tobacco

Food for Life – Educate in Abstinence

by

If February gives much snow, a fine summer it doth foreshow.” English Rhyme.

What has this year meant to you so far? We know that the Lord’s Second Coming is another year closer, and it behooves us to be ready for that glorious day!

“But what can be done to teach children and youth the evils of a practice of which parents, teachers, and ministers set them the example? Little boys, hardly emerged from babyhood, may be seen smoking their cigarettes. If one speaks to them about it, they say, ‘My father uses tobacco.’ They point to the minister or the Sunday-school superintendent and say, ‘Such a man smokes; what harm for me to do as he does?’ Many workers in the temperance cause are addicted to the use of tobacco. What power can such persons have to stay the progress of intemperance?

“I appeal to those who profess to believe and obey the Word of God: Can you, as Christians, indulge a habit that is paralyzing your intellect and robbing you of power rightly to estimate eternal realities? Can you consent daily to rob God of service which is His due, and to rob your fellow men, both of service you might render and of the power of example?

“Have you considered your responsibility as God’s stewards, for the means in your hands? How much of the Lord’s money do you spend on tobacco? Reckon up what you have thus spent during your lifetime. How does the amount consumed by this defiling lust compare with what you have given for the relief of the poor and the spread of the gospel?

“No human being needs tobacco, but multitudes are perishing for want of the means that by its use is worse than wasted. Have you not been misappropriating the Lord’s goods? Have you not been guilty of robbery toward God and your fellow men? Know ye not that ‘ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.’

“Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. Proverbs 20:1. Never was traced by human hand a more vivid picture of the debasement and the slavery of the victim of intoxicating drink. Enthralled, degraded, even when awakened to a sense of his misery, he has no power to break from the snare; he ‘will seek it yet again.’” Ministry of Healing, 329, 330.

Food – Temperance or Intemperance?

by

What is it that brings May flowers?

Oh yes, April’s rains! We surely have had those haven’t we? How gracious is our Heavenly Father to know just what we need, and henceforth supplies it all. And in some cases, much more than we need…What terrible disasters, only to remind us once again that His coming is “even at the door.” In view of all of this, it does behoove each one of us to get our lives in readiness for that glorious day when He shall appear in all His beauty to reclaim all those who have been true and faithful to Him in all things.…even lifestyle!

“Often intemperance begins in the home. By the use of rich, unhealthful food, the digestive organs are weakened and a desire is created for food that is still more stimulating. Thus the appetite is educated to crave continually something stronger. The demand for stimulants becomes more frequent and more difficult to resist. The system becomes more of less filled with poison, and the more debilitated it becomes, the greater is the desire for these things. One step in the wrong direction prepares the way for another. Many, who would not be guilty of placing on their table wine or liquor of any kind, will load their table with food, which creates such a thirst for strong drink that to resist the temptation is almost impossible. Wrong habits of eating and drinking destroy the health and prepare the way for drunkenness.”

“There would soon be little necessity for temperance crusades, if in the youth who form and fashion society, right principles in regard to temperance could be implanted. Let parents begin a crusade against intemperance at their own firesides, in the principles they teach their children to follow from infancy, and they may hope for success.”

“There is work for mothers in helping their children to form correct habits and pure tastes. Educate the appetite; teach the children to abhor stimulants. Bring your children up to have moral stamina to resist the evil that surrounds them. Teach them that they are not to be swayed by others, that they are not to yield to strong influences, but to influence others for good.”

“Great efforts are made to put down intemperance; but there is much effort that is not directed to the right point. The advocates of temperance reform should be awake to the evils resulting from the use of unwholesome food, condiments, tea, and coffee…”

“All narcotics and unnatural stimulants that enfeeble and degrade the physical nature tend to lower the tone of the intellect and morals. Intemperance lies at the foundation of the moral depravity of the world. By the indulgence of perverted appetite, man loses his power to resist temptation.”

“In relation to tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcoholic drinks, the only safe course is to touch not, taste not, handle not. The tendency of tea, coffee, and similar drinks is in the same direction as that of alcoholic liquor and tobacco, and in some cases the habit is as difficult to break as it is for the drunkard to give up intoxicants. Those who attempt to leave off these stimulants will for a time feel loss, and will suffer without them. But by persistence they will overcome the craving, and cease to feel the lack. Nature may require a little time to recover from the abuse she has suffered; but give her a chance, and she will again rally, and perform her work nobly and well.” Ministry of Healing, 334, 335.

“Please keep in mind that when these words of God were written there were no cola drinks…. and these contain caffeine, which is so harmful, as is chocolate and cocoa. Is my prayer that God gives each and every one of you the victory over any of these to which you may be addicted.

Recipe – Grape Nut Pudding

1-1/2 tablespoons agar

¾ cup finely chopped raisins

¾ cup cooked prunes-finely-chopped

¾ cup Grape Nuts

2 cups boiling water or fruit juice

¾ cup finely chopped Walnuts

¼ cup chopped dates

Stir Agar into boiling water or fruit juice, and boil gently for 10 minutes, until clear. Stir in other ingredients. Let stand until set. Refrigerate.

From Death to Life

by

I do not know how often I have searched the Spirit of Prophecy to find answers, but it has been many. I have never been disappointed. In fact, it has been a treasure. One of the most revealing excerpts I found focused on tobacco.

Looking for Answers

I was not looking for a specific answer the day I scanned the health magazine, but it came, for a question I had asked five years earlier. At the time, I lived in the world, and my entire behavior exposed a careless mind. I was the father of a new baby boy, and I took him for granted. I smoked the toxic weed, even while I assumed the role of parent.

Then, on Father’s Day, I awoke to find my son, Isaac, had died. I tried to breathe life into his little body, but it did not help. He was only six weeks old. Apparently he had died of crib death or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also known as S.I.D.S. The reason for his passing could not be explained, but I always wondered why.

Ironically, tragedy became the pivot of my search for life in Jesus Christ. I did not know how Isaac had become a key toward true surrender to God, nor did I realize how soon my question of “Why, God, why?” would be answered.

Brought to My Knees

I wish I could say that these horrifying circumstances meant instant conversion, but God knew the hardness of my heart. However, in a short time, providence brought me to my knees in prayer, and I claimed the promises of His Word. Within a year I gave Him my so-called life, and He removed my desire for all chemicals, including tobacco.

Only afterwards did I discover the true health message in Testimonies to the Church and in Counsels on Diet and Foods. Cooperating with Jesus meant a clean mind, which paved the way to endless knowledge. Through my surrender and my diligent reading of Scripture, He kept His promise, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6. I became a new man, always ready for more wonderful truth. That is why I was reading the health magazine.

Slow Poison

The article made reference to Selected Messages, Book 2, 467. “The infant lungs suffer, and become diseased by inhaling the atmosphere of a room poisoned by the tobacco-user’s tainted breath. Many infants are poisoned beyond remedy by sleeping in bed with their tobacco-using fathers. By inhaling the poisonous tobacco effluvia, which is thrown from the lungs and pores of the skin, the system of the infant is filled with poison. While it acts upon some as a slow poison, and affects the brain, heart, liver, and lungs, and they waste away and fade gradually, upon others it has a more direct influence, causing spasms, fits, paralysis, palsy, and sudden death. The bereaved parents mourn the loss of their loved ones, and wonder at the mysterious providence of God, which has so cruelly afflicted them, when Providence designed not the death of these infants. They died martyrs to the filthy lust of tobacco. Their parents ignorantly, but none the less surely, kill their infant children by the disgusting poison.…”

I read it several times and realized the grim responsibility of my actions. At that moment, the impact and consequences of my ignorance loomed in my mind. My selfish, narrow existence and temporary gratification carried an enormous price. I knew what I was, and the proof lay in the grave.

Dear readers, I still tremble, because it is only part of a bigger story. The only way I can tolerate such failure is to remember God’s mercy and His promise: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous-ness.” 1 John 1:9.

If You Want Freedom

I know that there are many others searching for answers. If you want freedom, do not wait for tragedy to happen before you fall down to your knees in prayer. “Ask, and it shall be given you…” Matthew 7:7. Then remember, “The Scriptures are the great agency in the transformation of character…If studied and obeyed, the Word of God works in the heart, subduing every unholy attribute.” The Faith I Live By, 116.

What About Health Reform?

by

Our habits of eating and drinking show whether we are of the world or among the number whom the Lord by His mighty cleaver of truth has separated from the world.” Testimonies, vol. 6, 372.

“He who cherishes the light which God has given him upon health reform, has an important aid in the work of becoming sanctified through the truth, and fitted for immortality.” Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 10.

“He who is thoroughly converted will abandon every injurious habit and appetite. By total abstinence he will overcome his desire for health-destroying indulgences.” Testimonies, vol. 9, 113.

Adopting Health Reform

“We want to act like men and women that are to be brought into judgment. And when we adopt the health reform we should adopt it from a sense of duty, not because somebody else has adopted it. I have not changed my course a particle since I adopted the health reform. I have not taken one step back since the light from heaven upon this subject first shone upon my pathway. I broke away from everything at once,—from meat and butter, and from three meals,—and that while engaged in exhaustive brain labor, writing from early morning till sundown. I came down to two meals a day without changing my labor.” Ibid., vol. 2, 371.

“Many do not feel that this [health reform] is a matter of duty, hence they do not try to prepare food properly. This can be done in a simple, healthful, and easy manner, without the use of lard, butter, or flesh meats. Skill must be united with simplicity. To do this, women must read, and then patiently reduce what they read to practice.” Ibid., vol. 1, 681.

“Many take a wrong view of the health reform and adopt too poor a diet. They subsist upon a cheap, poor quality of food, prepared without care or reference to the nourishment of the system. It is important that the food should be prepared with care, that the appetite, when not perverted, can relish it. Because we from principle discard the use of meat, butter, mince pies, spices, lard, and that which irritates the stomach and destroys health, the idea should never be given that it is of but little consequence what we eat.” Ibid., vol. 2, 367.

Avoid These

“We bear positive testimony against tobacco, spirituous liquors, snuff, tea, coffee, flesh meats, butter, spices, rich cakes, mince pies, a large amount of salt, and all exciting substances used as articles of food.” Ibid., vol. 3, 21.

“Tea and coffee do not nourish the system. Their effect is produced before there has been time for digestion and assimilation, and what seems to be strength is only nervous excitement. When the influence of the stimulant is gone, the unnatural force abates, and the result is a corresponding degree of languor and debility.

“The continued use of these nerve irritants is followed by headache, wakefulness, palpitation of the heart, indigestion, trembling, and many other evils; for they wear away the life forces. Tired nerves need rest and quiet instead of stimulation and overwork.” The Ministry of Healing, 326, 327.

“No butter or flesh meats of any kind come on my table. Cake is seldom found there. I generally have an ample supply of fruits, good bread, and vegetables.” Testimonies, vol. 2, 487.

“It is impossible for those who make free use of flesh meats to have an unclouded brain and an active intellect.” Ibid., 62

“Flesh meat is not necessary for health or strength. If used it is because a depraved appetite craves it. Its use excites the animal propensities to increased activity and strengthens the animal passions. When the animal propensities are increased, the intellectual and moral powers are decreased. The use of the flesh of animals tends to cause a grossness of body and benumbs the fine sensibilities of the mind.” Ibid., 63.

“Flesh meats will depreciate the blood. Cook meat with spices, and eat it with rich cakes and pies, and you have a bad quality of blood. The system is too heavily taxed in disposing of this kind of food. The mince pies and the pickles, which should never find a place in any human stomach, will give a miserable quality of blood. And a poor quality of food, cooked in an improper manner, and insufficient in quantity, cannot make good blood. Flesh meats and rich food, and an impoverished diet, will produce the same results.” Ibid., 368.

Teach the Children

“You should be teaching your children. You should be instructing them how to shun the vices and corruptions of this age. Instead of this, many are studying how to get something good to eat. You place upon your tables butter, eggs, and meat, and your children partake of them. They are fed with the very things that will excite their animal passions.” Ibid., 362.

“The moral sensibilities of your children cannot be easily aroused, unless you are careful in the selection of their food. Many a mother sets a table that is a snare to her family. Flesh-meats, butter, cheese, rich pastry, spiced foods, and condiments are freely partaken of by both old and young. These things do their work in deranging the stomach, exciting the nerves, and enfeebling the intellect. The blood-making organs cannot convert such things into good blood.” Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 46, 47.

