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Alright, 1 Peter chapter 4, we'll be getting to that here in a minute, but I'll just come right out and let you know what it is I'm preaching about this morning, and what I'm preaching is the problems with pot. I'm preaching specifically on pot or marijuana or weed or whatever you want to call it, but the title of the sermon this morning is problems with pot. And people would think, well why preach this? Why is it that this even needs to be preached today? But we are living in a society today that has become very loose with pot. It's becoming to the point now where even pot is as acceptable socially as liquor is, as alcohol. It's treated as kind of something that just gets a pass. It's not something that's looked down upon, it's not something that's, and it's definitely not, the dangers of it are not spoken against loudly. And it's not something that you hear a lot of preaching about. We hear a lot of preaching against drunkenness, we hear a lot of preaching against fornication, adultery, and all these other sins that the Bible is very specific about, but we don't hear a lot of preaching against pot. A lot of times it just gets this passing mention in other preaching, but I wanted to preach a whole sermon on it, and it won't be a very long sermon, and it won't be a very in-depth sermon as far as the effects of marijuana chemically and all those kinds of things, and there's a lot of different ways we could go with it. But there are certain problems with pot, and there are certain warnings that we have from Scripture that teach us that pot is something that Christians should have nothing to do with. You see, it's considered less dangerous than other substances, even amongst God's people. A lot of times they'll say, you know, we know how bad alcohol is, we know how bad the Bible and Scripture speaks of alcohol. I mean, it says all kinds of things, you know, that your mouth will speak perverse things and your eyes will behold strange women, you know, that you'll be stricken and that you'll wake up and seek it again, you'll have wounds without cause. And speaking specifically about alcohol, and then, therefore, I think sometimes people will think, well, pot's not as bad, you know, it doesn't have the same results as alcohol, and it's not really specifically mentioned in Scripture. And I think, and I believe, and I know for a fact that God's people, some often, you know, not, obviously it's probably more rare, but God's people may take part in pot more quickly than they would alcohol, because it's not specifically condemned in Scripture. They kind of give it this pass. And again, why preach this is just because we see how popular it's becoming in society, how glorified it is, even as much as alcohol in the movies and in media. And we see also medical marijuana, and I'm really not going to get into that, about what place medical marijuana would play in a person's life. I believe that there probably are some health benefits to using cannabis or cannabinoids in a specific way, but, you know, that's another sermon. You know, as far, I've never met a pothead who says that they need, you know, pot for their hangnail or something like that, you know, everyone's got something they need pot for. And the thing about medical marijuana is, is that, you know, it's not treating, it's not a healer, you know, it's not something that's going to take away those symptoms. Now, I've seen studies where they've shown that it can cure things where children are having seizures, or that kind of thing, you know, they can use cannabis, they can use oils, and things like that. And I believe that there's probably a place for it. And I know a lot of times people say, well, you know, cancer patients need it. And that might be a sedative, it might help them with pain and things like that, but it's not going to cure cancer. It's not something that's going to take that away. And, you know, speaking, and trust me, I've seen people close to me go through terminal cancer and die of cancer, and pot is not going to take care of the pain when it gets close to the end. You need some hard, you know, strong, pretty much put that person under to let them die. I just wouldn't cover it, you know, it wouldn't take away the pain that they're experiencing. But I believe that there probably is a place for medical marijuana, you know, but I really don't want to open up that door, and that's really not the point of the sermon. Because it just seems like, you know, today we're living in a society where everybody has some kind of chronic problem, they have some kind of, you know, arthritis, or their sciatica is acting up, or they've got, you know, something wrong with their eyes or glaucoma, and everyone needs to get their medical marijuana card. And perhaps there is a place for that, you know, to some degree. But I believe that God's people, we are very specifically commanded to be sober. And when we smoke marijuana, we are not sober. And I think that's the best way to come at the