LESSON 20:
Powerful Poison
1: Why Poison Yourself? That sounds like a strange question, does it not? Who in the world would want to knowingly poison himself? Who would choose to commit suicide? Who would choose to be an invalid during the most productive years of life? Yet many people do just these things! 700,000 a year in the USA alone do it when they decide to start smoking cigarettes.
2: Cigarette smoke has 500 distinct chemical substances in it. Twenty-five of those are so poisonous that if the amount of poison in two cigarettes were concentrated it would kill a 150 lb. man! Because the effect is slow, it is no less dangerous. Life insurance figures have calculated that the life expectancy of a smoker decreases by about 18 minutes per pack of cigarettes! It may not be suicide by sudden death, but it is suicide by degrees.
3: Cancer and heart disease are two of the biggest killers in the world today. A person who smokes 1 pack of cigarettes a day, increases his chance of dying from cancer by 10 times. If he smokes 2 packs a day, his chances are 20 times greater than those of a:non:smoker.
4: The tobacco leaf contains hundreds of chemicals when burned at 1600 degrees F. Among these are 25 gases. Carbon monoxide is one of them. The presence of Carbon Monoxide makes less oxygen available to the body. The brain especially suffers from this oxygen loss. There is a 10% mental handicap in a smoker!
5: Aside from damage from chemicals and gases, there is formed a black sticky substance called tar. Eight of these will produce cancer when applied directly on tissue. A person who smokes and inhales 2 packs a day will trap one quart of tar in the lung passages in a year. It is this irritating action of the tar on the tender lining of the lung passages which paralyzes the lining and eventually begins a cancerous growth.
6: Lung Cancer is increasing faster than any other form of cancer. It killed 55,000 people in the USA alone last year. Dr. Alton Oschner, a famous chest surgeon said, "All cigarette smokers are likely to die of lung cancer unless they die of something else first."
7: Lung cancer is an extremely deadly type of cancer. 95% of people with lung cancer die of it within 3 years. The average person will die within a year of the first symptoms, and within 3 months after it has been found by a doctor. Smokers have 20 times greater chance of having lung cancer than do non-smokers. Cancer of the lung is not the only cancer associated with smoking. Cancer of the larynx (voice box), and esophagus, (food passage), is almost entirely due to smoking. Cancer of the mouth and throat is 3 times as common in smokers as in non-smokers.
8: A smoker has a greater chance of dying from heart disease, the greatest killer, than a non-smoker has.
9: Many countries of the world realize the great danger of smoking. England, Russia, Holland, Sweden and finally the USA have all put restrictions on advertising of cigarettes and required that each package of cigarettes state on the label that smoking is injurious to health.
10: In spite of all these facts, and efforts to cure smoking, smoking is still on the increase. Why? Simply because smoking is a form of addiction similar to opium addiction, and young people who do not have the knowledge of these facts begin smoking at an early age. They believe the false advertising. Many still consider it the "in" thing to do. To be "one of the crowd" is a frequent reason for smoking when in reality, it is the one who does not smoke who is considered lucky, and is looked up to. He is the picture of health without a barking cough, bad breath, dirty fingers and teeth. Also, the nonsmoker is saving thousands of hard-earned dollars, as well.
11: Because of the addicting properties of tobacco, many who would like to quit cannot. The most-important chemical which produces an immediate effect in the body and is responsible for the addicting properties is nicotine. Nicotine is a deadly poison. 60 milligrams of nicotine (found in 2 cigarettes) would kill a man if injected into him. Why do not 2 cigarettes kill then? Only because most of the nicotine is burned up in smoke, and is not absorbed in the body, and the body disposes of most of that which is absorbed.
12: But, and this is very important to remember, enough Nicotine is held in the body to produce certain effects. You may remember the first cigarette you ever smoked. Probably you felt ill with dizziness and vomiting. As the body builds up tolerance it requires more nicotine to calm the nerves and satisfy the craving. You see, nicotine acts both as a stimulant and later, as a depressant to the sensitive nerve cells. This explains the initial "life" one gets, and then later the 'let down" which demands another cigarette.
13: Through the effect on the nerve cells, nicotine speeds up the heart rate, raises blood pressure, constricts or narrows the blood vessels to the arms and legs causing drop in temperature. A special X-ray machine used at the University of Oklahoma Medical College shows in color the drop in temperature in the fingers when only half a cigarette is smoked. As the blood is forced away by constricting blood vessels the color is blue, showing loss of temperature. It reduces the digestive juices and the activity of the stomach and muscles. It diminishes the eye reflexes and closes the vision. It dries the skin, and has other effects throughout the body. Also, smoking on an empty stomach is one way of asking for ulcers.