“If ever there was a time when the diet should be of the most simple kind, it is now. Meat should not be placed before our children. Its influence is to excite and strengthen the lower passions, and has a tendency to deaden the moral powers.” Testimonies, vol. 2, 352.

Foods to Relish

“Olives may be so prepared as to be eaten with good results at every meal. The advantages sought by the use of butter may be obtained by the eating of properly prepared olives. The oil in the olives relieves constipation; and for consumptives, and for those who have inflamed, irritated stomachs, it is better than any drug. As a food it is better than any oil coming secondhand from animals.” Ibid., vol. 7, 134.

“Grains and fruits prepared free from grease, and in as natural a condition as possible, should be the food for the tables of all who claim to be preparing for translation to heaven. The less feverish the diet, the more easily can the passions be controlled. Gratification of taste should not be consulted irrespective of physical, intellectual, or moral health.” Ibid., vol. 2, 352.

“Advise the people to give up sweet puddings or custards made with eggs and milk and sugar, and to eat the best home-made bread, both graham and white, with dried or green fruits, and let that be the only course for one meal; then let the next meal be of nicely prepared vegetables.” Unpublished Testimonies, October 29, 1894.

“Nuts and nut foods are coming largely into use to take the place of flesh meats. With nuts may be combined grains, fruits, and some roots, to make foods that are healthful and nourishing. Care should be taken, however, not to use too large a proportion of nuts.” Counsels on Diet and Foods, 363.

“Simple grains, fruits, and vegetables have all the nutrient properties necessary to make good blood. This a flesh diet cannot do.” Healthful Living, 63.

“In grains, fruits, and vegetables, and nuts, are to be found all the food elements that we need. If we will come to the Lord in simplicity of mind, He will teach us how to prepare wholesome food free from the taint of flesh-meat.” Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods, 65.

“How can anyone desire to live on the flesh of dead animals, when he has the privilege of using the fruit, grains, vegetables, and nuts that God has given us in such abundance?” Peter’s Counsel to Parents, 26.

“God has furnished man with abundant means for the gratification of natural appetite. He has spread before him, in the products of the earth, a bountiful variety of food that is palatable to the taste and nutritious to the system. Of these our benevolent heavenly Father says that we may ‘freely eat.’ We may enjoy the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, without doing violence to the laws of our being. These articles, prepared in the most simple and natural manner, will nourish the body, and preserve its natural vigor without the use of flesh meats.” Testimonies, vol. 3, 50.

Restoring the Temple – Decreasing Your Risk of Disease

by

God, the great governor of the universe, has put everything under law. The tiny flower and the towering oak, the grain of sand and the mighty ocean, sunshine and shower, wind and rain, all obey nature’s laws. But man has been placed under a higher law. He has been given an intellect to see, and a conscience to feel, the powerful claims of God’s great moral law, the expression of what He desires His children to be.” The Signs of the Times, July 31, 1901.

“In the beginning God placed man under law, as an indispensable condition of his very existence. He was a subject of the divine government, and there can be no government without law.” Ibid., July 23, 1902.

In outline form, we will look first at those factors that weaken the body’s ability to ward off disease. These are the habits we want to overcome or avoid. Next we will look at those factors which help the body ward off disease.

Factors Associated with Increased Risk of Disease

1 Certain nutritional supplements.

We do not have complete information on all of the nutritional supplements that might increase the risk of disease, but a few include beta-carotene supplements and large supplements of vitamin A. Beta-carotene supplements have actually been shown to increase cancer risk. It can also cause depletion of vitamin E. Large amounts of vitamin C and vitamin E supplements can actually favor the development of free radicals in the body.

2 Cow’s milk formula for infants.

Infants given cow’s milk formula are over 50 percent more likely to develop diarrhea and ear infections than infants who are breast-fed. With the development of antibiotics, we have become unaware of the dangers of cow’s milk for infants. In a 1930 study of 20,000 infants, before the development of antibiotics, the death rate for infants fed cow’s milk during the first nine months after birth was over 50 times the death rate of infants who were breast-fed. The breast-fed infant receives antibodies and white blood cells from the mother. Human breast milk is usually sterile which is never the case with cow’s milk. The mother’s milk can also help the infant avoid a deadly build-up of E. Coli bacteria in its intestine.

3 Use of cow’s milk by adults.

Cow’s milk has been shown to have a relationship to many serious and deadly diseases, including coronary artery disease, cancer, neurological diseases, allergies, and even Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Multiple Sclerosis.

4 Use of tobacco.

Smokers have twice the risk of colon cancer as non-smokers. Smoking one “joint” of marijuana does the equivalent damage to the lungs as a full pack of 20 regular cigarettes.

5 Use of alcohol.

Even moderate consumption of alcohol can significantly damage the immune system, making the person more susceptible to cancer and other serious diseases. As few as two drinks can reduce antibody production by two-thirds.

6 Excessive exercise.

Exercise to the point of exhaustion, as in competitive sports, can result in a decreased immune response by the body.

7 Meat eating.

Animal protein has been shown to be a cancer-producing substance. Women who eat meat every day have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than those who do not eat meat at all (over eight times in one study). Regular meat eaters have a colon cancer risk of about three to four times those not eating meat at all.

8 Stress.

People who are not coping with major stressors in their lives have a greater chance of developing life-threatening diseases.

9 Use of refined sugar.

Refined sugar reduces the ability of white blood cells to destroy bacteria. For example, one study showed that one white blood cell could destroy 14 bacteria before sugar had been consumed, but after consumption of 24 teaspoons of sugar, only one bacterium could be destroyed.

Factors Associated with Decreased Risk of Disease

1 Sunshine.

One researcher has estimated that regular, moderate exposure to sunshine could prevent 30,000 deaths caused by cancer per year in America.

2 Regular, moderate exercise.

Cancer deaths are significantly lower in those who exercise regularly.

3 Foods rich in carotene (pro-vitamin A).

The high-level carotene foods are those that are deep orange in color—such as carrots, yams, pumpkin, cantaloupe, apricots, mangos, persimmons, sweet potatoes—and those that are dark green, such as spinach, kale, turnip greens, broccoli, collard greens, and beet greens.

4 Foods rich in vitamin E

The high-level vitamin E foods are nuts, seeds, and the germ of grains—wheat germ, sunflower seeds, and almonds and the dark greens as mentioned above in the rich carotene foods.

5 Foods rich in vitamin C.

These vegetable foods include bell peppers, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, potatoes, tomatoes, and cabbage. Fruits such as kiwi, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and citrus fruits are also
beneficial.

6 Foods containing natural chemicals.

Only a few of these phyto-chemicals are presently known, but if you use a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains, you will get all of these chemicals—even the ones that are not well-known. The secret to helping the body resist disease is not in finding the protective elements in a food and mega-dosing on those through supplements, but consuming foods that contain a balanced form of many compounds. This balance will help the body, but the artificial use of supplements often unbalances the chemistry of the body.

7 Trust in God.

It has been statistically demonstrated that unresolved stress can both cause and exacerbate some of our most serious health problems, such as cardio vascular disease, cancer, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, ulcers, and, of course, depression. God has given the answer to stress in Matthew 11:28–30.

8 Adequate water drinking.

Adults generally need eight glasses or more of water per day, depending on their activity and the climate conditions.

9 Cleanliness of person, clothes, and living environment.

About 100 years ago, Ellen White published the following counsel, which, if heeded, would decrease infectious diseases throughout the world approximately 85 percent (according to the estimates of some researchers)!

“Every form of uncleanliness tends to disease. Death-producing germs abound in dark, neglected corners, in decaying refuse, in dampness and mold and must. . . . Nothing unclean or decaying should be tolerated within the home. In towns or cities regarded perfectly healthful, many an epidemic of fever has been traced to decaying matter about the dwelling of some careless householder.” The Ministry of Healing, 276.

10 Adequate rest.

The exact amount of needed rest varies with different individuals, but the vast majority of human beings need between seven and nine hours of sleep per day.

Many people are looking for the miracle food or the miracle vitamin, mineral supplement, or herb that will cleanse the body of all problems and disease. “Miracle foods” come in and out of vogue. The secret of health and long life does not reside in finding the miracle potion, medicine, or herbal supplement but in following, in moderation and with good judgment, all the laws of health that the Creator has made and provided for our use.

Health – Tobacco’s Effect Upon Health

by

Over a hundred years ago, God, through His messenger Ellen White, provided much counsel regarding the use of tobacco and its effect upon health.

“Tobacco, in whatever form it is used, tells upon the constitution. It is a slow poison. It affects the brain and benumbs the sensibilities so that the mind cannot discern spiritual things, especially those truths which would have a tendency to correct this filthy indulgence. Those who use tobacco in any form are not clear before God. In such a filthy practice it is impossible for them to glorify God in their bodies and spirits, which are His. And while they are using slow and sure poisons, which are ruining their health and debasing the faculties of the mind, God cannot approbate them. He may be merciful to them while they indulge in this pernicious habit in ignorance of the injury it is doing them; but when the matter is set before them in its true light, then they are guilty before God if they continue to indulge this gross appetite.” Healthful Living, 109.

“It is unpleasant, if not dangerous, to remain … in a crowded room that is not thoroughly ventilated, where the atmosphere is impregnated with the properties of liquor and tobacco. The occupants give evidence by the breath and emanations from the body that the system is filled with the poison of liquor and tobacco.

“Many infants are poisoned beyond remedy by sleeping in beds with their tobacco-using fathers. By inhaling the poisonous tobacco effluvium, which is thrown from the lungs and pores of the skin, the system of the infant is filled with poison. While it acts upon some infants as a slow poison, and affects the brain, heart, liver, and lungs, and they waste away and fade gradually; upon others it has a more direct influence, causing spasms, paralysis, and sudden death. The bereaved parents mourn the loss of their loved ones, and wonder at the mysterious providence of God, which has so cruelly afflicted them, when Providence designed not the death of these infants. They died martyrs to the filthy lust for tobacco. Every exhalation of the lungs of the tobacco slave poisons the air about him.” Ibid., 110, 111.

Science and medical research now confirm the correctness of this counsel.

Tobacco Is Bad For You

The fact that tobacco is bad for you is no secret. The Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 (Public Law 89-92) required that the warning “Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health” be placed in small print on one of the side panels of each cigarette package. [Emphasis added.]

In 1969, Congress passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (Public Law 91-222), which prohibited cigarette advertising on television and radio and required that each cigarette package contain the label “Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health.” [Emphasis added.]

In 1981, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report to Congress that concluded that health warning labels had little effect on public knowledge and attitudes about smoking. As a result of this report, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Smoking Education Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-474), which required four specific health warnings on all cigarette packages and advertisements:

SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING

  • Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy.
  • Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health
  • Smoking by Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth, and Low Birth Weight
  • Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide

The Comprehensive Smokeless Tobacco Health Education Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-252) required three rotating warning labels on smokeless tobacco packaging and advertisements:

WARNING

  • This product may cause mouth cancer
  • This product may cause gum disease and tooth loss
  • This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes

Warning labels on tobacco packages in the United States are weaker and less prominent than those of many other countries!

Despite these warnings, people continue to smoke, and new smokers adopt the habit every single day. Amazingly, smoking can still be viewed as an adult thing to do, and children continue to be influenced by this. Their parents or guardians smoke; therefore, they should smoke too if they want to be really grown up—or at least that is their perception. Smokers wish they had never smoked that first lousy cigarette and shake their heads in disbelief when they see their own young children or teenagers starting to smoke.

Tobacco can be “ingested” in more than one way. Some people chew it, others inhale it as snuff but the majority smoke it in the form of cigars and cigarettes. Regardless of how tobacco is used, it is dangerous.

When smokers inhale a single “shot” of nicotine from a cigarette, the lungs allow the nicotine to pass into the blood stream almost instantly. The smoker then feels the “hit” from the nicotine in his or her bloodstream and this is the sensation that they later crave.

Do not just assume that the inhalant is “pure” tobacco smoke either. That smoke inhaled from a cigarette contains 40+ carcinogenic substances. These are substances that have been clinically proven to cause various types of cancer. Cigarette smoke also contains 400 other toxins that can be found in rat poison, nail polish remover, and various types of wood varnish. As these carcinogens and toxins gather in the body, they begin to cause serious problems for the heart and lungs.