subject of marijuana in the Bible. So we see today that how popular it's becoming, we see that these dispensaries are popping up all over the place, and they're being quite successful. And this last Friday, in fact, this is kind of what inspired the sermon, is that I was, in my job I had to go out and do some work in a dispensary. And it was funny how the Lord works, because I got up that morning, I got on the road, I'm driving down the highway, and I started to think about my past. And I'll come right out and say it, I'll be transparent about it, you know, I smoked pot for many years prior to when I got saved, and even sometime after I got saved. You know, I grew up in a family of potheads, I've got family members that smoke pot, that sell pot, that do all, have everything to do with pot, they're pro-pot. And I grew up in that household, and so I know firsthand the effects of marijuana. And I know firsthand how it can take over a person's life, and their life can become about smoking weed, and the effects that it has on your life and on your mind. So I get in the van on Friday morning, I'm driving down the road, and I just start to think about, you know, about smoking pot, about, and I start to think about how much, how that ruined my life. Because I'll be honest, you know, I've had, I'm experiencing the longest stretch of sobriety I've ever had in my life, since I was about 15, and I've been really thinking about that lately, because it's very encouraging to me, and I rejoice in that, that God has brought me to a place in my life where I don't even desire these things anymore. Where I enjoy being sober, where I enjoy having a clear mind, more than I would, you know, partaking in something like pot or alcohol. And so I'm driving down to work, and I'm thinking about that, I'm thinking about man, just going over my life, what a negative impact marijuana had on my life. How my life might be different, had I not gotten so involved with smoking pot. And later that day, in the afternoon, my boss called me, he said, hey, I got a job for you. You need to go to Time Meds. He said, Time, T-I-M-E, Meds. I'm thinking, okay, that's kind of a different name. So I get there, I find out, I get to the address, and I find out he misheard, it's not Time Meds, it's Kind Meds. So if you know the lingo with pot, you know, that's kind of a play on words. So I'm dispatched to this dispensary, basically, where they're giving pot to people who have their medical marijuana card. And before you even get in the door, I mean, it just hits you, that smell. And I'm walking through the door, and I've never been in these dispensaries. This is something that started, you know, in the last, I'd say five to ten years, these things have really taken off throughout the country. And so when I was involved with this stuff, we really didn't have that. We had to go, you had to know somebody who knew somebody to get this stuff. You know, it was illegal, you could go to jail. And so, I walked in there, and it was like walking into a coffee shop. I couldn't believe it. I mean, they've got it all splayed out there, all kinds of different, you know, all the different strains of pot, little buds in a jar, and all the oils, and the, I don't even know about the oils now, that's a whole new thing. I guess they're vaping them now and stuff like that. But anyway, I did my work, and I got out of there. And let me, you know, let me just say real quickly, too, that I don't think marijuana should be illegal. That's my personal opinion. You know, I don't see in scripture, I mean, we see how alcohol is condemned in scripture, but we see it outlawed. Do we see it banned by God as far as, you know, legally? You know, I believe that if you go, if you smoke pot and you do something, and you know, you will suffer the legal repercussions that come of that, but I don't think we should be locking people up. And I don't have a problem with the dispensary, I really don't. I'm glad that there's some, if people are going to do that, if they're going to take part in that nonsense or that foolishness, that they're at least not going to go to jail for it, for growing and smoking a plant. You know, and it just, you know, and it's kind of outside the scope of the sermon, but there's a whole industry that's been created against illegal drugs. You know, the drug war deserves its own sermon. And when I didn't bring the facts with me, but I was researching for the sermon, you look at the billions of dollars that are generated fighting the drug war, and then the billions of dollars that are generated incarcerating people for drugs, you can see why drugs are illegal. It's not because people are worried about the welfare of others, it's because there's a lot of money to be made in legalizing, you know, making drugs illegal, and incarcerating people for those drugs. So let me just say that, I'm not coming from a place where I'm saying, you know, this should be banned, this should be outlawed. I believe people should be able to put whatever they want in their body and suffer the consequences for it. You know, I shouldn't have to sit here and pay for a guy who got busted, you know, driving down the road with some weed in his car, and now he's in, you know, county, and I have to sit here, and the taxpayer has to pay for it. But again, that's outside the scope of the sermon. But we do see again, you know, these medical marijuana, how easy it is to get your medical marijuana card. I mean, we're seeing it advertised on billboards all across Phoenix. 