“Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous To Your Health.” This warning first appeared on packages of cigarettes in 1966. On this day in 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry released groundbreaking evidence that linked cigarette smoking with cancer and other diseases.
You would think such a finding would have brought the tobacco industry to its knees, ready for the knockout punch. However, as this news was being released, nearly 40% of Americans were smokers. Through the years, the statistics have trended toward a steady decline in smoking with only 11% of Americans smoking in 2023.
To help bolster their sagging numbers, “Tobacco companies began buying existing e-cigarette brands and developing their own e-cigarette products from 2012. At the time, the global e-cigarette market was highly fragmented and dominated by independent companies, with the Financial Times estimating in June 2013 that the market was worth $3 billion.”1
Then came the newest trend: vaping. Nearly 8% of Americans vape. When the product was introduced on the market, it was billed as the safe alternative to smoking. The facts don’t validate that claim.
“Many vapes contain nicotine making them very addictive. The nicotine in one vape can equal 50 cigarettes. If you vape you are three times as likely to take up smoking cigarettes. Vaping has been linked to serious lung disease, cancer, and a mysterious inflammation of lung tissue. Vapes can contain the same harmful chemicals found in cleaning products, nail polish remover, weed killer and bug spray. Over 2,000 different chemicals can be found in vapes.”2
Vape products carry a similar warning as found on the regular cigarettes. Despite the warnings, people still get involved in this habit.
For those of us who have never smoked, we take a critical, judgmental attitude sometimes towards those who do. We declare, “What’s wrong with you?!? This is the 21st century. You can’t claim ignorance of the facts. The information is out there and has been since 1964.”
And, yet, we carry a book that was started roughly 3,500 years ago, it is filled with warnings, and we choose to ignore those warnings while doing our own thing. Seems a bit hypocritical of us to be so down on smokers, doesn’t it? Consider some Biblical warnings:
Acts 20:29-31 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. (30) Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. (31) Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
1 Corinthians 10:6-10 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. (7) Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. (8) Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. (9) Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. (10) Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
Galatians 6:7-8 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (8) For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
Wow, just three passages from the entire Bible that are filled with enough to keep us busy, cleaning things up in our lives for a while! It’s impossible to even guess how many more “warning” passages are located in the scriptures.
Let me close with one more serious warning for us to heed. Matthew 7:21-23 says, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. (22) Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? (23) And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
If the Spirit of God is working on your heart today, supplying that needed conviction, don’t put Him off. Instead, practice 2 Corinthians 13:5 into practice. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”
1https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/e-cigarettes
2https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/tobacco/factsheets/vaping-factsheet-young.pdf
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