Smoke-Related Diseases

Of all the diseases associated with smoking, cancer is the most common. Lung cancer is the most common cancer associated with cigarette smoking, but a smoker can also get cancer of the mouth, bladder, kidney, stomach, esophagus, larynx, and pancreas. Some of these cancers can be treated, but others are 100 percent fatal.

Cancer is not the only disease that smoking causes, either directly or indirectly. Seventy-five percent of all fatal cases of emphysema and bronchitis are linked to smoking. Both of these diseases cause extreme breathing difficulties. Emphysema in particular is an extremely nasty disease, as an individual’s ability to breathe on his or her own slowly vanishes.

Smokers have dramatically shorter lives than nonsmokers. On average, a smoker will die 15 to 20 years before a nonsmoker.

Secondhand Smoke

The risk from smoking is not just limited to the smoker. The serious effects of secondary smoke are now very well-known. Smoking near others puts their health at risk also. Secondhand smoke is still loaded with chemicals and toxins as it was when first inhaled.

Secondhand smoke is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar, and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. Secondhand smoke contains more than 250 chemicals known to be toxic or cancer causing, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic, ammonia, and hydrogen cyanide.

Dangers of Secondhand Smoke

Secondhand smoke causes about 3,000 deaths each year from lung cancer in nonsmokers. It also causes irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, and can also irritate the lungs, leading to coughing, excessive phlegm, and chest discomfort. Secondhand smoke has been identified as the cause of death from heart disease in thousands of adult nonsmokers.

Since their internal organs and immune systems are still developing, children are in the highest risk group. Children exposed to secondary smoke are far more vulnerable to asthma, sudden infant death syndrome (cot death), bronchitis, pneumonia, and ear infections, among other things.

Protect Yourself and Your Family

This is what you can do to protect yourself and your family from secondhand smoke:

  • Do not allow smoking in your home.
  • Choose restaurants and other places where you spend time that are smoke-free.
  • Let family, friends, and people with whom you work know that you do care if they smoke around you.
  • Ask your employer to make sure you do not have to breathe other people’s smoke at work.
  • Help people who are trying to quit smoking. Give them copies of the tract, “Just One Puff,” or Dr. John J. Grosboll’s booklet, “How to Quit Smoking,” available through the Mail Order Services Department of Steps to Life.

Resource information: www.quittersguide.com; www.cigarettewarninglabels.com; www.lungusa.org (February 2008).

Food – Smoking and Your Respiratory System

by

True temperance teaches us to dispense entirely with everything hurtful and to use judiciously that which is healthful.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 562. It is common knowledge that smoking is hurtful though often we do not understand the reasons or extent of the harmfulness of this offending habit. Our goal is to make you more informed so you will understand and be able to share with others more fully some of the effects that smoking has on the respiratory system.

In Genesis 2:7 we learn that God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This is a true love story in that God merely spoke the rest of the universe into existence: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” Psalm 33:6, 9. However, after lovingly forming Adam, the crowning act of creation, He personally breathed into his nostrils and imparted to man the breath of life.

The respiratory system is one of the primary targets of cigarette smoking. It is made up of two lungs, an immense system of air tubes that are lined and end in over 300 million small air sacs. Within the lungs and surrounding these air sacs is a massive system of arteries, capillaries and veins. The lungs hold about 4–5 quarts (liters) of air and with each breath the average adult takes in about ½ a quart (500 cc) of air. At rest we breathe about 16 times a minute and 12,000 quarts of air each day. As this air enters the body, it is warmed and cleansed by the nose, cilia (small hair-like projections from the lining of the breathing tubes) and the mucus within the breathing tubes. It is in these microscopic air sacs that the oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide via the blood stream. As the oxygen rich blood from the lungs is taken to the body, every cell is nourished and strengthened for life and work.

Tobacco is a slow, insidious and most malignant poison. It is known to have over 4,000 chemical agents, 43 of which are known to cause cancer in humans. Cancer of the respiratory system is greatly increased in smokers, with lung cancer being 700% greater. Eighty percent of those who have vocal cord cancer are smokers, and the incidence of cancer of the mouth and esophagus is increased in smokers. Of those who die from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, 85% were smokers. These frightening statistics are related to the physical effects of smoking on the respiratory system: the cilia are paralyzed, damaged and cannot sweep foreign matter out of the lungs, the excess mucous created from smoking clogs the airways, the small air sacs become distended, trap air and eventually rupture, forming large ineffective sacs. Eventually, the rib cage becomes barrel shaped because of excess trapped air, the blood pressure elevates and the entire system is deprived of oxygen in an attempt to push blood through the damaged air sacs. All the while this is going on, the carcinogenic chemicals in the smoke irritate and put the entire system at risk for cancer.

Q&A – Can I Continue to smoke while claiming to be a Christian?

by

There are many “good” people in this world who will not make it to heaven, because once being aware of a different lifestyle, they refuse to walk or live to a heavenly standard right here on earth. By the worldly standard they are considered “good” because the world agrees with their lifestyle. In heaven, there will be nothing that will cause either sorrow or death.

Smoking is not the only thing that pollutes the body, but also drinking alcohol. There is much information today revealing the deleterious effects of tobacco and alcohol. When shown that something is so harmful to your health, whether it be physical, mental or spiritual and you persist in its use, to turn away from the will of God to retain health and choose to walk in your own ways is a very serious matter. God has said, “Thou shalt not kill” and “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Exodus 20:13; I Corinthians 10:31.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made and live in a time where there is a feast of information available to make healthy choices and avoid certain foods or substances that cause harm. Willfully continuing to do harmful things will cost you the gift of salvation unless you repent and turn away from those things that destroy your body, that amazing piece of machinery in which you live. (See Sermons and Talks, vol. 2, 286.)

We are told to “ ‘Make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way’ [Hebrews 12:13]. We cannot realize how powerful for good or for evil is our influence upon those with whom we associate. Let us be careful that there be not found on our garments in the day of judgment the blood of precious souls.” Ibid., 287.

To continue in these harmful habits while professing to be a Christian is a bad witness to others. It lowers the standard of behavior and can cause others also to sin by the bad example.

How to Quit Smoking

by Dr. John J. Grosboll

How to Quit SmokingHave you ever tried to stop smoking? You may have had temporary success before, but now has your habit returned, leaving you frustrated? Are you reading this booklet in quiet desperation wondering whether it will be able to do for you what nobody else has been able to do?

Are you apprehensive that trying again and failing will simply weaken your will power and sense of self- worth even more, so that it seems dangerous for you even to keep reading?

WOULD YOU TRY AGAIN TO QUIT SMOKING IF YOU KNEW OF A WAY THAT WAS FAIL-PROOF?

There is such a method. The really good news is that this method can be followed not only by average men and women but even the weak. Those who have apparently been failures all of their lives can gain lasting success, permanent freedom from tobacco and a sense of dignity and value never before experienced.

The author has helped others who were heavy smokers for decades, to experience this success and has not found one person in more than twenty years who has followed all of the principles of the method now to be explained without permanent success.

This method is not based on anything mystical but rather on thoroughly researched scientific laws which govern the body and the mind. There are not only physical laws in the universe but also mental or spiritual laws, and if you know what these laws are and are willing to obey them, your success is absolutely certain.

Before we explain what you need to know and do, however, we need to investigate three important questions:

  1. Why did you start smoking?
  2. Why is it so hard to quit?
  3. Why do you want to quit?

WHY YOU STARTED

You need to know something about why you began to smoke because if those motivations still exist, they will make it harder for you to quit. A common time to start smoking is twelve years of age. This is a time when a child is seeking adult status in the world. Because of the example of his older peers or adults whom he knows, smoking often has seemed to be a way to become more “grown- up.” People who were role models for you may have been a large part of this influence. Your subconscious mind accepted the constant input from advertising and the example of others that there was a real benefit to smoking. This is a lie. Smoking does not make you more mature, smarter or in any way better or more attractive. In fact, it does just the opposite.

Smoking causes constriction of blood vessels and at the same time lowers the oxygen delivering capacity of the blood. This reduces the delivery of oxygen to the brain as well as other vital organs of the body. Habitual smoking causes you to appear elderly faster and decreases your beauty and attractiveness. It does not improve you mentally or physically. Smoking weakens the body so that the smoker has less endurance, higher mortality and more sickness.

Diseases which are especially increased by smoking include the following: lung cancer and cancers of other parts of the respiratory system; cancer in the urinary bladder, the pancreas and the kidney; heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and other vascular diseases; emphysema, chronic bronchitis, peptic ulcers; various mouth disorders such as tooth loss, jawbone deterioration, inflamed gums, and pyorrhea and oral inflammations. Smokers are absent from work more often and have more headaches and coughs than non- smokers.

ESPECIALLY FOR WOMEN

For women, smoking presents shocking hazards. Smoking mothers have more premature babies, more stillbirths and miscarriages, and more babies who die a short time after birth. Babies born to smoking mothers have more congenital abnormalities. A woman who smokes and takes oral contraceptives containing estrogen increases her chances of a heart attack several times.

In addition to all of this, smoking decreases your ability to experience pleasure— for example, it decreases taste sensitivity so that you have less capacity to enjoy food. Your ability to experience pleasure is based on your sensitivity, and this is lessened by all narcotics.

SO WHY IS IT SO HARD TO QUIT?

Nicotine causes addiction. After a person is addicted to nicotine by habitual smoking, to cease smoking produces physical symptoms. Symptoms which habitual smokers experience when they stop smoking include irritability, muscle pain, headache, nausea, inability to sleep and jittery nerves. These symptoms are not imaginary because when you quit smoking, measurable physiological changes occur, such as changes in heart rate, blood pressure and in the electrical waves of the brain. Withdrawal symptoms, however, are not the only reason that it is difficult to quit smoking.

A number of social and psychological habits are often intertwined with the smoking habit. Smoking has often become associated with every major event of the day. For example, a smoker often takes out a cigarette every time he has a cup of coffee. An important business decision or meeting is often associated with a smoke. A change of pace, such as getting in a car to drive to work or sitting down to relax, is often associated with a smoke. So, every major start or stop or pressure or change of pace during the day is often associated with smoking. But even these are not all of the reasons that it is hard to quit smoking.

Smoking is also a physical habit. The hand reaches for the pack and a cigarette is retrieved. It is placed in the mouth and a lighting device is ignited. The inhale to kindle the end is accompanied by the fondling of the cigarette by the lips and later the playing with it by the hand. Later, ashes are flicked out, and finally, it is stamped out. These activities become deeply ingrained habits which the habitual smoker has repeated many thousands of times. Since smoking is an all- pervasive habit which has chemical, physical and mental or spiritual components, any rational attempt to quit must have an attack plan which includes physical, chemical and spiritual components.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO QUIT?

Since smoking is an all-pervasive habit having physical, chemical and spiritual components, the reasons why you want to quit are often the determining factors as to whether or not you will be permanently successful. You probably do not have the appropriate motivation right now to quit smoking permanently. If your motivation had been perfect, you would have been successful before and would not be reading this. Do not worry about that. One of the major purposes of this booklet is to help you acquire the proper motivation through a series of tested techniques. The result will be that you will acquire a power that most smokers desiring to quit have never experienced.

HOW TO GET STARTED

The first thing to know about how to quit smoking is that you need help, and the second thing to know is that all of the help in the universe will not give you victory without your determined, persistent effort.

We will study the first thing first— how you can get help to quit smoking.

HOW TO GET HELP TO BE FREE FROM TOBACCO

It was not long before midnight on April 14, 1912. The ocean liner Californian was on its way to Boston from London. As Charles Groves, the ship’s third officer, sat on the top deck, he saw, several miles away, the lights of another ship speeding westward. As this ship was rapidly passing his own, he saw a splendid burst of lights, revealing a large passenger liner. Suddenly, however, it seemed that the big ship stopped and put out most of her lights. It did not occur to him that perhaps the lights were still on but only appeared to go out because the ship was no longer broadside but had swerved sharply to the left.

That night, when help was near, over fifteen hundred people lost their lives in one of the worst ship disasters of history because of no communication. Help was near, but there was no communication. So, when the Titanic went down, nobody was there to help.

DROWNING WITHIN REACH OF HELP

There are millions of people today who have a problem with tobacco and are ready to sink. Many are sinking in an abyss of smoke while help is available. What if a man was drowning and when a life buoy was thrown to him he refused to take it because he did not know if the rope or the buoy or the rescuer were trustworthy. He has no confidence, no faith. That man will drown because he cannot save himself and he is unwilling to accept outside help.