1-800-Weed-Doctor. You know, all these different places you can go and get your medical marijuana card, and then you can go to these dispensaries. So it's very easy for, even for God's people, if we wanted to get involved in that kind of thing, we could go around and sneak around, just like you could any other sin, and get involved in it. The temptation and the opportunity to smoke pot is abounding today. Now let me just come out and say this too, that smoking or consuming pot, you know, eating it, edibles, or smoking it, it is a sin. You know, that's the bottom line. And it's funny because I look back over the years of having been a Christian, and I remember certain people who are trying to find a biblical okay of pot. They're trying to find where God puts his stamp of approval on pot. And they'll turn to certain passages, like in Revelation, I think it's 21, where he talks about how the tree of light, the leaves are for the healing of the nations. And they'll say, well that's pot, man. You know, it's the leaves for the healing of the nations. Like well you have to be high to believe that. You must be stoned when you read your Bible. If you read that and think that's marijuana, you know, it's not in there. But people are always looking, I think, for ways to justify their sin. You know, I drink, but I'm not a drunk. You know, well pot isn't mentioned in the Bible, so it must be good. Or they'll say, no, God gave every herb yielding seed for the benefit of man. You know, and I believe there probably are benefits to marijuana. You know, one thing I think of is if you eat marijuana without cooking it, you won't get high. This is what I'm told. This is what the studies have said. You actually have to activate the chemicals in it through heat in order to get the experience to high on it. So there's probably some medical benefits to just eating it raw, or just eating it uncooked. I think if it's growing out in the wild, and it has all these health benefits, if the animals are eating it, it would probably help keep them clean, help keep them healthy. You know, if we're eating the animals that are eating this stuff. So I don't know, that's all just me theorizing. I don't have any scientific studies to back that up. But there probably is a benefit to it, because God did create it. But it's also, it would contradict scripture to say that it's okay for a Christian to partake in this stuff, because of the effects that it has on your mind. And that's the first problem with pot that we're going to look at, is that it directly affects the brain function. It affects the way your mind functions. Which means this, that you're not sober. As we read there in 1 Peter 5 verse 7, but the end of all things is at hand. Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. So we see that it's a clear command in scripture that we, as God's people, are to be scripture. This is just one passage, and we'll look at more here in a minute. But we're commanded as Christians to be sober. And marijuana is a drug that directly affects your mind. And I think this is probably the best way to take this sin on in the Bible. Is because of the simple fact that it makes you unsober. And I'm just going to read, you know, for those who don't know, I'm going to read over just a little bit of an article I found online that explains the short term and long term effects of marijuana. This article says that when a person smokes marijuana, THC quickly passes from the lungs into the blood stream and carries the chemical to the brain and other organs throughout the body. The body absorbs THC more slowly when the person eats or drinks it. In that case, they generally feel the effects after 30 minutes to one hour. THC acts on specific cell receptors that ordinarily react to natural THC-like chemicals. So it reacts on things that, you know, it targets specific parts of your brain. There's certain parts of receptors in your brain that are wired or geared to receive that THC or other chemicals like it. So it acts on those. And it says these natural chemicals play a role in normal brain development and function. So it's saying here that it overactivates, it overstimulates these parts of the brain and that's why you feel a high. Now what are some of the parts of the brain that it affects? Well one part of the brain affects is your movement, your ability to move. And I know that's true. You ever seen a guy that gets really stoned, you know, he kind of gets glued to the couch. It's gotten hard, it gets hard to do anything, right? It's hard to get them to move