The smoking situation is a somewhat touchy subject for me personally. My father works for Phillip Morris, the largest cigarette manufacturer in the world. The plant he works at as an electrician pumps out more cigarettes than any other plant in the world save for one (perhaps now it is the largest since they've expanded). The roof over my head, the food on my table, and the Bible college I graduated from have all been paid for out of his source of income. Not only does my father work for Phillip Morris, but he also is given a free pack a day, though I'm not quite sure how much a day he smokes, though I think it is more than that. Likewise, some of the people at my Church smoke. In fact, a couple months ago we had an old fashioned baptism service, and 2 individuals who were recently converted and being baptized that day could be seen smoking cigarettes outside their car just minutes before they both went under cold "living water." Likewise, back in December I preached a sermon about hungering for more of God, where my girlfriend's brother had a powerful encounter with God. He was horriably addicted to cigarettes. While he was laying on the floor of the altar, God told him to choose cigarettes or God. That day he chose God, and was baptized in the Holy Spirit. From that day, he went cold-turkey and was a totally different person for quite some time. He gave up smoking for 3 months until the day his grandmother died, and when I went to visit the family at the funeral home, as I rolled up to the funeral home, he was outside smoking a cigarette, and you could tell things suddenly changed for him, and he has been on a downward spiral ever since then. It is quite interesting to see how he actively confessed that God told him to stop smoking. Then when he started back up again a couple months later, he would say "he just wasn't ready." Now he says altogether that he doesn't believe it is wrong. Oh, the slippery slope of sin! Shortly after he started smoking again, he was diagnosed with emphizema at the age of 25, and has pretty much given up on living save for the "happiness" smoking a cigarette gives him. The doctor told him that if he keeps it up, he'll probably only live to see 35 at best.Can one be saved and be addicted to cigarettes? I suppose it is like asking if one can serve two masters. Just because Charles Spurgeon smoked cigarettes doesn't make it ok. I know of one state evangelist in my denomination who everybody says was a mighty preacher. He preached, and the power of God would fall, and people would get saved, delivered, filled with the Spirit, etc. Yet eventually a discovery was made about this man- he had a little boy in every town he frequently preached in. I was talking to a good friend of mine recently about this topic of smoking. While I think of it as a sin that doesn't fall under the "weightier matters of the law," I still believe it to be wrong, and any addiction like such would fall under a form of idolatry. We agreed with eachother, and believed that perhaps the only reason it is not as preached against today is because it is so common, and isn't as "icky" of a sin, as all those other people hooked on more "icky" things like alcohol, pot, crack, and the like. Yet sadly, just a week after I had this conversation with my friend, he comes up to me and rather joyfully confesses that he and my other friend went out the night before and "celebrated" with my friend who got married that day (as my friend was in the wedding), by going to smoke cigars. He relished in how great it was, and how he could still feel the cigar sensation in his mouth. My one friend is an elder in his church, and the other a children's pastor. Oh, the slippery slope of sin!2 Kings 17:19,33 deals strongly with the various idolatries the peoples commit. So popular were certain forms of idolatry they were simply called "customs" in these 2 verses. Oh, the slippery slope of sin! Let us not shy away calling something sin if it indeed fits the bill. Even if we can only understand something as a sin through a matter of principle, and have no direct commandment, then we must understand it as such. Is that not what the Lord did though, when he called lusting after women as adultery? Did not the apostles not label the love of money as idolatry? Such is hardly judgmentalism. In fact, it cuts to the heart of the matter, and helps us avoid the error of legalism. If you are geniunely struggling with an addiction, and trying to overcome it, I pray that you would rely on the grace of God to break that addiction. If you are addicted to something, and simply don't care, I pray God would convict you so that you might be presented blameless in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ.