The man who is drowning must choose to believe in the person who is out to save him. If he believes and if he acts on that belief by taking hold of the help that is made available, he will be delivered. He will be saved. The tragedy is that there are so many people whose bodies are drowning in an ocean of smoke who will not ask for or accept the help that is available.

HELP IS AVAILABLE!

Wonderful help is available. Through an ancient prophet, God says, Call unto Me and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know (Jeremiah 33: 3).

And through the apostle Paul, God declares that He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or even think (Ephesians 3: 20). So, outside help is available. There is powerful help available, and many millions of people have found in this outside help the answer to the problem of self- control. Your nature may be so weakened through continual indulgence of wrong habits that it is impossible for you in your own strength to resist the craving for nicotine. You may be literally a slave to tobacco, but nonetheless, there is help available for you.

HOW CAN YOU GET THIS HELP?

1. Ask.

Acknowledge that you have a problem for which you need divine help, and ask for divine help. Jesus said, Ask, and you will receive. Everyone who asks receives (Matthew 7: 7).

2. Make a commitment.

God does not force the will of any human being. He does not want blind submission or unreasoning control. God does not use force. In order for Him to deliver you from the slavery of tobacco, you must be willing to make a commitment— choose to yield your will to Him so that a change can be worked out in your life.

3. Surrender your will to Him.

A lot of people in our world are do- it- yourselves. There are some things that we apparently can do ourselves. However, if you have found that you cannot stop smoking by yourself, you need to surrender your will to God in order to receive the divine help that will set you free from the slavery of bad habits.

Although you will find it a struggle to do this, surrendering your will to Him is vital if you are to have permanent success. To surrender the will to God means to accept Him to be our Lord and Master in all things, to acknowledge ourselves to be His servants, ready always to yield obedience to His commands. You can do it if you choose to. The surrender of your will to God’s will, moment by moment, is the vital key to success.

4. Are you in earnest?

God has promised, you will seek Me and find Me when you shall search for Me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29: 13). If that is your decision, there is no question that a divine miracle is going to take place in your life to give you victory over tobacco. You are on your way to fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16: 11).

5. Exercise your power of choice.

You may have decided that you are weak in moral power. You may consider yourself a victim of doubt. Your life may seem to be continually controlled by your past when you were constantly losing self- control and smoking. The resolutions that you made on New Year’s day may have fallen apart immediately. It may seem to you that it is impossible for you to control your thoughts, and by yourself, this is true. Your habit of smoking, your passionate craving for nicotine, your affection for this vice may be humanly uncontrollable. The knowledge of this causes you to have feelings of despair. There is a way out, however. What is that way out? The way out depends on your power of decision or choice.

You cannot change your heart or your affections for your past habits or your passionate cravings for nicotine. You cannot change your impulses, but you can make a decision. You can choose to yield your will to divine power. If you do this, divine power will work in you, and your nature will be brought under the control of a divine spirit. A change will occur in your affections and in your thoughts, giving you power to be free from tobacco.

The Scripture says, If anyone destroys the temple of God, him will God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are (I Corinthians 3: 17). If you have decided to make a decision to live a life that is pure— free from the defilement of tobacco— here is what to pray: “Father in heaven, I choose to surrender my will and all lam to You. I choose to seek You with all of my heart and live by every word that comes out of Your mouth. I choose to live a healthy life and not destroy myself with tobacco. Please help me, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.” Over and over throughout the day, you should breath this prayer to God— “Father, I choose to live a healthy life and not defile myself with tobacco. Please help me as You have promised, for I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

6. Why many fail to receive help.

It is fine to have desires to do the right thing, but if you stop there, nothing will happen. Millions of people are hoping and desiring to quit smoking, but they do not come to the point of yielding their will to a divine influence. They do not make a decision to yield their will to divine power.

If you exercise your will and make a decision, make a commitment to God about your smoking problem, you are going to experience divine strength in your life which will hold you steadfast. If you constantly yield your will to this divine power, you will be enabled to live a new life, a life of self- control, a life in which you will be in control of your thoughts, your affections, your cravings, your impulses and your past smoking habit. All of this is possible to you if you make a decision to yield your will to divine power.

God is interested above all things that you may prosper in all things and be in health (III John 2). If you acknowledge your condition and yield your will to Him, if you make a total commitment (full surrender) to this divine influence, God will fulfill His promise to you. He will supply the fact. He will make you whole in your spirit. It is so, if you believe it. Do not wait to feel that the miracle has happened, but believe it, because God has promised.

WHAT TO DO EVERY DAY

Now that you have come for divine help, do not draw back and take yourself away from the divine influence. Every day say, “I have yielded my will to Christ. I have surrendered my smoking problem to Him.” Then say to Him, “Please give to me Your Spirit, grace and power to live this new life. “It is as you continually give yourself to Him and believe in Him that a divine miracle takes place in your life. This is a miracle of self- control, of victory over your affection and craving for tobacco and nicotine.

THE NEW YOU

This is a miracle which no human eye can see but which you can experience. It is so exciting, the apostle Paul expressed it as being made into a new creature. He said, Old things have passed away, ail things are become new (II Corinthians 5: 17). Every thought, every word, every action is purified and brought into subjection to the righteous will of Christ. (See II Corinthians 10: 4,5; Ephesians 4: 28- 32; Romans 1:16,17.)

THE NEW RELATIONSHIP

A change is seen in our habits. We develop an emotional attachment for the One who has saved us from these bad habits which had fettered chains around us that we could not break. We begin to learn the meaning of the statement in the Bible where the apostle said that we love Him because He first loved us (I John 4: 19).

There are people who were smokers who never realized how personal and how individual God’s love was until they found out that God was interested in helping them solve their problem with tobacco.

DO NOT GO BACK TO TRYING BY YOURSELF.

There are two erroneous ideas against which we need to especially guard ourselves after asking for divine help. The first is the philosophy that we can trust in something that we can do in order to bring about the change in mind and spirit and the self- control that we need. Jesus said,

Without Me you can do nothing (John 15: 5). Place your complete trust in Him. Do not place any trust in what you can do. In every time of temptation, look to Him for power to overcome and have victory. If you trust yourself, you will fail, but Jesus never fails.

BELIEF ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH.

The opposite and no less erroneous idea is the common belief that if you just believe, then you do not need to do anything. The fact is that the divine miracle takes place only when there is a union of divine power with human effort. As long as you surrender your will to the divine influence, He will work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure. And the works of obedience to the physical laws of your body will take place in your life as you cooperate with God by making a persistent and vital effort to live according to your requests. The apostle said, You WORK OUT. . . with fear and trembling . . . God . . . WORKS IN you to will and to do. . .” (Philippians 2: 12, 13). The secret then is not that God does it— you gain the victory in the fight for self- control— but God supplies to you the power to gain the victory which, on your own, would be impossible.

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?

The question arises, Will this miracle continue to happen? As long as you yield your will to Christ, as long as you are choosing to fully cooperate with Him, this divine miracle will continue to happen because your hope is not in yourself but in Him. So, you are not to look to yourself or depend upon yourself in order to have control over your craving to smoke or to manifest self- control in any other area of life. You are to look to where the help is.

One of the Bible writers expressed it like this. He said, speaking the Word of the Lord, Look unto Me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else (Isaiah 45: 22). If you look to Him (in your mind), you are going to be delivered from your problems of smoking, lack of self- control, obeying wrong impulses, and affection for wrong past habits.

There are all kinds of things in life to divert your attention from where the help is, but remember, you must not allow anything to prevent you from looking for and asking for divine help.

This divine help is in Jesus Christ. If you commit the keeping of your mind to Him and trust in Him, He is able to keep that which you have committed to Him (II Timothy 1: 12). So, look to Him every time you are faced with a temptation to smoke. Choose to follow Him in obedience, who said, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself (Luke 9: 23).

Self denial is the way to become an ex- smoker and the way to eventually gain life’s greatest happiness and pleasures. It is a divine principle that Jesus constantly taught by precept and example.

THE THREE PRINCIPLES

Here are three principles that you can use to keep this divine power flowing into your life, giving you control over the craving to smoke.

First:

Fix the Bible promises to smokers in your memory. Some Bible promises for smokers are:

Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you shall glorify Me (Psalm 50: 15).

Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you do not know (Jeremiah 33: 3). The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed. A refuge in times of trouble. And those who know Your name will put their trust in You; for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You (Psalm 9: 9, 10). For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened…. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to them who ask Him (Matthew 7: 8, 11)! With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible (Matthew 19: 26). For with God nothing will be impossible. (Luke 1: 37). I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4: 13). And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 19).

God stands back of every promise He has made. Memorize them; repeat them over and over to yourself. This is a weapon that Jesus Himself used to overcome temptation.

Second:

Do not fail to continue asking for help. Jesus said, Men ought always to pray and not to faint (Luke 18: 1); in other words, do not give up. Keep asking continually. As you go about your daily activities, let your heart and spirit be uplifted to God, asking Him for divine help to conquer every subtle and surprising temptation to smoke. There is no time or place where it is inappropriate to offer up a request for divine help to assist you in conquering a temptation to smoke.

Third:

Develop the habit of being joyful and thankful. Did you know that most people are about as happy as they choose to be, and the Bible acknowledges this fact. If you will make the decision to be joyful and thankful, you will be surprised at the divine power that will come into your life in the very act of expressing your joy. The apostle said, Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice (Philippians 4: 4). In other words, express your joy. h everything with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 6, 7). There is the secret, friend. Be joyful and express your joy and thankfulness for God’s answer to your request and a divine miracle is going to take place in your life.

You have an imagination. In your imagination, every time you are assailed with a temptation to smoke, even if you are depressed or discouraged or ready to yield to despair, look to Jesus and request help. Ask and you will receive. When a perverted craving struggles for the mastery in your mind, look to Jesus Christ. His power is sufficient to subdue any bad habit. Choose to turn to Him. Lay hold of the hope that is set before you. He has strength for your weakness, and He is ready and willing right now to lead you step by step to perfect self- control, permanent freedom from the slavery of smoking. Never fear that He is far away because He is always near (Acts 17: 27), and He is interested in having communion (fellowship) with you (Revelation 3: 19- 22). He is ready right now to work in your behalf and to impart to you power to subdue every craving to smoke. He does not do this without your consent. You are free to choose what power you want to rule over you. Nobody has fallen so many times or is such a slave to tobacco that they may not find deliverance through divine power (Hebrews 7: 25).

WHAT HUMAN EFFORT DO YOU NEED TO MAKE?

God expects you to live in harmony with the physical laws which He has created within your body. The particular physical laws which you need to pay special attention to when you begin to resist the craving to smoke are listed below.

1. Eat mainly fresh fruit and some fruit juice the first day.

As soon as you quit smoking, your body starts trying to rid itself of nicotine and all of the other poisons from tobacco that have been accumulating. You can assist your body in this effort by adopting a cleansing type of diet. If you are engaged in hard, manual labor and need a more liberal diet, a suggested first day diet would be as follows:

Breakfast

1- 2 slices of whole wheat or whole grain toast 1 banana 1 orange or apple 1 bowl of cooked cereal or cold cereal with low sugar content, with milk or milk substitute and fruit sauce, if desired 1 glass of apricot nectar, grape juice or orange juice a few nuts, such as almonds, pecans, walnuts, filberts or brazil nuts— raw nuts are best, dry roasted next best, roasted in oil should be avoided, if possible.

Lunch

1 baked potato with gravy or other topping 1 bowl of tossed, green, garden salad 1 serving of cooked greens— broccoli, spinach, turnip greens, mustard greens, kale, collards or Swiss chard— if none of the above are available, green vegetables would be second best, such as: green beans, okra, cabbage or brussels sprouts 1- 2 slices of bread, whole wheat or whole grain 1 serving of high protein food— Any kind of legume— cooked, dried beans, peas, lentils or garbanzos— is excellent. Lima beans are fine. Peanut butter sandwiches can do in a pinch. a few nuts (Nuts also provide protein.) 1 glass of milk or milk- substitute, optional

Supper

Any kind of fresh fruit as desired any kind of fruit juice without added sugar— Use juices in moderation that are high in sugar content, such as grape juice and pineapple juice. crackers, optional

The above menu is only for those who engage in hard manual labor. Others are advised to eat mainly fresh fruit and fruit juice the first day. If you want to be successful right from the start, you are advised to not eat or drink any type of food or beverage not listed.