around, they move kind of slow and lethargic. So THC is, you know, one way it's making you not sober is by making you so you can't move. And how important is that for God's people to be able to move? How important is for God's people to get up on their, off their backside and get on their feet and go out and move, go out and preach the gospel? You know, if we're smoking weed we're not going to be sober, we're not going to want to move, we're not going to want to get up and go. It affects the movement part of your brain. It affects sensation, your ability to feel, your actually, your might over, probably makes it more sensitive than it is. It affects your vision, you know, the things you see, you can smoke it toward the point where you hallucinate even. It affects your coordination. So that's real important. Now we got people today that are driving around in cars that are smoking this stuff and it's surprising to me that it's not something that they check for. I don't know how you can check for it since it stays in your system for, you know, months sometimes depending on how much fat's on your body. But it's something that affects your coordination. So it's a dangerous thing, you know, to smoke pot and get behind the wheel of a car. You know, maybe going down the side roads where you can go real low and slow, you know, and get the beat stumping, you know what I mean? But you get on these freeways where you have to be alert. You have to be just on guard. You ever notice that's why you have so much of a tendency for road rage when you're on the freeway? It's because your brain is in a flight or fight state. It's like it's worried about dying. It's trying to keep you aware, trying to keep you alert because you're hurtling down the freeway at 80 miles an hour in 2,000 pounds of steel with a bunch of other fools just zipping by you. So when you smoke pot and you're going to affect the part of your brain that affects your coordination, you know, that could be deadly. It could kill you. In fact, I heard on the radio this week that there was a young lady was proving that she killed a guy that was crossing a crosswalk on his bike, ran him over in a car, and it was found out that she had just left a place where she had gotten high. And she's facing jail time now. So you know, you better think about that and well pot shouldn't be illegal, you know, according to scripture. You know, but it is illegal. That's one reason we shouldn't be smoking it. I mean, maybe it shouldn't be illegal but the fact is that it is illegal in a lot of ways. You might even, even if you had your car and you run somebody over it, you might be, you know, they might come up with, now you're driving high. You know, criminal negligence, you know, now you're facing manslaughter charges because you wanted to smoke some weed. So it affects your movement, it affects your sensation, it affects your coordination, it affects your memory. That's a big one. I mean, how important is that for God's people to be able to remember God's word? I mean, a lot of us are sober and think about how hard it is just to retain everything that's in God's word as it is. Now try, now add on a pot like on top of that, smoking weed, something that's going to make you even more forgetful, trying to memorize scripture, trying to remember important passages in scripture, trying to remember the things that we've seen and heard preached to us. So we see that it affects memory and that's very true. I mean, I, that's probably the biggest one, the thing that stands out to me is how it affects people's short-term memory because like I said, I grew up with potheads and I remember one for a while there, I lived with a guy who was a big pothead and the guy literally, he could not leave the house without forgetting something. It seemed like every time he left the house, I'd just, I'd start counting down. He'll be back in 10 minutes because he left his wallet. He'll be back in 10 minutes. One summer, the guy lost three phones. I mean, didn't drop them in the lake, didn't get them, you know, get them run over, just lost them. Couldn't remember where he put his phone and the guy was a huge pothead. You say, well, that's just one guy. Well, you know, it does affect the memory and anybody who's being honest would, would would admit that if we smoke pot on a regular basis, we're going to have problems with our short-term memory. And not only that, it affects the reward part of your brain, the part that says, Hey, this feels good. Let's do it again. That's what makes it so addictive. And people will say, you know, it's not addictive and we'll get into that in a minute. The fact is, is that it is addictive because of the simple fact that affects the reward centers of your brain that make you want to do it again. So another thing that I, the way it affects your mind physically, you know, is, is, is your brain, the way your, your brain works, it has, from my understanding is that your brain cells are sort of, each one is surrounded by fat. Every brain cell has a layer of