works no ill to his neighbor” (Romans 13:10). Secondhand smoke is not only annoying to others; it is also potentially dangerous. Sidestream smoke–the smoke not inhaled by the smoker during the time a cigarette burns–contains greater amounts of harmful compounds than the mainstream smoke inhaled by the smoker.
We Christians must be especially careful about what we do and say because the world is looking for a difference in our lives. The world is watching to see if what we do is consistent with what we say. Read on.
A Life Gone Up in Smoke
by Robert Kettering
Consider the following symptoms: The skin turns to a kind of yellowish color; there is a noticeable and distinctive body odor; there is an increased susceptibility to heart attack, cancer, and impaired breathing. Such symptoms may remind us of some sort of rare tropical disease, or even a disease caused by a germ brought back from outer space. Perhaps it sounds like the result of chemical warfare.
The symptoms just mentioned are the result of cigarette smoking. Most smokers have some of the marks named in the above paragraph. As a result of smoking, individuals increase their chances for strokes, heart attacks, lung cancer, mouth cancer, urinary bladder cancer, kidney cancer, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. Cigarette smokers are more susceptible to these illnesses than are nonsmokers – so says the United States government through the office of the Surgeon General. Yet despite the obvious health hazard that tobacco smoking causes, many persons continue to smoke pipes, cigars, and cigarettes. Multitudes are bringing ruination to their bodies by perpetuating a filthy habit.
Concern for People
One day Jesus was asked to summarize the Law. tie said it can all be summed up in these words: “Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and spirit, and love your neighbor as yourself.” We are not only to love the neighbor, but we are to love our neighbor as we bye ourselves. Jesus is saying that in order to completely love another person (our neighbor), we must have our own lives in order. We need a wholesome self-image. In terms of the use of tobacco, we are forced to ask the question: “Do we wish death and destruction to our neighbor?” The Christian replies, “Certainly not.” But by smoking, we are in effect saying to another person that we really don’t care much about our own health and well-being. Surely we all know something about the dangers and the destruction to health that smoking can bring about. If we don’t care about ourselves, how can we care about another person?
Example to Children
There is also the question of what kind of an example we are setting if we smoke. What kind of example do we set before our children! As children grow up, what kind of Christian witness can a smoking person present to them? Children usually want to be just like daddy and mommy or grandpa and grandma. Children often try to imitate what their parents do. Do you want your children to start the death habit of smoking?
True, you may have smoked for twenty years and are dill “as fit as a fiddle,” but maybe the child who is imitating you won’t be as fortunate. Or, maybe your philosophy of life is “Do as I say and not as I do.” But the outright hypocrisy of such an approach is easily detected by today’s youth. Younger people can tell very quickly who is a phony and who is genuine in his Christian loyalty. Many middle-aged adults have become alarmed and appalled at the increase of drug use and the widespread smoking of pat among teenagers, but why should those who smoke tobacco be surprised? Smoking pot and smoking tobacco both lead to a life gone up in smoke!
Effect upon Others
Many will say, “But my smoking is my own business; if I smoke cigarettes I am only harming my own life; no one else is getting injured.” On the surface, that argument appears true, but look a bit more carefully. How many forest fires were caused as a result of cigarettes? How many children have died from fires caused by parents smoking in bed? How many persons have been incinerated in hotel fires because of another person’s careless smoking?
Recent news articles emphasize that nonsmokers can be endangered by tobacco smoke – by merely having to breathe in the stench of the smoke from others. Expectant mothers who smoke have a greater number of stillbirths than nonsmoking women do. Who can honestly say that smoking is a private personal matter, when it affects others seriously in so many possible ways? Smoking not only harms the individual who smokes; it is a hazard to other persons also.
Way to Victory
Many people who smoke will say, “Yes, I know that I shouldn’t smoke, but I just can’t seem to give it up.” But very frankly, do you want to be healed! Have you prayed about your urge to smoke? Have you asked God to come in and take control over that part of your life? He can and He will eliminate the desire to smoke if you sincerely ask Him to do that.