2. Drink a minimum of six glasses of water per day.

This is in addition to whatever fruit juice, milk or vegetable juice you drink during the day. If you do not like the taste of your water and do not have access to purified water, you may put a small amount of lemon juice in the water. This is also advisable if you have weak digestion or if your stomach rebels at the thought of plain water.

The way to get enough water is as follows: Drink at least one eight- ounce glass of water during the first thirty minutes upon arising in the morning. Do not drink anything for one to two hours after breakfast. During the late morning, drink a minimum of two eight- ounce glasses of water. Do not drink anything for one to two hours after lunch. During the later afternoon, drink at least two glasses of water. Either before supper or just before going to bed, drink one more glass of water.

You will have more energy as a result of drinking more water and your body will be assisted in ridding itself of the poisons that have accumulated from the use of tobacco.

3. Practice deep breathing at least three times per day.

First of all, stand up and be sure that nothing is tight or restricting around your waist. Loose fitting clothing is absolutely essential to proper breathing. Through either your nose or your mouth, inhale the largest amount of air possible. Your tummy should go out both in front and on the sides. After you inhale as much as you can force yourself to, then inhale just a little bit more until you are feeling some discomfort.

Hold the air for a moment and then breathe out rapidly through your mouth. While breathing out, bend over and place your palms flat against your ribs, or abdomen, and push in. If you cough at the end of this breathing out, you will get more air out of your lungs, which is what you want. Repeat this exercise two more times. Repeat the entire procedure at least three times per day.

Note: If you are a jogger, a bicyclist or a long distance swimmer, you may eliminate this activity on any day that you work out.

4. Get plenty of rest the first few days.

Your body will exert tremendous effort during the next few days to purify itself, so you will need adequate rest and sleep.

5. A tepid bath or shower is recommended every day.

A tepid bath is one that is not very hot and not cold, just lukewarm. A lukewarm soak before bedtime for the first few days helps some people go to sleep.

6. Avoid all alcoholic beverages.

The cerebrum or forebrain is the first part of the brain to be affected by alcohol, and even a small amount of alcohol results in a decrease in judgment and the ability to exercise the will. Alcohol will sabotage your efforts to be free from tobacco. You cannot expect God to help you quit smoking if you use alcoholic beverages because He has forbidden their use. (See Proverbs 23: 29- 35; 20: 1; I Corinthians 6: 9, 10.)

7. Avoid all compromise.

If you decide to taper off from cigarettes or other forms of tobacco, you will surely fail. You cannot be successful unless you quit totally and entirely.

8. What to do if you fall.

A righteous man may fall seven times and rise again (Proverbs 24: 16). If you fall, confess your fall to God (I John 1: 9; Proverbs 28: 13). He has promised to forgive you and help you to finally succeed. Read the first part of this booklet over again and go through all of the steps faithfully. Start over immediately to be free from tobacco, and do not allow anyone to discourage you.

In the Revolutionary War, America lost battle after battle but finally won the war. If you should stumble, get up immediately and start again. God will not forsake you and will give you a permanent victory over tobacco if you do not give up because of a temporary failure. Pray most earnestly. Say like Jacob, ‘I will not let You go unless You bless me’ (Genesis 32: 26). If you keep going through the steps listed in the beginning of the booklet and keep asking, you will be given power to have permanent victory. The reason that some people stumble while quitting smoking will be explained later.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

1. How to deal with headache.

  1. First and most important of all, pray whenever you have a headache. Say, “Father in heaven, You have promised to keep me in perfect peace (Isaiah 26: 3) {f I trust in You. I have chosen to trust in You so I ask that You will give me peace of mind and spirit and impart to me that rest (Matthew 11: 28- 30) that You have promised, for I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
  2. Drink a glass of water. Extra water is helpful for headaches.
  3. Practice the deep- breathing exercises.
  4. If practical, you may go for a walk. Your arms and legs should be well protected if the weather is cool. An outdoor walk is the best.
  5. Try to practice a strict, regular schedule— a set time for eating meals, a set time for going to bed, etc. Regular habits will help you to get adequate sleep. Headaches are often caused by lack of sleep.
  6. Do not eat anything between meals. Do not have meals closer than five hours apart. Avoid overeating, and do not eat many varieties of food at the same meal. Avoid any practice which has caused you to have indigestion. Headaches can be precipitated by indigestion.
  7. Headaches can be caused by improper clothing, either too much clothing in a hot room or climate or improper distribution of clothing, day or night, so that the extremities (arms and legs) are inadequately clothed while the trunk of the body is warmly covered. Chilling of the neck and shoulders can cause a headache. Tight restrictive clothing either at the neck or at the waist or other part of the trunk of the body can cause a headache by imbalancing the circulation.
  8. A hot foot bath with a cold cloth on the forehead, or even an ice bag placed at the top of the back of the neck against the skull, is sometimes necessary. The foot-bath can be 103- 106 degrees Fahrenheit. The washcloth on the forehead should be kept cool by frequent rinsing in cold water. A tepid bath (94- 97 degrees Fahrenheit) for one- half to three- quarters of an hour sometimes relieves headache.

2. Before you get up in the morning

Always pray before you say or do anything in the morning. The first thing in the morning, you might be severely tempted to have a cigarette. Before you get out of bed, talk to God about the upcoming day.

You might say something like this, “Father in heaven, I choose to consecrate myself to You and to belong totally to You today. On this condition, You have promised to give to me the fullness of Your blessing, to abide in me by Your Spirit and to be my strength and constant Helper. I claim these wonderful promises and claim a pure life free from the defilement of tobacco, in Jesus’name, Amen.” (This prayer is based on Numbers 6: 24- 26; John 14: 1- 17; 15: 1- 14; Hebrews 13: 5, 6.)

3. Use your leisure time wisely.

After supper, do not sit down and relax in an easy chair for the first few days because this will be one of the more dangerous times of the day when you will be tempted to smoke. Engage in an active or absorbing hobby, go for a walk or find something that will keep you busy until bedtime. Doing nothing will sabotage your efforts. Doing nothing can have a devastating effect on your will, so keep busy, except for time for sleeping the first few days. It will be advantageous for you to get a thirty minute walk or thirty minutes of working in the garden, etc., every day. Aerobic exercise will help you to always have a positive mental attitude.

The rest of this booklet will give you more help. If you are having any trouble, you may go over and over the first part of this booklet. Many people must go over and over the principles before they become a part of their character. Until your character is changed, your life free from tobacco is not yet permanent.

THIS IS ALL THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO GET STARTED.

HOW TO GET ANSWERS TO YOUR PRAYERS

The components of successful prayer are cited below. These concepts are from the Bible, but they are also found in a nineteenth century book called Steps to Christ.

Prayer is talking to God concerning our actual life— it is a conversation with Him. It is talking to Him in the same manner as we would talk with any friend.

Jesus taught His disciples to (1) present their daily needs before God and (2) cast all of their cares upon Him. He gave them the assurance that their petitions would be heard.

God’s heart of love yearns toward the children of men. He is ready to give them more than they can ask or think, but these divine gifts are only for those who ask and put their trust in Him.

Prayer should not consist altogether in asking and receiving. We are to praise God for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men (Psalm 107: 8).

To obtain answers to our prayers, the Bible presents the following prerequisites:

  1. We must feel our need, Isaiah 44: 3. 2. We must not cling to any known wrong, Psalm 66: 18. 3. We must choose to exercise trust in God, Hebrews 11: 6. 4. We must choose to exercise a spirit of love and forgiveness, Matthew 6: 12.
  2. We must persevere in prayer, Romans 12: 12; Colossians 4: 2; I Peter 4: 7. 6. We must take every opportunity to pray: in the family circle, in secret, with others and as we go about our work or daily activities. There is no time or place in which it is inappropriate to offer up a petition to God, Luke 18: 1.
  3. Christ’s example is that we are to blend prayer and works— we are to pray even in the midst of our work, but we are not to isolate ourselves away from others and retire from the world in order to pray. If we only pray and do not work, soon we will cease to pray or our prayers will become a formal routine.

So, take to God everything that perplexes your mind. Nothing that in any way concerns your peace is too small for Him to notice. There is no perplexity concerning your smoking problem that is too difficult for Him to understand. There is no calamity that can happen to you or anxiety that can harass you to which He is unobservant or in which He does not take an interest.

So ask. Ask when you are driving your car and you are being tempted to smoke.

Ask when you are on the job. Ask when you are talking with someone and you are tempted to smoke. Ask when someone offers you a cigarette and you do not know how to resist. You can always make a request for help in your mind, and God will hear. He says that He sees every thought that you think (Psalm 139: 2). Ask, Jesus said, and it will by given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it will opened unto you. Everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be opened (Matthew 7: 7, 8). Are you knocking on God’s door? Are you seeking for His help? If you are, He has promised to hear your request and answer you. God stands behind every promise He has made.

MORE HUMAN EFFORTS YOU CAN MAKE

Success is the result of divine power and human effort. Your utmost human effort is necessary. If you stop making a consistent effort, then God must stop providing miraculous power to help you because He never works out of harmony with your own will— that would restrict your freedom, which God will not do. Here are more things to do to have permanent success.

1. Avoid all coffee and caffeine.

Caffeine is a chemical stimulant that can initiate a craving for a cigarette. Very few people will be able to permanently quit smoking and still keep on drinking coffee. Caffeine is a drug and is potentially dangerous like any other drug. For many smokers, coffee seems to automatically signal for a cigarette afterward.

Caffeine and nicotine are chemically related drugs and the use of one can cause a craving for the other. The only sure way to quit smoking is to quit drinking coffee.

Caffeine is much more dangerous than usually described in the public press. As little as two cups of coffee per day can retard bone growth in the fetus and significantly decrease placental blood flow. The use of caffeine can result in calcium loss and gradual thinning of the bones. It can also result in a marked decrease in iron absorption, which could lead to anemia.

In addition to this, high dosages of caffeine can result in nervousness, irritability, restlessness, anxiety, insomnia and headaches. Do you need all of this extra trouble when you are quitting the use of tobacco?

Furthermore, since caffeine is a drug that can harm your body, can you with a clear conscience ask God to provide miraculous power so that you can be free from tobacco while you are needlessly using a drug that can seriously harm your body? Can you expect Him to restore your body if you are deliberately doing something that could destroy it?

2. Use natural, harmless stimulants.

One of the most powerful natural stimulants is a cold mitten friction. In the morning, fill the sink with cool or cold water. Dip a washcloth (or terry cloth mitt if you have one) into the water and wring it out dry. Then rub one arm at a time until the arm is pink.

The second morning you can fill the sink with colder water until eventually you may put ice cubes in the water, if you desire. The second or third morning you may want to rub your chest, as well as your arms, until it is pink. The morning after that you may rub your arms, your chest and your back until they are all pink. Then you may rub both of your arms and the entire trunk of your body. Finally, in about a week or ten days, you will be able to rub your arms, your chest, your upper and lower back, your abdomen and your legs until they are all pink.

After a cold mitten friction, you will be awake without having to use coffee, and you will feel better and have no harmful side effects. It will give you a lift without a later letdown. It will also increase your resistance to colds and other upper respiratory infections.

You will need to get up a few minutes earlier in the morning to do this, but it will be worth it for the rest of the day.

3. Your diet

After the first day, you may liberalize your diet, but if you make fresh fruit and vegetables the major part of your diet, you will have better health and you will probably feel better during the time your body is flushing the poisons from tobacco out of it. A good plan is to have a generous amount of fresh fruit for breakfast with a whole- grain cereal or other whole- grain food, milk or milk substitute, whole- grain toast, fruit sauce and a few nuts. Lunch would then include a generous amount of raw and cooked vegetables and should include one dark green or orange vegetable daily with whole- grain bread and a protein food. Potatoes are an excellent staple vegetable and when eaten with another cooked vegetable, a salad and a legume or casserole, provide satiety and enduring energy. The best protein foods were listed earlier. The third meal, if eaten, should be light, preferably fresh fruit only, but crackers and fruit juice with the fruit is all right if you are very hungry.

HOW DOES GOD EFFECT BEHAVIOR CHANGE?

Behavior change takes place when there is a combination of supreme human effort and divine power working in a person’s life. Consistent human effort never occurs without motivation. Where and how does lasting, powerful motivation come into a persons life? How does this take place? Jesus said, If you can believe, all things are possible to the one who believes (Mark 9: 23).