fat around it. And then within your brain cell are all what are what called brain synapses. And in a normal human functioning brain, they're all, all these little brain synapses inside the brain cell. There's a bunch of them, all individual are all neatly lined up in little rows. And when you, when your brain cell, the way it communicates to another brain cell is that it fires one of those brain synapses out of the cell and it travels to the other one and it creates that chain reaction. So brain synapses are firing off. Now when a person, I've seen x-rays of this, like, like microscopic photos of this kind of thing where my, where they showed a normal brain cell and how neat it was and all the brain synapses were all in it. And then they showed somebody who smoked weed on a regular basis. And you could see where the THC had, had kind of formed a clogged up the barrier of fat because that's what THC clings to. When they do a drug test and you take a urinalysis, the way they find the THC is because it clings to the fat in your body. And part of that is the fat in your brain cells. So you can see in this photo where they, they had, the THC had clung to the fat cells around, around the, it clung to the fat around the brain cell, excuse me. And not only that, but all those neat little brain synapses that were all normally organized, they were all scrambled up and twisted and tangled. So that's why when you talk to people who smoke pot, a lot of times it takes them a minute. Like you'll ask them a question and they'll kind of get that, you know, the mouth hangs open, the eyes glaze over, say, boy, Corbin, you're good at that. Well, you know, I practice so. Anyway, but that's why a lot of times when you talk to clients, it's like, are you, you wonder, are they, oh, are you there? You know, and I, I've got out soul winning and I don't know how many times I've knocked on somebody door and man, you could smell it, you know, they opened the door and you could just smell, you know, the devil's lettuce is just being burned in there. Right? That's what we call it. Devil's lettuce. They just got, it smells like a skunks in there. And they come to the door and they're just, you ask him a question and they're just like, wow. It's like, they're in a, they're in cloud nine, man, they're in another world and they can't respond. You don't have that response on this that you, that you want, you know, and I, I typically shy away from giving people the gospel if they're high, I'll start, but I've never had it pan out successfully anyway, you know, and it pretty, pretty quickly you can figure out if you know, if they're really high, it's probably not going anywhere. You can just kind of very quickly give them a rundown and just say, Hey, you know, think about this and give them a verse or something like that. So we see how it, you know, physically affects your brain, your brain there in the short term, but also, you know, it has longterm effects as well. And again, we talked about how, you know, it overactivates the parts of the brain that, that, that contain all those receptors for those certain, certain fun brain functions. You know, it had, you see, had the altered senses. You have the altered sense of time for a pot. And that's why they're, you know, a lot of times they'll lose track of time, changes in mood. You know, one day they're real happy and then they're real sad or angry. It affects your mood. Your impaired body movement. We already talked about that. Difficulty with thinking and problem solving. And this is, that's a huge problem, right, with, with smoking pot. That's why it's really bad when you start smoking the stuff when you're in school. You know, you, that's why a lot of pot heads, you know, they're the, they're the ones that are always dropping out. They're the ones with the worst grades. They're the ones that, you know, don't succeed academically is because pot has effect on your brain where you can't do problem solving and you can't think correctly. The impaired memory, hallucinations, when you take high doses of it, you can, you can hallucinate off pot if you take a lot of it, if you do get those high concentrations of it and you can become delusional. And you know, we're, we're living in a day to day, like the pot that they smoke, you know, back in Willie Nelson's day is not the pot that they're smoking today. You know, it's, it's a whole nother animal. I mean, they've figured out what makes you high and they've learned to grow it, to concentrate that stuff. I mean, they're using hydroponics, they're using, they know how to make this stuff incredibly potent to, and, and I, and what I read a little bit here in this, in this study is that as I never had an experience with these oils or the compressing, I guess the resins and stuff that they're making, but those are even higher concentrations. That's why I'm standing there doing my work, you know, work on this guy's door, the dispensary. The guy came in and asked for a gram of some kind of oil or resin. I thought, man, a