A Bad Habit: Do You Have It?

Have I ever told you about my good friend Russ from my childhood. Well, while I was preaching in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, Russ came by from Texas on a visit. While he was there, he would go out on the back porch for a smoke. My four year old son Jamin loved to have visitors come by and became Russ’ shadow during his stay. One time while Russ was out on the porch enjoying a smoke, Jamin came out through the sliding glass door and asked Russ what he was doing. Russ told him he would soon come back in the house after he finished his smoke. Jamin sat down beside him and proceeded to lecture him on all the evils of smoking. A couple of years later, Russ told me he had finally kicked the habit and gave up smoking. He said he had calculated if he had saved up all the money he had spent on cigarettes, he would have had enough to buy a brand new Cadillac. Although economics was not what persuaded him to stop smoking, he said he could not get out of his mind the haunting message about the evils of smoking from my four year old son.

Beverley and I have lost too many friends and family over the years. Those whose lives were shortened unnecessarily due to an addition to those “coffin nails.” So, we started early indoctrinating our children about the consequences of smoking. As far as I know neither one was ever even tempted to smoke. In fact, we just might have over sold it just a bit. One day while sitting at the dinner table with the family, our daughter Tia, made an observation on just how bad smoking really can be. From the depths of her innocent three year old mind came this concern. “Mama, wouldn’t it be just terrible if a thief broke into our house while we were at church and smoked!”

Smokers are already at a much higher risk for stroke, cancer, and heart disease. In addition, smokers are especially vulnerable to Covid-19. “Given how dangerous this disease is and how fast everything’s moving, all of the evidence that we’re seeing is pointing in the direction that both smoking (could) increase your risk of contracting disease and, if you get it, make it worse,” said Stanton Glantz, Director of the Centre for Tobacco Research Control and Education. Given the risk many are looking for ways to kick the habit before they end up in ICU on a ventilator fighting for their lives.

This habit also includes cigarettes, cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco, snuff, etc. Studies show that the cancer rate for smokers is far higher than non-smokers. Second hand smoke has been proven to be a health hazard. Smokers would do good to remember the golden rule (Mt. 7:12). It’s hard to let your light shine if you are blowing smoke. By what one is addicted to is whatever overpowers him (2 Pet. 2:19b).

Now let me stop meddling and go to preaching. Vaping and smoking is not a entitlement or right of those created in the image of God. From the every beginning God did not give man the right to do anything he wanted to with is own body. In fact, when the first couple ate of the forbidden fruit, they brought upon themselves and mankind a malady far worse than Covid-19. Sin entered the world (Rom. 5:12). With regard to the old argument: “It is my body and I will do what I want to with it” consider what Paul wrote. “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1).

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if one of the side benefits of Covid-19 was motivating people to stop smoking. Perhaps all of us need to reflect on the need to evaluate our own risky habits during this time.
– Daniel R. Vess

 

The Preciousness of a Wife

She was a Christian, he was not, but they loved each other. He went to church services with her before they were married but he had already made up his mind that, once they were married, he would quit going to church and he would see to it that she quit also.

The first Sunday they were married, as she was getting ready to go to services, he tried to get her to stay home with him. But she went to services alone. This went on for several years.

Then came their first child. She missed two Sundays when the child was born but the next Sunday, she and her baby went to church services and he stayed
home alone.

One Sunday while she was dressing, he went outside and disconnected the coil wire on the car. She and her baby got into the car, but it would not start. She wrapped her baby up and started walking to the building which was about two miles away. Feeling like a heel, the husband called her back, told her what he had done, asked her to forgive him, and took her to services. That night, he went with her. Two weeks later he was baptized into Christ.

Sometime later, this man started preaching the gospel and since has baptized over 3,000 people into Christ.

Question: What would have happened if the wife had given in the first Sunday
and stayed at home?

–via COBURG ROAD BULLETIN

“Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that if any obey not he word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear”. (1 Peter 3:1,2).

 

Ten Commandments for a Happier Marriage

  1. Thou shalt communicate with each other.
  2. Thou shalt compromise when things cannot be changed.
  3. Thou shalt never take each other for granted.
  4. Thou shalt keep romance alive in your marriage.
  5. Thou shalt not let money come between you.
  6. Thou shalt show each other respect and consideration.
  7. Thou shalt arrange to spend time alone together.
  8. Thou shalt show thy appreciation for each other.
  9. Thou shalt earn each other’s trust.
  10. Thou shalt endeavor to be friends as well as lovers.

–Ann Onymous

2021-02-21 - Strange Bedfellows
2021-03-07 - Woe to the Drunkards
Categories: The Forum