Godsloveandlaw's Blog

Let’s face it, nicotine is one powerful substance. I have personally seen its devastating work. My Mother passed away at age 72 from emphysema due to smoking for 50+ years. My Grandfather had a large portion of his jaw removed when he was 68 due to cancer after being a long time pipe smoker.

But there is a plan which, if followed and believed can defeat this very addictive substance. It is God’s proven plan. Let us read.

“Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. And having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, “If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”

Then the devil took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple. “If You are the Son of God,” he said, “throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command His angels concerning You, and they will lift You up in their hands, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.” Jesus replied, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'”

Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “All this I will give You,” he said, “if You will fall down and worship me.” “Away from me, Satan!” Jesus declared. “For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'” Then the devil left Him, and angels came and ministered to Him.” (Matt. 4:1-11)

These Scriptures show us the powerful effect our King had with the devil. And what method did the Lord use? Scripture! We see that Satan came at Jesus and when tempted our Lord rebuked him , not with subtle arguments or persuasive words, but with a “thus sayeth the Lord”.

Recently  during my work travels I received a call from “Gary” a former church friend of mine, whom I had not seen for a good 3 years. He is a member of the prior church I belonged to. We chatted for a bit, then he said he needed some help with his refrigerator. We made plans for the service call the following day.

So I showed up at the appointed time and went in to see his refrigerator. Sure enough, it was a solvable problem (bad freezer fan) and I proceeded to do the repair. While working on it I was able to chat with Gary. Soon we discussed church. But as we spoke  the Spirit indicated to me that Gary was not ready yet for some deeper present truth studies. He was to be reached at his level. As we talked it clicked. So I told him about how there is so much sin in our church, poor dressing, poor eating, socializing among our members instead of studying and testifying of God’s power and work.

He agreed and said that the church was turning into a “country club.” Then I was moved to tell him how I overcame some of my worldly ways such as drinking, chewing tobacco, poker, etc. Then Gary told of his “current” bad habit–smoking. He admitted he was not an over-comer and really needed to stop this bad habit. Bingo! The plan came.  I told Gary about the “quote Scripture plan”. He was all ears.

Basically, I said, it requires that one find a favorite Scripture. Then on day one you start out the day armed with this Scripture and use it on the first temptation from the devil. In my personal case chewing tobacco was my vice. So that first day I had to quote Scripture maybe 10 or 12 times. But , and this is very important, you must quote Scripture and then say “Be gone from me devil in the name of Jesus Christ!”

This effectively chases away the devil/temptation. He will come back again, but you will quote and rebuke him again.  A tampering off should be achieved as the month goes by.

Gary liked the plan. He said he would try it. I encouraged him and told him that he must believe each time he quotes God’s word and not doubt.

A few days ago I got a text from Gary saying he’s successful so far. We praised the Lord and told him not to give up, keep going until you have no more desire and the devil has left for good.

The Lord’s messenger gave us a serious warning concerning our bad habits–

“Not one of us will ever receive the seal of God while our characters have one spot or stain upon them. It is left with us to remedy the defects in our characters, to cleanse the soul temple of every defilement. Then the latter rain will fall upon us as the early rain fell upon the disciples on the Day of Pentecost.” (Testimonies, vol.5, p.214)

Our King said- “Do not fear; only believe.”(Mark 5:36)

There is no disagreement among the world’s medical leaders that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances on the planet. Only Heroin and Cocaine ranked higher in addictiveness. So of all the “legal” substances one can use, it is nicotine that has the highest addiction among the world’s population.

One of the best testimonies one can give is that of a personal testimony. So I would like to give my own testimony about the quote Scripture plan.

Back in early 2009 I came upon the Bible truth that the Sabbath of the Lord was real, this was new to me being raised a Catholic. I soon came into the Seventh-day Adventist church and was baptized in mid 2009. But as I began my SDA membership and church attendance, I carried into it a few bad habits, chewing tobacco being one of them. In fact I remember  at least a couple of times going to church with some tobacco in my cheek. Let me briefly regress to the past.

This bad habit actually started back in my late teens when , as a bat boy for the San Diego Padres national baseball team. The players often would have a big load of “chew” in their mouth and spit it out often on the field. One day I decided I would try it. BIG mistake! I almost immediately began to get dizzy and felt like vomiting. The natural body defenses warned me–bad stuff!

But I soon tried it again and it gave a strange feeling of exhilaration. You see nicotine raises the blood sugar and one gets a feeling of being “high” , the degree of this depends on the amount and the length of the chew. The more one chews, though, the more one gets used to it and it becomes an addiction. But fortunately after those Padre years, I left the bad habit for a long time.

But in my early 40’s I began to chew on cigars. Having asthma I did not want to inhale smoke, so I found chewing on the cigar released the nicotine  and gave me the “buzz” I liked. Ok, I have digressed to show you how the habit came let’s get back to the story.

But as we all should know the process of sanctification is a process not a one time event or immediate occurrence. The key is that we should want to keep drawing closer to Christ, we should want to “chop away” at our sins, much as a tree remover keeps chopping away at the stump to bring it down.  We keep choppin til we bring down our sins (eliminate them) until the sins we do are mostly unconscious or without deliberateness.

So as I continued my walk the Lord was telling me to straighten up with this bad habit. So I came across the Scripture where Jesus , our perfect example, fought temptation. It was in the desert where Satan tempted Him. But how the Lord handled it was with–Scripture! I figured if it was good enough for our King, it’s good enough for me. Armed with this idea, I decided to use it to overcome my tobacco habit.

That first day I quoted ” The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” (Psalms 23:1). I used this because of two reasons. One, it was my mother’s favorite Bible verse. Two, it had in the words “I shall not want” meaning not wanting tobacco. This was quoted alot that first day, as the devil came again and again to tempt  me to partake in this habit, which off and on I had done for a good 15 years or so.

In other words, the devil had me just where he wanted me–hooked and bound by his chain called tobacco. But I trusted in Christ, through His Holy Spirit, and His –word.

This is key my brothers and sisters, we MUST believe in order for Christ to work in our life. I believed that with Christ’s word and it put into action —it would work!

As the days went on I kept quoting the Scripture with the very important devil rebuke added– “Be gone from me devil in the name of Jesus Christ!” This was the plan and I followed it day after day. Soon it was tampering off and by the third week I was down to quoting it maybe 2 or 3 times a day. Finally by the 4th week  the devil left for good!

The word says– “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

To this day I have never went back to this evil habit and all praise and honor to Him who made it possible. By all means tell your friends and family if you should know of anyone who needs help with an addiction. The Lord’s word is powerful if you believe.

“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne.” We can overcome. Yes; fully, entirely. Jesus died to make a way of escape for us, that we might overcome every evil temper, every sin, every temptation, and sit down at last with Him.”(Testimonies, vol. 1, p.144)

This entry was posted on September 24, 2016 at 4:24 am and is filed under God's power, Healing and health, Prayer's answered. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.