Trust or belief in God comes the same way as you learn to trust or believe in anyone else. We learn to trust others as a result of our acquaintance or experience with them. We learn to trust God as a result of our acquaintance or experience with Him. How do we become acquainted with God? We become acquainted with Him in the same way that we become acquainted with anybody else. We talk to Him, and He talks to us.

We have already talked about asking Him for help continually and praising Him for answering our requests. Some changes take place instantly; some changes take place over a period of time. Just because you do not feel any different right this moment, this does not mean that a change is not really happening.

When we become acquainted with God, we learn to believe or trust in Him to give us control over our past smoking habit or any other unhealthful craving. The Scripture says, We love Him because He first loved us (I John 4: 19).

EXPERIENCING LOVE

When Jesus was here, the disciples experienced His love by being with Him. John says, We heard Him, we saw Him with our eyes, we gazed upon Him, our hands handled Him (I John 1: 1). Concerning what they saw, he said, That which we have seen and heard we declare also to you so that you might have fellowship (verse 3).

If we experience Jesus’ love now, it must be by reading these reports (the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) of what those disciples saw, heard and handled. If we do this, the result will be a fellowship with the Father and the Son, a precious experience in receiving divine love. Love brings joy and control into our lives.

When a man and woman are first in love, they spend as much time as possible with each other, and that love grows and becomes a powerful force in their lives.

Divine love is the most powerful motivating force for smoking cessation there is. We must spend as much time as possible with the source of that love so that we will receive it. Otherwise we will not have this most powerful motivating force in our lives which will bring about permanent freedom from tobacco. We love because He first loved us (I John 4: 19). Schedule at least fifteen minutes per day to read from one of the Gospels. A good place to start is the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5- 7. You will find a great deal of help to give you complete freedom over smoking in this sermon that Jesus gave.

WILL MY LIFESTYLE CHANGES BE PERMANENT?

Love is the most powerful motivating force there is for smoking cessation. When we love God and realize that He will give us any help necessary for us to achieve victory over our bondage to tobacco, lasting changes will take place. The result will be permanent cessation of smoking.

SUMMARY OF PRINCIPLES IN SIMPLE STEPS

  1. We become acquainted with God in the same way that we become acquainted with anyone else— by talking to Him and listening to Him talk to us (I John 1: 1- 3; Job 22: 2 1). We talk to Him when we pray. He talks to us through His Word, the Bible.
  2. As we become acquainted with God, we experience His love for us (Jeremiah 31: 3).
  3. If we become acquainted with God, the natural result is that we will love Him (I John 4: 19).
  4. Divine love is the most powerful motivating force there is to make and keep you free from the bondage of tobacco. It is a divine power that enables a person to develop self- control( l Corinthians 13: 7,8; John 14: 23).
  5. As our love relationship with God develops, we have more desire to become all that we can become with His divine power operating in our lives.
  6. His love to us and our responding love to Him empowers us to fulfill the desire to be free from tobacco.

OBTAINING PERMANENT RESULTS

Divine love is more powerful than any enslaving habit to tobacco you have. It is the only thing that will produce permanent results. Any other motivation will eventually wear off and your bad habits and bondage to depravity of one kind or another will return, but love never fails (I Corinthians 13: 8).

The first requirement for developing a love relationship with God is to spend time with Him— talk to Him. The second requirement is to listen to God talk to you.

HOW GOD TALKS TO YOU THROUGH HIS BOOK

God has big plans for you, bigger plans than you have for yourself. God created man to be in charge, to have dominion over the whole world, not to be a slave but to be a ruler. These plans can never be fulfilled unless you are in control of your own life. How does God plan to bring this about? He brings it about through His Word. Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in Me and I in Him, the same brings forth much fruit for without Me, you can do nothing (John 15: 5).

Because of the effect of heredity, of bad habits, of wrong lifestyle and of bad choices, we do not have the ability of ourselves to exercise self- control. We cannot control our minds or our bodies in our own strength. Jesus said, If a man does not remain in Me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned (John 15: 6). This is an apt illustration of the life that is ruined by bad habits. Jesus continued to say, If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, you shall ask what you wish and it shall be done to you (John 15: 7). So, knowing the promises in the Word is very important if we want to obtain answers to our requests.

GOD’S PROMISES

The promises in God’s Word show us what to pray for and what to ask for. We know that if we ask for something that is promised in His Word, our request will be fulfilled (I John 5: 14).

Let us look now at a few of the Bible promises especially applicable to smokers. The apostle Paul says, Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6: 19). You are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body (I Corinthians 6: 20). It is God’s will for you to live in harmony with the physical laws of your body, in fact, the apostle says, If anyone destroys the temple of God, Him will God destroy, for the temple of God is holy which temple you are (I Corinthians 3: 17).

So, you know that it is not God’s will for you to destroy your body by unhealthful habits, such as smoking. God has promised to deliver you from every desire contrary to His will if you are willing. But I say, Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust [craving] of the flesh (Galatians 5: 16).

If you choose to follow the instruction of the Holy Spirit given in God’s Word this is a promise that you will have victory over every unhealthful craving and temptation. Through whom are given to us exceeding great and precious promises that through these you might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption which is in the world through lust. (II Peter 1: 4). It is by memorizing, quoting and claiming the promises in God’s Word in every time of temptation that victory is gained. Jesus Himself used this spiritual weapon. (See Matthew 4: 1- 11.)

GOD UNDERSTANDS YOUR TEMPTATIONS

Somebody might say, “Well, God doesn’t understand howl am tempted.” But God does understand how you are tempted; in fact, the apostle Paul says in Hebrews 4: 14, 15, We have a great High Priest who is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. We do not have a high priest which cannot not be touched with the feeling of our maladies, but He was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin.

Jesus knows how you feel; He knows how you have been tempted. He knows how you are tempted because He was tempted in all points like as you are. Because He was tempted in all points like as you are, He knows how to deliver you from temptation. Look at the promise that follows in Hebrews 4: 16, Let us therefore come boldly before the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and grace to help in time of need.

Does it seem impossible to obtain freedom from the bondage of tobacco? Does it seem impossible to keep from lighting up? The apostle said, Let us come boldly before the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4: 16). In other words, every time you have a temptation that seems irresistible, you need to ask for divine help, and the promise is that you are going to find mercy and grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4: 16).

YOU CAN BE FREE FROM TOBACCO.

Did you know that Jesus Himself has promised to set you free from every sinful or unhealthful habit? This is one of the most wonderful promises in all of the Bible. You can claim it every time you are assailed by temptation to smoke.

This promise is found in John 8: 32- 36: And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. They gave answer to Him, We are Abraham’s seed and we have never been enslaved ever. How do you say that you shall become free? Jesus answered them, Most assuredly I say to you, that every one who commits sin is the slave of sin and the slave does not remain in the house forever, but the Son remains forever. If, therefore, the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed.

Sin is simply doing something that is unlawful (I John 3: 4). The sixth commandment says, You shall not kill. This includes more than pointing a gun at yourself or somebody else. It includes slow suicide. This would include smoking because habitual smokers have a higher death rate than they otherwise would.

JESUS’ PROMISE TO YOU

Jesus has promised to set you free from all bondage. He has promised to deliver you from every kind of slavery. He has promised to deliver you, set you free, from every wrong habit, every unhealthful habit. This is a promise that you can claim every time you are tempted, every time it seems impossible not to yield to the temptation to smoke.

DO NOT SABOTAGE YOUR WILL

The will is the governing power in the nature of man. It is God’s design that your body be in absolute subjection to your will at all times. Only then are you truly free. (See 1 Corinthians 9: 24- 27.)

It is necessary for you to surrender your will to God in order to be delivered from the bondage which has kept you a slave in dire captivity to tobacco. (See Romans 7: 18- 8: 17.) As long as your will is surrendered to God, He will work through your conscience and reason to control it. God does not usurp your own mental powers, but as long as you are surrendered to Him, He works through them to elevate, refine, ennoble and bring you in every way to a condition where you might enjoy lasting pleasure and happiness with no hang- over, smoker’s cough or other sorrow connected with it.

But you have a part to act in order to keep your will from again becoming a slave to your body or the lower powers of the mind, such as the emotions. (Emotions should always be the servant of the will; the will or power of choice should never be under the control of any part of the body.)

There are certain physical and mental habits which can weaken the will and again bring it into slavery. If you deliberately weaken your will, God will not work a miracle to keep you free— by your actions you are declaring to the whole universe that you have not chosen to be free, and God’s power is not exercised contrary to your own choice. The practices which weaken the will are listed below. If you are brought into difficulty through no choice of your own like Daniel was when taken a captive to Babylon, God will protect you, but God’s power is not exercised to protect the presumptuous.

Physical and Mental Habits that Weaken the Will

1. Overeating

The will, as all other powers of the mind, is affected by the physical state of the body. If you overeat, the circulation is imbalanced and you lose your power to resist temptation. Overeating is often followed by a sensation of drowsiness, and in this half- awake state, the will is in no condition to bring perverted bodily cravings into absolute subjection as is necessary to acquire freedom from the slavery of tobacco.

If you are a habitual overeater, you can use the same principles found in the first part of this booklet to gain the victory over overeating. Especially remember to ask God for victory and selfcontrol. There are also a few physical techniques you can use to avoid overeating:

Practice regularity in eating. Eat only at regular times and not more than three times per day. Regular, balanced meals will help you to avoid the unhealthful habit of snacking.

Avoid extreme- type diets which can result in excess hunger. Any diet which is severely restricted in fat content can result in extreme hunger. While excess fat and fats that are solid at room temperature are dangerous to your health, there must be a balance. Get some fat at both breakfast and lunch. The best fat is in whole, unrefined foods. A recommended list of foods containing large amounts of fat follows. These foods should be used in moderation.

High fat foods include, most nuts and many seeds, such as sunflower and sesame seeds, avocados and olives. Refined foods containing fat, while not totally prohibited, should be restricted. This would include all oils and many dairy products. Milk substitutes have to be evaluated individually. Many have a high fat content.

Use whole foods and plant foods as much as possible. These foods have protective factors that help you to feel satisfied on less calories and thereby avoid overeating.

Eat slowly, laying your fork down between bites. Swallow each mouthful before taking another fork full of food. Chew your food slowly and thoroughly and allow adequate time for meals. This last point is very important. If you do not allow at least twenty to thirty minutes for your meal, you may feel hungry even if you have had plenty to eat.

Regular exercise has a powerful regulatory effect on the appetite. If you walk for thirty minutes a day, you will probably feel a need for less food than if you were totally sedentary.

2. Overwork and lack of rest

Any habit that results in undue fatigue will result in weakening the will. Staying up late at night, followed by an early rise which is still not early enough for a good breakfast, results in starting the day in a weak condition. Lack of planning and scheduling or trying to do two day’s work in one and the resulting lack of sleep, plus overwork, can sabotage your will power.

3. Alcoholic beverages or other mind altering drugs

The higher powers of the mind are more and more anesthetized as alcohol is used. Many people who had quit smoking have started again after drinking alcohol.

4. Tea, coffee and other caffeine sources

Caffeine is a stimulant to the nervous system. Continual use of caffeine has the same effect as overwork or lack of rest— the nervous system, as well as the rest of the body, because of unnatural stimulation, does not recuperate adequately and becomes debilitated until the will is overborne, and then the person has no ability to escape unnatural cravings. Divine power is ready to deliver you from this vicious circle, but you must do your part— decide to abstain from all harmful substances which weaken your will, and follow your decision with your utmost effort while calling upon God for divine power to help you. You must work out what God works in. (Philippians 2: 12, 13).

5. Overindulgence in sexual passions

Every blessing that God has given the human family can be abused and thereby become a curse. Sexual intimacy requires a large amount of biological vitality, and overindulgence can have a weakening effect. One of the worst effects is the habit that can be formed of placing the higher powers of the mind under the control of the sexual passions. The will should always control the passions and never be controlled by them.

If sexual passions control the whole being, man is then in a similar position to dumb animals. A person who is used to being a slave to emotions and feelings will find it impossible to become free from tobacco unless God works a miracle in His life. The first part of this booklet outlines how this miracle can happen.

6. Other unnatural stimulation

Many other habits and practices can unnaturally stimulate the body and the mind and result in a weakened condition of the will. These include using large amounts of certain condiments and spices. The general rule is that if a seasoning tastes hot when actually it is cold, it might be used as a medicine, but it is not safe to use as food. Condiments can immediately start a strong craving for a cigarette.