14: Smoking mothers produce an effect on the unborn child. Premature delivery is more common. Babies of smoking mothers have a lower birth weight, and miscarriages are more common. Women who smoke, spend 17 more days per year ill in bed than non smokers. If you want help in stopping smoking and want to enter a new phase of good health and abundant living, we can give you 10 rules to help you. It is never too late to stop. The time to stop is NOW.
15: Man has taken an innocent plant of the field; tobacco, and turned it into a means of disease and death. But all this is part of another power that is out to destroy mankind, body and soul. It has deceived people for a long time.
16: It was Satan in Eden who spoke through a serpent medium and it is the same evil one who is still deceiving the world but through a different medium. Satan's policy is to remain concealed. Therefore, he does his work through different mediums. His main purpose is to turn people's attention from God to himself. If only somehow he can take away the sign of allegiance to God, he has accomplished his purpose.
17: In the Bible Satan is symbolized as a great red dragon. In Revelation 12:10, we read, "And the great dragon was cast out, the old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
18: Since he is a deceiver and does not want to be seen as he is, Satan tries to work through some one else. He chooses another power, represented in Revelation 13:1 & 2, as a great beast. To this power Satan gave his power and great authority.
19: In Bible Prophecy, a great beast is a symbol of a great earthly kingdom, so we read in Daniel 7:25, "The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth." Now we can understand that in Revelation 13:1.2, Satan is shown as giving power and his seat of government and great authority to a great earthly kingdom.
20: This great kingdom represented by this beast is not only a political kingdom among the nations of the world, having its own king, its territory, its soldiers etc., It is also a great religious power, because Revelation 13:14 says, "And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast and they worshipped the beast, 'So, through this religious-political kingdom Satan deceives the people of the world and leads them into worshipping himself through their worshipping the religious, political kingdom represented by the beast.
21: We remember that when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, one of the temptations was that Jesus worship Satan as recorded in Luke 4:7. Jesus answered, 'Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve." However, through this great religious political power, Satan has succeeded in deceiving almost the whole world into falling to the temptation of giving to Satan worship and service, which rightfully belong to God.
22: As a narcotic, like tobacco binds its victim to its use so strongly that it is almost impossible to break the habit, so, Satan has from the very beginning used force to bind people's worship and service to himself. Just outside the gates of the garden of Eden, Satan stirred up the murderous anger of Cain against his brother, Abel, because Abel's obedience to God's commands were a constant reproof to Cain's disobedience to the same commands.
23: However, the first religious political power is not by itself for we find a second power or reaction coming up in Revelation 13:11. He exercises all the power of the first beast. There is one outstanding difference. This power does not seek to attract the worship of people to itself, but it leads the whole world to worship the first beast or power.
24: In Revelation 13:14:16, the second power makes an image or likeness of the first power, so it must develop a religious political appearance for it also demands worship:It also enforces on pain of death, conformity to a certain mark on the forehead or hand.
25: God has a mark or sign for His people. He says in Ezekiel 20:12, "Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them." Since the powers we are studying about are under the control of Satan, and he has deceived them into worshipping him instead of God, we would expect his sign or mark to be the observance of a day similar to God's Sabbath, yet not God's Sabbath.
26: When we see a religious group trying to establish the observance of the Sabbath on a day that is not God's Sabbath, (the Seventh day of the week, or Saturday), by the power of the political government, we shall know that we are seeing an effort to establish the mark of the Beast, that is, the mark of a great power that has received its power and authority from Satan.
27: When the mark of the beast is established, it will come as a great deception. Most people will not understand what it really is. The only way we can be sure of avoiding it is to have God's sign in our foreheads. The observance of His Holy Sabbath Day, the Seventh day of the week.
28: This is the day God says His people will observe throughout eternity. Isaiah 65:22,23. "For as the new heavens and new earth, which I will make, shall remain, and it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, said the Lord:' Let us prepare to be among God's people in that day by observing His day and receiving His mark now.
Here is additional information about the Seventh-day Sabbath:
"Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Revelation 22:14.
"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.
"And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord. Isaiah 66:22:23.
Read Isaiah 58:12:14, which predicted that the true Sabbath would again be restored at a later time. This matches Daniel 7:25 which predicted its desecration by the little horn.