Art Linkletter’s daughter died some years ago as a result of using drugs. A television panel was discussing the difficulty of getting unhooked from drugs, and the doctor on the panel said that the best cure he knew about was to use the drug methadone, which itself is a habit-forming drug. In short, he was saying that nothing really had proved effective in getting addicts off of drugs. Linkletter then spoke up and said that he had learned about an effective cure. He said that as he traveled the country from coast to coast, he found the cure for drug addiction to be Jesus Christ. His observation is correct. Drug addicts who have found Jesus Christ and committed their lives to Him, have been cured. I know this is true; I have witnessed addicts cured through the Teen Challenge ministry in Rehrersburg, Pennsylvania.
Jesus Christ has power over every aspect of our lives, and if you truly want to kick the smoking habit, ask Jesus Christ to come ill and take control – and you will be able to live the abundant life that Jesus promised. Jesus can take away your desire to smoke. Ask Him to do it.
Depart from Impurity
It is true that the Bible does not specifically condemn smoking, and I am sure that smoking in its own right does not automatically doom one to Hell. But the whole nature of the New Testament is an atmosphere which points to a life that takes seriously the admonition to remember that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ wants all our actions to reflect His presence in our lives. He expects us to live a life of purity, a life that is not subject to any other master but God.
There is a song which says, “Be like Jesus all day long, in the home and in the throng; be like Jesus all day long; I would be like Jesus.” Would Jesus – if He were living here on earth today – smoke? If we are His disciples, should we smoke? What kind of witness is the professing Christian who smokes showing the world? We say that we are God’s children, and yet have we really separated ourselves from the evil around us? We are to conform to the image of Christ and not to the image of the world. The Scripture says, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of geed, because these are improper for God’s holy people” (Ephesians 5:3 NIV). Again, the Bible says, “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (2 Corinthians 7:1 NIV).
The tobacco industry is a multi-billion dollar business in the United States alone. Think what the effects would be if this money were diverted to the cause of alleviating world hunger. Think what would happen if just professing Christians stopped smoking and contributed the money spent on tobacco to the relief of world hunger. Think what would happen if the members of the Church of the Brethren would all stop smoking and donate that money to the cause of Christ rather than to a self-pleasing destructive personal habit. And think of the suffering from starvation that could be averted if all the fields in which tobacco is gown were turned into acres that produce nourishing food.
Cigarette smoking makes me sad:
- I am saddened at the sight of the young woman who comes to the local grocery store to buy a few meager groceries with food stamps for her three small children, and then seems to have enough money for two cartons of cigarettes.
- I am saddened by the teenager who starts smoking, thinking he or she is now “grown up” – a real man or a real woman.
- I am saddened by the hospital patients, suffering from heart problems or emphysema, but who even in the hospital room (where they linger between life and death), still have a pack of cigarettes on the bedstand. It seems to say, “For these cigarettes I have lived, and by them I will die.”
- I am saddened by the sight of the baby who has to live in a smoke-filled house, and can’t even decide his own fate for another eighteen years – and by that time it might well be too late.
- I am saddened that despite all the facts showing that smoking is hazardous to health, some who purport to be Christians and claim to live for Jesus (One who preached freedom from bondage and purity of life) — still persist in smoking pipes and cigars and cigarettes.
There can be no other conclusion but that smoking is a sin. It should never be found among persons claiming to know Jesus Christ. Do you honestly believe that God looks down upon one who smokes, and says, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”? What do you think? Has your life gone up in smoke? If you are given to the habit of smoking, why not seek victory through a genuine commitment to Jesus Christ?
Bro. Kettering was pastor of the Florin Church of the Brethren, Associate District Executive, and
is pastor of the Lititz Church of the Brethren in the Atlantic Northeast District.
PLAYING CHURCH
A man came home and saw his children on the front steps and asked what they were doing.
“We’re playing church,” they answered.
The puzzled father inquired further and was told, “Well, we have already sung and prayed, and preached, and now we’re on the steps outside and smoking.”
Children are close observers.
