Sola Deo Gloria

I read the following section of an article and felt it a good topic of discussion. I would love some lively comments on this. For the entire article, please visit http://www.ifbreformation.org/OriginsOfIFBs.aspx#C7 .
Charles Spurgeon smoked a cigar on daily for basis for much of his life. He never “repented” of this because he did not feel it was sinful. In 1874(during the birth of modern fundamentalism) a guest speaker in his pulpit spoke of how he “took his cigar-box before the Lord” and the Lord helped him overcome the sin of smoking.

Charles Spurgeon immediately stood up and said “”Well, dear friends, you know that some men can do to the glory of God what to other men would be sin. And notwithstanding what brother Pentecost has said, I intend to smoke a good cigar to the glory of God before I go to bed to-night. “If anybody can show me in the Bible the command, ‘Thou shalt not smoke,’ I am ready to keep it; but I haven’t found it yet. I find ten commandments, and it’s as much as I can do to keep them; and I’ve no desire to make them into eleven or twelve.

The incident with Charles Spurgeon was published in Christian magazines and news papers. Responding to the uproar Spurgeon wrote in a letter:
“I demur altogether and most positively to the statement that to smoke tobacco is in itself a sin. It may become so, as any other indifferent action may, but as an action it is no sin. Together with hundreds of thousands of my fellow-Christians I have smoked, and, with them, I am under the condemnation of living in habitual sin, if certain accusers are to be believed. As I would not knowingly live even in the smallest violation of the law of God, and sin in the transgression of the law, I will not own to sin when I am not conscious of it. There is growing up in society a Pharisaic system which adds to the commands of God the precepts of men; to that system I will not yield for an hour. The preservation of my liberty may bring upon me the upbraidings of many good men, and the sneers of the self-righteous; but I shall endure both with serenity so long as I feel clear in my conscience before God. The expression “smoking to the glory of God” standing alone has an ill sound, and I do not justify it; but in the sense in which I employed it I still stand to it. No Christian should do anything in which he cannot glorify God; and this may be done, according to Scripture, in eating and drinking and the common actions of life.”

For a full account of this incident see this excellent article.

The reason I bring up Charles Spurgeon’s smoking incident is to illustrate a point that he may not even have realized at the time. Many times we as Christians take our personal battles and try to make them other peoples battles. Lets take one statement of Spurgeons for an example – “I demur altogether and most positively to the statement that to smoke tobacco is in itself a sin. It may become so, as any other indifferent action may, but as an action it is no sin.”

Today with all our modern medical knowledge we know that smoking can be bad for the lungs. But different amounts effect people different ways – this is a medical fact. Some people can smoke all their lives and never get lung cancer while others do.

Let me illustrate this point by an example of someone I once worked with. After I graduated from high school I took a job in a brake bonding plant. We would cut brake lining and use adhesives to glue it to the metal shoes. The lining used to be made from aspetos but when modern medical science linked asbestos with lung cancer and other ailements they switched to a non-aspetos lining. The strange thing is that there was a old man(who also smoked) I used work with, probably been cutting lining for about 50 years, and he did not have any lung problems at all. He ended up dying from complications from hip surgery – not lung problems.

I say all this to make this point – anything can become sin. Some things are not sin in and of themselves ,but they can become sin when abused.

I do not smoke, nor would I encourage my children to smoke. But I will not say smoking is a sin. It can become one – if you smoke too much, and then what is too much?

If I say smoking is a sin, then along the same logic I have to say eating red meat is a sin. Why? Because if you eat too much it will eventually clog your arteries and cause a heart attack. But how much red meat is too much? It depends on your genes. But hey, if it can be abused, and can hurt some people than it must be wrong right?

I realize at this point many Christians (including fundamentalists) will say the logic above could be used to justify just about anything. Lets legalize drugs then right? That is not what I am saying at all. There are certain times when the abuses of a small minority affect society as a whole and they must be addressed. Not to get on drugs but there is a difference between drugs, smoking cigars and cigarettes and eating red meat and I am not going to get into that huge topic here.

Another thing I would like to point out, is that the rise of this new “Pharisaic system” as Spurgeon put it, was really just a revival of earlier Christian asceticism(an abstinent life,renunciation of pleasure). The other thing Spurgeon did not realize, is that he himself was part of this system as he preached against going to the shows and other amusements. I admire Spurgeon a lot, and I understand that it is difficult many times to see our own inconsistencies. But he was really on to something here with the “Pharisaic system”, if only he would have looked into it deeper.