The mind can be unnaturally stimulated by watching crime, either in the news or acted out. The mind can be unnaturally stimulated by reading novels, various works of fiction and other exciting literature or by watching movies. Such stimulation unbalances the circulation, and any excess stimulation finally results in debilitation and weakening of the will. You can keep up with what is going on in the world and know everything you need to know without this constant stimulation and knowledge of the details of every outrage that is committed.

Rich and heavy foods can unnaturally stimulate the body. A high protein diet is a stimulating diet and not the best for health. While you are still experiencing cravings for tobacco, any unnecessary stimulation of the body can make this craving worse, so avoid meat as much as possible because meat not only is high in protein but contains purine and ammonia which have stimulating qualities. Especially avoid rare meat.

The general rule is that any substance, when taken in far greater amount than needed by the body, can result in stimulation or debilitation, either of which is not helpful to having strong will power. Some other common substances which can have stimulating qualities when taken in very large amounts are vitamin pills, food supplements, sugar, eggs, milk and other dairy products.

A word of caution is in order here. If you have been using large amounts of food supplements, it is wiser to decrease the amount taken slowly rather than all at once because your body probably has a tolerance now to large amounts of these vitamins or whatever supplement you have been taking. You can experience a severe letdown in energy and a feeling of malaise and fatigue if customary food supplements are suddenly discontinued. This extra shock to your body is totally unnecessary while you are acquiring permanent freedom from the slavery of tobacco, so do not discontinue supplements all at once.

7. Doing anything that you know is wrong

If you deliberately do anything that you know is wrong, you will suffer a violated conscience and an immediate weakness of will power to do what you know is right. You will immediately lose the divine power that God has been giving you to help you to obtain freedom from the slavery of tobacco.

If you experiment with any instrument which is used of evil spirits, such as spiritualistic mediums, psychics and fortune- tellers; secret associations and seances; healers who claim to employ electricity, magnetism, or “sympathetic remedies”; if you attempt to communicate with the dead (See Deuteronomy 18: 10- 12; Isaiah 8: 19, 20; I Chronicles 10: 13, 14; Ecclesiastes 9: 5, 6.); if you venture into scenes of dissipation or irreligious pleasure; if you seek the society of the sensual person, the skeptic or the blasphemer, either in person or through the medium of the press or theater, you will lose the miraculous power of God in your life.

Your only sure escape if you are in this situation is to follow the divinely appointed steps back to freedom:

First, you must acknowledge the wrong you have done to God and also to others if you have injured them and ask forgiveness of all injured parties. (See Proverbs 28: 13; I John 1: 9.) Then you must follow the steps presented in the first part of this booklet again about how to get started and how to get divine help to gain back your freedom and self- control.

HOW WE ARE TEMPTED TO SMOKE

In 1 John 2: 15- 17, the apostle says, Do not love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him because everything that is in the world, the craving of the flesh, the craving of the eye, and the ostentatiousness of life, is not from the Father but is out of the world. The world passes away and the cravings of it, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.

This is a plain acknowledgment that our body can crave things that are not good for us. It is also evident that we must not gratify these cravings if we desire life. The apostle says, Do not love these things. Do not love the world; there are only three things in the world, the craving of the flesh, the craving of the eyes and the ostentatious- ness of life.

WHAT DO I DO ABOUT THESE CRAVINGS?

Now the question that comes to you and me is, If I love the world, if I have been giving in to the craving of my flesh, if I have been giving in to the craving of my eyes, if I have been smoking until that craving has become almost overwhelming, what do I do about it? How do I get over it?

The secret is right in this passage (1 John 2: 15- 17) I am not to love the world, but I am to have a transfer of my affections so that I can do the will of God. You see, if my whole life revolves around the craving of my flesh and the craving of my eyes, it will never be possible for me to obtain perfect self- control over my cravings or urge to smoke. In order for me to gain the victory over bad physical habits, what must happen? I must have a transfer of my affections from these things to somebody above.

HOW OUR DESIRES ARE MODIFIED

This happens in the following manner. We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4: 19). Did you know that God is never tempted to smoke? God is love and His love is always directed outward toward the benefit of the intelligence’s He has created. Our wrong habits and cravings are the result of a perversion of His love. Instead of our love being directed outward toward the happiness and benefit of others, our love is directed inward to the happiness and benefit of ourselves— to gratification of our flesh by smoking or wrong eating, etc. Wrong habits are cultivated through this basic root principle of self- love.

We can never quit our wrong habits unless we learn the essence of the divine character— that principle which seeks not its own but another’s good. How does this happen? The process of overcoming wrong habits is, in its most simple explanation, a process of learning to love the way God loves.

HOW DO WE LEARN THIS VITAL PRINCIPLE?

The problem is, how do we learn to love when we are so used to loving that craving of our flesh, that craving of our eyes, our oppressive desire to smoke and other gratifications of these desires of our flesh and our eyes? How does this process of learning to love the way God loves happen in us?

Before we will have any love to give to anybody else, we must first experience His love to us. When Jesus was here, His disciples experienced His love by spending time with Him. John says, We heard Him, we saw Him with our eyes, we gazed upon Him, our hands handled Him (I John 1: 1). Concerning what they saw, he said, That which we have seen and heard, we announce also to you that you might have fellowship with us (1 John 1: 3).

HOW DO WE SPEND TIME WITH HIM?

If we are to have fellowship with Jesus now, it will have to be by reading the reports about what these disciples saw, heard and handled. If we do this the result will be a fellowship, a close interpersonal relationship with the Father and the Son, a precious experience of receiving divine love. This experience will give power to our decisions to be free from tobacco and to overcome our bad habits. We will have a transfer of our affections from the satisfaction of the cravings of this world to the satisfaction of fellowship with the Father and the Son. Then, the apostle says, our joy is going to be full (1 John 1: 4).

HOW DO WE FALL IN LOVE?

When a man and woman are first in love, they spend as much time as possible with each other, and that love grows and becomes a powerful force in their lives. Divine love is the most powerful force there is to overcome the craving to smoke. It is the most powerful force there is, but we need to spend as much time as possible with the source of that love so that we will receive it. We will never be filled with that love with just a few minutes a day thinking about Him while we spend the rest of the day thinking about the cravings of our flesh or booking at secular pictures and advertising with craving in our eyes.

We must experience His love the same way that the first disciples experienced it. We must hear His voice speaking to us. We must see Him in our imagination. We must gaze upon Him. As we work in this world, our hands must touch Him. We must have the same intimate spiritual fellowship with the Father and the Son that they had. People who love each other always find time to be together.

THE RESULTS OF SPENDING TIME WITH HIM

The result, friends, of that relationship in your life will be that you will receive divine power to overcome the craving to smoke. Spend time with Jesus by studying His life every day, and the result will be that a new love will take possession of your mind. Your affections will be imperceptibly changed from love of the world with its craving of the flesh and craving of the eyes to the love of the Father, an intimate love relationship with the One who has all power and who will give you His power to overcome. He will give you power to carry out your own best decisions.

THE HUMAN ESSENTIAL FOR SMOKING CESSATION

Jesus talked about the human essential in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord is going to enter into the kingdom of heaven, hut the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7: 21). It is not what we say, it is not what we profess, it is what we do that counts. And why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and you do not do what I say (Luke 6: 46)?

WHEN WE BECOME SUCCESSFUL

We become successful in becoming free from tobacco when:

  1. we ask for help,
  2. depend upon God to give us divine help and then, in obedience to our request and trust in Him,
  3. we take action— we act on our trust or our belief in Him.

It is always true that we will act out all of the trust or faith in God that we have, and it is when we show by our actions that we believe that God is going to help us, that a miracle begins to take place in our lives.

ON THE BORDERS OF THE PROMISED LAND

There was a time in ancient history when the children of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, the spiritual forefathers of the faithful of later ages, marched out of Egypt and went across a terrible wilderness to inherit the promised land. The time came when they were encamped on the borders of the promised land.

Right now, if you have been following the instructions in this booklet, you are encamped on the borders of your promised land— the new you, the new self-controlled you, the you who has control over your lifestyle and is free at last from all enslaving habits.

But when the children of Israel were encamped on the borders of the promised land, it was not enough for them to have a knowledge of Canaan. It was not enough for them to sing songs about Canaan. This would not bring them into possession of all those wonderful vineyards and olive groves in that wonderful country. They could make it theirs in truth only by occupation. They had to go across the Jordan and actually occupy the land. They had to do something. They had to comply with the conditions. They had to exercise faith in God and take His promises to themselves while they obeyed His instruction. They had to have an active experience.

IMPORTANCE OF TAKING ACTION

Becoming free from tobacco consists in doing something, doing something active about the problem. Whether or not we will be successful depends not just on whether or not we ask for help, whether or not we believe or whether or not we make a profession of believing. Whether or not we are successful will be made manifest by whether or not we actually do or act in harmony with our requests. We must do and not say only, because it is only through action that new habits are built.

HOW CHARACTER IS BUILT

These new habits develop into a new character. Actions become habits and habits become character— you. You started reading this booklet with many wrong habits in your possession as a part of your character. You have been making decisions based on the information presented about changing your character.

We cannot do this unless God supplies the power. That is why this must be a spiritual experience, an experience of asking Him for help and getting to know Him. Although God will supply the power, it is up to you and me to use the power. We cannot just sit in our tents and pray and study. We must get up and take action— walk into the promised land.

Taking proper action will result in the development of good habits which will result in the development of a different character, a new character, a new, pure, tobacco- free you. You have had a misshapen character because of smoking. Our goal is to help you to reshape your character using divine power that is most certainly available to you. It is impossible for anyone to do this perfectly by themselves. That is why we have talked about the necessity of receiving divine help.

YOU ARE THE ARBITER OF YOUR DESTINY

Remember, God will supply the power, the help. It is up to you and me to take hold of that power and do something with it. No matter how much power God supplies to you, He leaves it up to you to take that power and work out what He works in. Every day you are building the new you. Your character depends on the actions that you take. Your actions result in habits, and the habits result in character.

OBTAINING LASTING RESULTS

There is a true foundation to build your character upon— a living Stone— and if you build upon that true foundation, God’s life will be imparted to you as you build upon Him (1 Peter 2: 4- 9). If the building that you are building is on another foundation, someday it is going to fall. Some people build their character (their attempt to become free from the slavery of tobacco and other bad habits) upon a foundation of human ideas, upon human philosophy and opinions, or upon protocols of some man’s invention.

The person who does this is building a structure of character upon shifting sand. Someday, sometime the fierce tempests of temptation will sweep away this sandy foundation and leave that person’s house of character a wreck, and they will say, “I stopped smoking once. I was free from tobacco once, and I thought I could handle it myself But when the stress of _________ happened, I started again.”

If you are resting your hope of having perfect self- control upon yourself, you are building on shifting sand. It is not too late, friend, to escape ruin. Before the temptations of perverted carnal desires break over you, flee to the sure foundation, the tried and living Stone.

Listen, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, and the one who believes will not be in a hurry, . . . Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is none else…. Do not be afraid for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you by the right hand of My righteousness (Isaiah 28: 16; 45: 22; 41: 10).

The help is available. The question is, What are you doing with it? What character will you build with it? Your actions develop your habits, and your habits develop your character, the new, pure, tobacco- free you. Whoever hears these words of Mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock (Matthew 7: 24).

TODAY IS THE DAY FOR A MIRACLE IN YOUR LIFE

There is recorded in the Scripture a time when the apostle Paul spoke the good news to a Roman governor. The Scripture says there were three things that Paul talked to this Roman governor about. He talked to him about right— about doing that which is right. He talked to him about self- control. He also talked to him about having to give an account in the future for this life that we live here.

THE DANGER OF PROCRASTINATION

As Paul did this, the Scripture says that this Roman governor, by the name of Felix, trembled and he gave this answer, Go your way for this time. When I have a convenient season, I will call for you (Acts 24: 25).

This is a classic reply, a classic response. Go your way right now; when I have a convenient season, I will call for you. I am going to do something about it. Have you ever heard someone say that? Today lam going to smoke just a little bit. Tonight I have to go to a party, but tomorrow I am going to develop self- control; tomorrow I will become free of the slavery of tobacco. Today, during the holidays, I need to enjoy myself, but lam going to do something about my smoking later. I am going to change my lifestyle sometime in the future. Tomorrow I am going to do it. Today I have other things to do.