gram, lightweight, you know, that's kind of a joke, but man, I guess it's because that stuff is so potent. You know, all you need is that, what is a gram? You know, back when we were smoking, you had to get like a whole, you know, eight ounces or four ounces or whatever to get the eight, you had to get the ounce, you had to get the quarter ounce, you had to roll it up and now that's so potent. So imagine taking that much, if you take a high dose of it, you know, you can hallucinate, you can become delusional. Now that some of the long-term effects of marijuana are that, because marijuana affects brain development, when people begin using marijuana as teenagers, and that's usually when most people start using it. I know for myself, that's when I started. It's not very many successful, you know, adults, people that are responsible and mature, they don't usually tend to, you know, wander off and become, you know, stoners. And they might get involved in other things, but you know, pot is not really, if you talk to successful people, pot was never really a pot with them in their teenage years. But when people begin using marijuana as teenagers, the drug may impair thinking, memory, and learning functions. We already kind of talked about that, how it affects people who are in school and how they fail at school. And it can affect how the brain builds connections between the areas necessary for these functions. So when you're in your teenage years, you know, you haven't arrived. Your body is still growing, especially neurologically. Your mind is, I believe they say that the times when you're most neurologically active, I think are the first, what is it, five, two or five years, your brain is like routing and making all the neurological connections and creating all these neurological pathways. And then again in your teenage years, that same thing happens. Your brain just begins to grow at an accelerated rate. So when you start adding marijuana to it, it affects how those pathways form. It affects how well those connections are made. You know, and as somebody who's sobered up from having years spent smoking pot, especially in my teenage and young adult years, I can tell you, like, I've noticed how it affected you. I mean, man, I can think more clearly now, and how maybe you were slowed down or underdeveloped in certain areas, you know, emotionally or socially, you know, how hard it was for you. I know I experienced for a time difficulty interacting with people, even after I sobered up. It took me a while. I couldn't figure out why is this? Why am I a grown man struggling to be comfortable speaking with others or being in a social setting? And I believe a lot of it's because I go back to those years smoking pot. Because another thing that you'll find is that potheads, a lot of times they begin to isolate. They begin to want to be alone. They want to just kind of live in their purple haze with nobody else. So we see how it affects the building, the brain connections, the neurological pathways when you smoke it as a teenager. Researchers are still studying how long marijuana effects last and whether some changes may be permanent. I mean, that's the scary thing. Is that these effects that marijuana can have on your mind could become permanent. You know, and I thank God that I've been able to recover my mind from these drugs and stuff like that. It's, you know, having the renewing of my mind as the scripture says. That's been a blessing. I thank God for it because I, you know, honestly, I have friends that in a lot of ways, they lost their minds. I mean, I could tell you about people that got not just into pot, but into some harder stuff that are just today are crazy. Some of them are dead. I mean, they're just, they're nuts. Their minds aren't right. They don't function like a normal adult, you know, and that's that. And the thing is, there's nothing wrong with being a normal functioning adult. I mean, it seems like when we're younger, we, everyone wants to be different. Everyone wants to be unique. And I just think, you know, well, the normal nine to five, you know, guy going to work and raising a family, boy, that sounds so boring and so dull. They want to have this party life. They want to have this exciting life, but you know, on this side of it, I can tell you, I would take the family life. I would take the working life. I would take the Christian life. I would take the sober life over the party life any day of the week, because the way of the transgressor is hard, the scripture says. Going on this article says, for example, a study of the new from New Zealand conducted in part by researchers at Duke University showed that people who started smoking marijuana heavily in their teens and had an ongoing marijuana use disorder lost an average of eight IQ points between the ages of 13 and 38. The lost mental abilities didn't fully return in those who quit marijuana as adults. Those who started smoking marijuana as adults didn't show notable IQ declines. So you know, I'm not, I don't know a lot about