Faith

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I heard on the news that although the medical community warned that smoking greatly exacerbates health risk with the Corona Virus, a smoker said although she's taking various precautions, she will continue smoking. She took on the defeatist attitude that if smoking kills her, then so be it! I know someone who smokes and has diabetes and COPD and won't quit. Like the other smoker, she's been taking precautions but doesn't include stopping smoking. She's afraid to leave her house and is nervous when family visits, but she's not afraid of Johnny Smoke.

Growing up as a Reformed Presbyterian, my folks saw the Baptist view on abstenence from smoking as legalistic, but believed that if a doctor tells a patient to stop smoking, it would then be a sin to smoke. A few years ago I read a blog by a Reformed person who flatly concluded "Christians should not smoke." My late Dad said that when someone just has to have a cigarette under any circumstances and at any cost, then it is a sin.

There was a guy who got fired from a counseling center because of his smoking habits. He constantly left his duties to run outside to catch a smoke. He really couldn't do his job!

Today the danger from smoking has greatly increased because of the addictive, toxic additives in cigarettes. These additives are analogous to the fentanyl added to heroine, which makes the dirty habit worse. More people die from cancer as a result of smoking than from the Corona Virus!

Those folks who let smoking control their lives and worship at the church of Sister Nicotine and The Holy Smokes have made smoking their idol. Being a member of this cult burns a hole in parishioners' pockets as well as their lungs. Johnny Smoke, a hired gun, is an evangelist for Sister Nicotine and The Holy Smokes. Maybe Johnny Smoke worked for Jim Jones, a big Kool-Aid promoter.

I usually don't agree with turkeys, but those turkeys on the ads for a stop smoking ad are right that people may be better off quitting slow turkey, gradually getting weaned off their destructive habit.

God is a jealous God, and he won't tolerate competition from Sister Nicotine (and additives). He won't give up on us, unlike a manager of an oriental rug store where I worked years ago. Another manager had brought in a scantly clad belly dancer who danced to the music of a live band on a stack of oriental rugs. The manager tried to get the attention of guys whose eyes were glued to the dancer. After repeatedly calling "guys! guys!", he finally literally threw up his hands and exclaimed "I can't compete with this!"

"The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." 2 Corinthians 4:4

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