What about smoking/use of tobacco? It was not known in the time of the Bible. Tobacco is not mentioned anywhere from Genesis to Revelation. It wasn’t until Sir Walter Raleigh imported it from tobacco during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, the great principles of healthy living are so clearly enunciated in the Holy Spirit that no one need be in any doubt as to what this attitude should be towards this habit.
Today there are billions of men and women who smoke cigarettes/use tobacco as fashionable. But is it necessary? Is it harmful? These questions seriously asked often by the smokers, use tobacco. Many thousands of smokers who use tobacco, caught in the grip of this pernicious habit, wish they had never started. But there is no habit so strong that cannot be broken by the power of God.
The excessive smoking of cigarette or use of tobacco is one of the causative factors of lung cancer. By the age of fifty the death rate of heavy smokers/tobacco users is more than double that of non smokers/tobacco users. The number of non-smokers who survive to their nineties or celebrate their centenary birthday is one and half times that of heavy smokers of the same age. “Habitual smokers have 62% higher incidence of gas in stomach, 65% higher incidence of cold, 76% higher incidence of nervousness, 100% higher incidence of heartburn, 140% higher incidence of labored breathing after exertion, 167% higher incidence of nose and throat irritation and 300% higher incidence of cough.”
Powerful evidence against cigarette/tobacco show that men aged fifty die sooner, and they die mainly from heart attack and cancer. If you smoke a pack of cigarette a day and are fifty years old, you have twice as much chance of dying within 15 years before any other man your age who never smokes cigarette or uses tobacco; that is why 89% men died who have heavily smoked cigarette/used tobacco and their beloved wives become widows, children become orphans. 31st May – “No Tobacco Day” – is observed every year around the world because tobacco is the killer of human being.
Within 30 minutes of giving up cigarette, cigar, tobacco, the pulse rate slows down and blood pressure in the blood drops and becomes normal. Within hours of stopping, the level of carbon monoxide in the blood drops and this enables blood to carry oxygen only two days after stopping; never ending begin to recover; and your sense of smell and taste begins to return. 72 hours of stopping smoking cigarette/tobacco the lung volume increases as the bronchial tube expands. In the first year, the risk of heart attacks is reduced. All become healthier. “Whoever has been a heavy cigarette smoker for a number of years subjects his heart and blood vessels to the deleterious effect of tobacco and is likely to develop coronary thrombosis and die before he develops cancer of the lung.”
With all this evidence to prove the harmful effects of smoking cigarette/using tobacco, it is surely high time for all sensible reasonable men and women to give up this costly, health-destroying habit. And for all who love God and desire to present their bodies “a living sacrifice, Holy and acceptable to God,” these become an urgent imperative. No one who regards his body as the temple of the Holy Spirit could deliberately destroy it with “Nicotine.” But how do you break the habit when you decide to stop smoking cigarette/using tobacco? But it at once makes a complete break. Destroy every evidence of the habit including cigarette, cigar, ash and lighters. If any urge to smoke comes upon you eat a piece of candy or apple, ginger etc.
More effective still is earnest prayer for divine help. Tell God about your desire and resolve. Open the door of your heart, strength and victory. With men it is impossible but not with God; for with God all things are possible. (Mt. 19:25) (Mk. 10:27) (Lk. 18:27).
Rikhyo K Lotha
Sr. Most Citizen, Septuagenarian, Nagaland
