There is nothing in the Bible that justifies a double standard of morals. What is good for a wife is good for her husband morally. If a woman should keep herself clean, then so should a man. If little children would be harmed by tobacco, then so would adults. I have heard preachers denounce women for smoking, but the same preachers thought there was no harm in men smoking [written in 1937]. A double standard is not of God but is a part of this present wicked world. - John R. Rice [Tobacco, pg. 6]
Christian, you are accountable for your influence, and if you sin against the brethren and wound their weak consciences, then you sin against Christ. If using tobacco has a bad influence on others, then it is a sin. If it causes others to use tobacco, when they should not, it is a sin. If it wounds and offends the consciences of others who think you do wrong, and so discourages them and causes them to lose confidence in you, then that is a sin. - John R. Rice [Tobacco, pg. 6]
I believe the use of tobacco is a sin because it enslaves the will and puts one in a yoke of bondage to the lust of the flesh. One of the ways you can know sin is by the way it enslaves. The use of tobacco grows as a habit until one is not free to leave it alone. The thirst for alcoholic liquor grows until the habit of drink is most difficult to break. The use of morphine, heroin or other narcotics is the same way. The habit becomes so fastened on one that it enslaves the will, and a poor victim is often unable to break the habit without special help from God. Gambling grows on one the same way, and the habit becomes difficult to break. Likewise, if one gives way to evil thoughts and lust on the sex matter, it becomes uncontrollable. The whole mind is poisoned and defiled, and one is put in bondage to his lust. All these are illustrations of the way sin works. And the use of tobacco works the same way. It grows upon a man until his will is enslaved. That, to me, is definite proof that the use of tobacco is sin. - John R. Rice [Tobacco, pg. 6-7]
Jesus said in John 8:34, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." If you have become enslaved by some habit, you are not enslaved by righteousness, but you are enslaved by sin. - John R. Rice [Tobacco, pg. 7]
Did you notice that the enslavement of habit is always in sinful matters and never in righteous matters? No one ever got in such a habit of praying that he could not stop praying. No one ever got in such a pattern of being honest that it made a slave out of him. No one was ever in such a habit of loving God that he loved God too much. No one ever got in such a habit of attending church or winning souls or helping others that he was enslaved by it. Whatever enslaves your mind, your will, your body so that you cannot control yourself and your desires, is evidently a sin. - John R. Rice [Tobacco, pg. 7]
The Bible does not mention tobacco. There was none of it in the Bible lands. It was not known when Christ lived here on earth and when the Bible was written. It came into use among the white people only when they got it from the Indians, after the discovery of America. So the Bible has no law against tobacco, but as Paul said in I Corinthians 6:12, "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any." We are under grace, not under law, but every Christian should say with Paul, "I will not be brought under the power of any" enslaving habit or drug or lust of the flesh. The enslaving power of tobacco is such that its use is a sin. - John R. Rice [Tobacco, pg. 7]
Pray hard; pray in earnest; pray fervently. If there is anything between you and God, ask Him to remove it. Ask Him to take your body which belongs to Him and to consecrate it to His own service. A Christian ought to be "a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work" (II Tim. 2:21). - John R. Rice [Tobacco, pg. 20]
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