THERE WILL NEVER BE AN EASIER TIME

The news is, friend, that today is the day for you to make the changes that you want to make in your life. It will never be easier tomorrow than it is today. It is easier today than it ever will be again, on the basis of what you have just read. The actions that you commit today develop habits, and these habits develop character. Your character is what you really are. If you keep on indulging yourself, if you keep on smoking, more and stronger, wrong habits will be formed. The result will be a deterioration of character, a depraved character. So, tomorrow it will be harder for you to make the changes you want to make than it is today. Although nothing is impossible with divine grace, it will be more difficult. So, today is the day for you to make the changes that you want to make in life.

TODAY IS THE TIME

We read in the Bible about a woman that was brought to Jesus from the very act of adultery. And they came to Jesus and they said, Moses said that such should be stoned, but what do you say? And this they said that they might have something to accuse Him (John 8: 5, 6) either to the people or to the Romans. Jesus arranged affairs in this incident so that all of the people who brought the woman to Him left, being accused by their own conscience of their own sins, and the woman was left alone with Jesus. When that happened, it says that, Jesus lifted Himself up and saw none but the woman, and said to her, Woman, where are those your accusers? Has no man condemned you? She said, No man, Lord. Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more (John 8: 10, 11).

When Jesus talked to that woman, He said, in effect, today is the day for you to make a change in your life. Jesus never told anybody that tomorrow will be all right; you can go ahead and indulge yourself today. You can go ahead and practice your unhealthful habits today and change tomorrow. Jesus never told anyone that. Jesus told people, today is the day to make a change in your life. Today is the day that God is willing to work a divine miracle in your life. Today is the day. He said to that woman, Go and sin no more (John 8: 11).

Do you realize what that almost certainly meant? That meant that the woman had to go and get a different kind of job. That meant that she was out of a job because she was involved in prostitution to make a living. But when Jesus talked to her, He did not say, “Let’s work on this and see if you can make some arrangements to get another kind of job.” He did not say anything like that; He said, “Today is the day, tight now. Don’t live like that any longer. Today is the day; right now is the time to change. Right now is the time to have new life. Friend, that was the beginning of new life for that woman, that day.

Now, which kind of person are you? Are you like that Roman ruler who said, “Go for right now; I want to enjoy my wrong indulgences a little more, so I want to wait for a more convenient time. There are so many wrong habits in my life, and it will be inconvenient for me socially and professionally to change right now. I am going to wait for a more convenient time.” The more convenient time does not come.

Or are you going to be like that woman that Jesus met? Right then, right that day, a change was made in her life. She started to live a new life that very day. Jesus said, Go and sin no more. Today is the day to make a change. That was the beginning of new life for that woman. If you are willing to make a change today, God is willing to help you to make that change today. But God will never work a miracle in the life of a person who says, “I want to continue in my wrong habits for today. I want a more convenient time, and then I will make a change. I want to taper off from my bad habits.” If you decide to taper off from bad habits, you have decided to do some evil still, and if God were to help you, He would be blessing you in evil- doing. So, you cannot have any help from God until you decide to quit completely all evil or unhealthful habits. The person who is waiting for a more convenient time or who is trying to taper off never experiences a miracle. They may believe, they may know, but they are waiting for tomorrow to quit completely, and life passes by. At the end, their character is a wreck in the annals of time and eternity.

SUMMARY

Today is the best day, the best opportunity you will ever have, to make a change. Let us review what we have studied:

  1. Ask for divine help, knowing that God never tells a lie and that He stands back of every promise He has made.
  2. Become acquainted with God. Talk to Him every time you are faced with a temptation to smoke.
  3. You become acquainted with God when you listen to Him talk to you about the big plans that He has for your life and by exposing yourself to His Word, especially to the promises He has made in His Word to everyone who wants complete freedom.
  4. You expose yourself to the most powerful force in the world by experiencing the love that Jesus has for you— you experience His life by reading about it in His Word.
  5. Then you start to act out the promise that God has made to you, depending upon Him to work a miracle in your life.
  6. When you do these things, the miracle begins today. Do not say, “I am going to wait for a more convenient time; I am going to wait for a better opportunity.” Do not say that, because then the miracle will never happen. We have no record that Felix ever had a change in his life— the Lord never worked a miracle in His life. He went on with all of his wrong habits, wrong actions and depraved character development.

Today can be the day that a change occurs in your life, if you make the choice today. Jesus said to the woman that was taken in adultery, Go and sin no more (John 8: 11). In other words, be done with all of those bad habits, today. If you want to live a new life, if you want to have perfect self- control, if you want victory over the craving to smoke or a life of idleness and inactivity, today can be the day when you have a new life. Jesus worked miracles for those who were willing to exercise trust during the present— today.

WALKING ON WATER

There is a story in the Bible about a man who walked on water with the Lord.. This story happened between three and six o’clock in the morning. The disciples of Jesus were on a boat, alone, in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. A fearful storm had arisen on the sea. During this storm, Jesus came to the disciples walking upon the sea— Jesus was walking on water.

At first when the disciples saw a person walking on the water, they were afraid, but then Jesus said to them, Be of good courage, it is L Do not he afraid (Matthew 14: 27). The Scripture says that Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water. And He said, Come. And coming down out of the ship, Peter walked upon the water to come to Jesus, but looking on the wind boisterous, he was terrified and beginning to sink, he cried saying, Lord, save me. And Jesus stretched forth His hand and took him, and said to him, Oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt? (Matthew 14: 28- 31).

PERMANENT SUCCESS AND TEMPORARY FAILURE

We are now going to address the subjects, “Will you be free of tobacco permanently?” and “How to deal with temporary failure.” From the human point of view, walking on water is impossible. From the human point of view, being permanently free from tobacco is impossible for many.

But there is Somebody who can help you to walk on water. Peter’s experience of walking on water covers the steps that we have been studying about becoming permanently free from tobacco and developing new habits of behavior— forming a new character.

ASK THE RIGHT PERSON

First of all, Peter asked the right person— he asked for divine help. We have already seen the importance of asking, continually asking for divine help. Right in the middle of business affairs, you can send up a silent request to God, and He will hear and answer your petition, although it is not verbalized.

CHOOSE TO TRUST HIM

Second, Peter was acquainted with the divine Person whom he asked for help and he trusted in this Person that He would help him. He had so much faith in this Person that when the Lord told him to come down out of the ship and walk on water, he believed. He did not say, “Oh, no, I’ll sink if I do that.” He believed in the Person because he was acquainted with Him. We have studied about becoming acquainted with this very same Person— we become acquainted with Him just like we become acquainted with anyone else, by talking to Him and listening to Him talk to us, which He does through His Word.

Third, because of this complete trust in the Person whom he had come to know and love, Peter got down out of the ship and attempted to do something that had always been impossible for him before— walk on water.

If we trust Him and He tells us that He wants us to develop perfect self- control, as He indeed does in I Corinthians 9: 24- 27, then we, too, will attempt to do something that has always been impossible for us to do before, such as becoming permanently free from tobacco.

Is it impossible to walk on water? Is it impossible to be totally and permanently free from tobacco? It may be just as impossible as walking on water, but when you ask for divine help, place your trust in the Person whom you are asking and begin to take action based on that trust, a miracle starts happening in your life, and you start to walk on water.

WHEN THE MIRACLE BEGINS

So, Peter acted on his faith. He got down out of the ship, and because he asked the right Person and he had faith and confidence in this Person, he acted on his faith. When he acted on his faith, a miracle began to happen in his life. This is a very important concept to understand— when did the miracle begin to happen in Peter’s life? It began to happen when he acted on his faith.

God does not begin to work a miracle in your life until you start to demonstrate your faith in Him by doing something active while you trust in Him to work a miracle in your life. Millions have experienced this miracle. How about you? God stands behind every promise that He has made.

WHAT IF I START TO SINK?

Now, the questions come, What if sometime I should do something wrong? What if I should give in to my perverted craving for cigarettes sometime? What if I should engage in an unhealthful practice at some time? What then? Is everything last?

As soon as you begin to practice a known unhealthful habit that you know is not right, you lose the spiritual power that you have within and the same thing happens to you that happened to Peter; immediately you begin to sink. Peter looked at the problem— big waves, a big storm, great surges of waves under his feet.

The same thing can happen to you— you look around and you see a cloud of smoke around you, on television, on billboards, in magazines; the lust of the flesh, the cravings of the eye, the unhealthful habits, these perverted cravings that you have been developing for years surround you. Everything around you seems to be a temptation, and if you look at the problem instead of looking to the One who is the solution to the problem, you will begin to sink.

If you take your eyes off of the One who can and will always be a never- failing source of help for you and look at all the problems, immediately you will begin to sink. The problem seems overwhelming. Discouragement sinks in when you have a temporary failure and you say, “What happened? I had victory yesterday and the day before that, and now, today, it’s not happening. What am I going to do? I am facing failure. Is everything going to ruin?”

That is the situation that Peter was facing. He was walking on water. He had asked the right Person. He had put his trust in the right Person. He had acted on his faith. A miracle had been occurring in his life. But he took his eyes off of where the help was; and, friend, when you look away from where the help is, you are automatically looking at the problems. You start looking at your perverted cravings and that cloud of smoke obscures your thinking. Right away you begin to sink. What do you do then, when you are sinking and you are facing failure?

Friend, you must do what Peter did. You must say, “Lord, save me!” You must look where the help is. You remember the text in the Bible that says a righteous man falls seven times and rises again? Friend, it does not take very long to sink; you may have been walking on water for a longtime, but when you take your eyes off from where the help is, when you start deciding to do it yourself, down you go. When you lose your connection with your all- powerful divine helper, you go down in the water (or smoke) very rapidly. Very fast you can sink right back down to your old habits, your old, smoky lifestyle.

What do you do to keep this from happening? Remember to keep your eye on where the help is, keep asking for divine help and keep taking action on your confidence in that divine help. Keep studying the promises in His Word and claiming those promises. The result will be that you will keep on walking on water.

Here is a prayer that you can pray: “Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your promises and the divine miracles that they bring into my life. I come to You to make request. I ask that You will give to me right now, that miracle of grace that will give to me perfect freedom over tobacco. Help me to act on my trust in You and to come down out of the ship of complacency and inactivity and do what I know that I should do as Your child, by Your grace. Help me to experience this miracle that can keep happening in my life every day.

“If I make a mistake, Lord, and I begin to sink, save me when I call. Help me to turn me eyes toward You. I claim Your promise that You will help me keep on experiencing that miracle in my life which will impart to me that self- control over every craving of the flesh and of the eyes. May I experience Your love in my heart every day which will be a power over and against every wrong habit, for I come to You in the all- powerful name of Jesus, Amen. “

HOW TO OBTAIN DIVINE HELP OVER WRONG HABITS

  1. Realize that you need help to be set free from tobacco (John 15: 5; Jeremiah 33: 3).
  2. Know that God desires to provide this help to you (Isaiah 41: 10).
  3. Acknowledge your need and your willingness to come to God and fully cooperate with Him in causing a complete change to happen in your life (Matthew 11: 28- 30). It is vital that you not live in a state of denial. Acknowledge to God, verbally, your condition and need. Ask Him to give to you a change of mind about tobacco. Tobacco is not to be your master (Matthew 23: 10). This can only happen if you have a change of mind (heart). Confess your guilt and ask for release from the guilt and power of tobacco (I John 1: 9; Proverbs 28: 13).
  4. Ask for divine help to be set free from tobacco (Matthew 7: 7, 8).
  5. Choose to believe that God will fulfill His Word to give you perfect freedom over tobacco (Mark 9: 22, 23).
  6. Express trust in God and His promise to help you gain perfect freedom from tobacco (Luke 11: 13).
  7. Act on your belief by making a commitment to live a life of self- control enabled by God’s power (John 1: 12). It is not enough to be sorry. You must actively turn away from your former lifestyle (I Corinthians 9: 24- 27).
  8. Spend time fixing the divine promises in your memory. These promises will bring power into your life when you are assailed by perverted cravings. This is the weapon that Jesus Himself used when He was tempted on appetite (Matthew 4: 4).
  9. Ask for help in every time of temptation (Luke 18: 1, 7, 8; James 4: 7- 9). (God is not wearied by your continued requests for deliverance.)
  10. Express your joy verbally; thank God for helping you to control your appetite (Philippians 4: 4- 7).

For more Bible Study Resources by Topic see https://www.stepstolife.org/bible-study-resources-topic/