Is Smoking A Sin?
©2015 Stan Hallett
1 Corinthians 6:19,20 (NKJV) What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable morbidity (disease and illness) and premature mortality (death) worldwide. Smoking-related diseases claim an estimated 443,000 American lives each year, including those affected indirectly, such as babies born prematurely due to prenatal maternal smoking and victims of “secondhand” exposure to tobacco’s carcinogens. Smoking cost the United States over $193 billion in 2004, including $97 billion in lost productivity and $96 billion in direct health care expenditures, or an average of $4,260 per adult smoker.
Health Hazards of Smoking
- Cigarette smoke contains over 7,000 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer. Smoking is directly responsible for approximately 90 percent of lung cancer deaths and approximately 80-90 percent of COPD (emphysema and chronic bronchitis) deaths.
- About 8.6 million people in the U.S. have at least one serious illness caused by smoking. That means that for every person who dies of a smoking-related disease, there are 20 more people who suffer from at least one serious illness associated with smoking.
- Among current smokers, chronic lung disease accounts for 73 percent of smoking-related conditions. Even among smokers who have quit chronic lung disease accounts for 50 percent of smoking-related conditions.
- The list of diseases caused by smoking includes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema), coronary heart disease, stroke, abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute myeloid leukemia, cataract, pneumonia, periodontitis, and bladder, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral, throat, cervical, kidney, stomach, and pancreatic cancers. Smoking is also a major factor in a variety of other conditions and disorders, including slowed healing of wounds, infertility, and peptic ulcer disease.
- Smokers die significantly earlier than nonsmokers: 13.2 years for men and 14.5 years for women.
Let me ask you; is murder sin? Is killing yourself murder, or the taking of a life that is not your own for it was bought with a price?
If you smoke and are trying to hide it, you may be fooled into thinking that you have succeeded in that endeavor because people are trying to be kind. The truth is that the foul stench of cigarette smoke lingers not only on your clothes and body, but on your breath long after you have extinguished that last cigarette.
We have many that come into our Church building that smoke. Most are newcomers, but some are long time so-called “Christians”. I know who every one of them are without a word being said by anyone. If I don’t smell it on their clothes, then as soon as they are close and breath or speak in my direction, the foul odor comes up and out from their lungs.
I remember one such man that no longer attends our assembly. I knew that he smoked because I smelled it every time that he greeted me on the Sunday mornings that he would attend. One day when I went to a local grocery store, I saw him standing outside the door smoking a cigarette. He did not notice me until I was about twenty feet away from him. He said; “You caught me smoking” and he was embarrassed. Of course the truth is that I already knew that he smoked. But what I found amazing was that he (and most that have hidden sin in their lives) was more concerned about what I thought than what God thought.
It is a bad testimony for anyone professing to be a Christian, to be held captive by this foul vice that is slowly taking your health and your life. Everything that is not of God is of Satan, so who do you think God wants you to smoke? Who is it who’s goal is to destroy the body and the soul?
I could go down a very long list of reasons why you should quit, like being a poor steward of your finances. What are they at now, $7.00 a pack? Not to mention what it is doing to the health of those around you. But just the fact that it is not Godly should be enough for anyone that calls themselves a Christian to quit.
If you are a smoker you need to just stop. Quit making the excuses because of your weakness in overcoming your addiction. Repent, give it to God and just stop it!
Do you have questions? Feel free to write to me via my contact form.
