You have been given the most amazing body. Complex. Intricate. Beautiful. Totally amazing! It’s God’s gift to you – and it’s been purchased with a price. So what makes us think that God’s not interested in how we treat it? Huh?   Don’t Smoke It’s something I understand really well because I used to be a very heavy smoker. It’s just over 30 years since I gave it up, but I remember it as though it were yesterday and still today, there are some times when I feel as though I could have a smoke. Frightening – the grip of that addiction, and depending on where you live, you may have seen a reduction in smoking recently. We certainly have here in Australia, but let’s just stand back. This is a global radio program, heard in over 160 countries around the world, and so let’s look at the global statistics. Here they are. About one-third of the adult male population smokes, with smoking-related diseases killing one in ten adults globally. Today, that means smoking causes four million deaths a year, but if current trends continue, by 2030, it’s going to be killing one in six people. Today, one person dies every eight seconds from smoking, and why wouldn’t they? About fifteen billion cigarettes are sold daily. That, believe it or not, is about ten million every minute, and to put all that into perspective, about twelve times more British people have died from smoking than died as a result of World War II. Now I could continue to rattle off the statistics ad infinitum, but you’re getting the point. Right? These days in most countries, every cigarette-packet sold comes with a warning. Here in Australia, we have some of the toughest plain packaging and warning laws in the world, with grim photos of cancerous lungs and feet with toes rotted off them, and by the way, those cigarettes are hellishly expensive. So, why do people start smoking? It’s mostly psychological. Peer pressure for young women; people are seduced to try a smoke by its glamorisation, and once they’re hooked, the physical and mental addiction makes it really hard to quit. If you’re a smoker, the single-biggest thing that you can do to improve your health, extend your life-expectancy, and increase your sense of wellbeing is quite simply to give up smoking. As I said, it’s just over 30 years ago that I gave up smoking. It was around 7 pm on 24 January 1983, and this is the story of how I quit smoking. It was an early evening; I was in a hospital-room as I watched someone die of cancer. She’d been a smoker earlier on in her life. The cancer had spread right throughout her body; she’d left a note, ‘Make this the end’, so they withdrew the treatment, food and fluids, and I watched her take her last breath. As I walked out of that hospital-room, I threw a half-packet of cigarettes (Benson and Hedges extra-mild) into the grey metal bin outside the room. Cold turkey. I haven’t smoked since. It’s a pretty dramatic way of giving up cigarettes, but then smoking has a very dramatic outcome. I had started just a few years earlier, in my late teens. I was in the army, at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in the Australian officer’s training academy. We went on an exercise and a huge, cold, wet storm had blown in. Young, incredibly fit men were dropping from exposure. Our packs were miles away; the trucks couldn’t get through on the treacherous roads, so we had no wet-weather gear; no cold-weather gear; no tents (or hutchies, as we called them for some reason back then). We were at the mercy of the elements. One of the blokes generously offered me a durry (that’s what we called cigarettes back then in the army); it was the only warm thing going, so I took it. Of course I coughed and spluttered as the smoke invaded my body, but that was it. That’s all it took. I was hooked, and in a few weeks, I was smoking three packets of twenty-five cigarettes a day. That’s seventy-five smokes every day! This was back in the day when you could smoke at your desk; I could easily go through a packet on a night on the town; between that and the alcohol, I’d wake up in the morning with my mouth feeling like the bottom of a cocky’s cage, as we used to say. Charming. I was a chain-smoker. I tried to give it up, but to no avail. As bad as it was for me, as much as it made me cough and splutter and wheeze, as much money as it cost me, and as antisocial and disgusting as smoking is, I just couldn’t give it up, until I watched that woman die. The days, weeks, months and years that followed weren’t easy. The cravings were huge. For years later, I would still reach into the top drawer of my desk to pull out a packet of cigarettes. I’d check to make sure my lighter was in my pocket before I went out, but the thing that did it for me, one craving at a time, was the memory of watching that woman breathe her last breath, and the grief that it wrought in a husband, in a family ... In a very real sense, her death saved my life. Of course, I could get run over by a bus tomorrow, and despite my level of health and fitness, I could prove to be a statistical aberration and drop dead of a heart attack or stroke or cancer; that’s always possible, but it’s far less likely today than if I was still an obese smoker. What’s the lesson I learnt? Simple. I actually like my body. I like feeling incredibly well. I like sleeping well at night and being alert during the day. I love being able to exercise, and it’s a great feeling to know that, all things being equal, I have a long and healthy life ahead of me. I’m now in my mid-fifties. To put it bluntly, I would never, ever want to go back to smoking. So, given that I’ve made it through exactly 30 years without a cigarette, you know what? I’m thinking I can probably make it through one more day. Smoking hastened my father to an early grave, and I had a good friend, Tom Curran, who died in his early fifties, and another work-colleague, Russell Abbott, who died in his late fifties. Perhaps you’re a smoker. If you’re listening to this, it’s time to quit. These days your local doctor can help you; there are patches and sprays and lozenges, that can be deployed to ease you out of your dependency, and I know how tough that is, both physically and psychologically, but it’s time to take the plunge. There are government programs; there’s all sorts of help available, no matter how young or old you are. I had a very simple message for you today: Don’t smoke. Do whatever you have to do to give it up, craving by craving. Now perhaps you have a loved one or a friend or a colleague who smokes, and perhaps today God’s speaking to you through what I’m saying, and convicting you to get involved, and to help them and to encourage them. I know as a non-smoker, you think it’s a filthy habit, and you wonder, "How can they possibly smoke?" Hey; I used to smoke three packets of fags a day and I see someone smoking today, and I’m asking myself exactly the same question. How did I ever do that? But understand that they are seriously addicted. It’s tough. It’s really tough to give up smoking, but having the understanding and the support, and the help of a family-member or a friend or a work-colleague is so powerful. The alternative for that smoker, whether it’s you or someone else, is a massive heart attack at a young age, or lung cancer or gangrene, or any number of other horrible things, that will lead to a really grim and ugly death. Hey; God has a plan for your life, and for my life, and for everyone’s life. I know that ‘cos that’s what He says in His Word – the Bible. It’s a good plan: Sure, with ups and downs; sure, with challenges and trials, but it’s a good plan – a plan that for all too many is cut tragically short by this horrible smoking thing. I remember thinking to myself when I was a smoker, "Oh, it’d never happen to me". Folks, the research is clear. The facts are in. It absolutely will happen t...

Released on 4 Jul 2021