the intelligence quotient, quotient or the IQ test, but it sounds like eight points is a lot. You know, some people will say, well, I have an IQ of 100 and they'll be like, well, mine's 120. So I guess I'm guessing eight points is probably significant. And it's saying here that people who started smoking pot between 13 and 38 and used it, they never recovered that. They lost some IQ points and it's something that's permanently gone. So that might explain some meme to you a little bit. Now you go, oh, that's why you're that way. So, but you know, I'm just trying to make the point here is that marijuana can have permanent effects in our mind. And that's, and that's something to think about. That's something that should give us pause as God's people when we're faced with the temptation of marijuana. You know, I talked about me going into that dispensary today or on Friday to do that work. And I'll be perfectly honest. You know, it had a, I still like the smell of it. I like the look of it. You know, the smell is still very appealing when it, whether it's been, you know, when it's, when it's being smoked or just bra sitting there. It was a temptation. I started to think, man, that'd be nice, wouldn't it? What would it hurt? Would it really be that bad? But I know that if I did that, I would probably be incredibly paranoid because they say that what it does is that it, you know, when you smoke pot, it overactivates those certain parts of your mind. So if you're, if you're somebody who should be paranoid about smoking pot, it's going to make them paranoid. And I know even after I got saved as a young man, I still partook in that. It was not the same after that. It felt like God was just like breathing down my neck. Like, you know, every fan was, was the SWAT team. And it just, you know, they're following me. Everybody knows and kind of get busted and all that. So I'm just saying, you know, you might think it might sound the temptation might be there as God's people, especially for those of us who have partaken in it to go back to that. But it wouldn't be the same. And I think it would probably be a nightmare of a high if you took it, you know, and even it was kind of, it's kind of odd too, because I was sent on another job prior to that, the same day, and I was installing for a camera for this, for this lady on her back porch. I'm putting this camera up and right there, and people are just so open about it. She's got like one of those little shadow boxes, you know, where you put all your knickknacks, and she's got her pipe and her pile of roaches, and I'm working like right here, and it's all right there in my face, and you can smell it. And I thought, man, you know, she probably wouldn't miss a roach. She probably wouldn't even know it was gone. You know, but the paranoia and the knowing that how what God thinks of pot, you know, that I'm to be sober, you know, and it's something that keeps, should keep us from wanting to partake or fall into that temptation. People say, brother Corbin, how could you be tempted with such a thing? Well, when you have a past, you know, we got to guard ourselves even more so against that past. If we have a problem with drinking in the past, you know, we should stay away from alcohol. If we have a problem with pot, we should try to put as much distance as we can between us and pot. I mean, I'm never going to go walk in a dispensary just to check it out, you know, unless I'm there in my job. My boss sends me in there, I guess I'll have to go and take care of it and get in and get out as quick as I can. But you know, I'm not going to go hang around it. I'm not going to go, you know, trying to score someone's roach somewhere, go act like a fiend because God's people are commanded to be sober. And it just goes to show that even somebody, you know, who has a past and has grown in the Lord can still, you know, that just speaks to the fact that pot is addictive, that it has an addictive quality to it. And a lot of, and that's the, that's the pass on pot. Everyone's like, well, it's not addictive. You know, it might not be addictive as like crack or heroin, but that doesn't mean it's not addictive. It still has an addictive and it doesn't mean that if you give in to that addiction, you're going to suffer the consequences. You know, you're going to, you're going to impair your mind. You're not going to be sober. Now the CDC put out a report about the addiction properties of marijuana. And that report reads, some people think that marijuana is not truly addictive or that people can't become hooked on the drug. But research shows that about one in ten marijuana users will become addicted. For people who begin using before the age of 18, that number rises to one in six. Some of the signs that someone might be addicted include unsuccessful efforts to quit using marijuana. I mean, that's the, that's, that is the definition of addiction, isn't it, if you can't quit doing it, right? And that's true. I know there are even times in my own life where I wanted to quit smoking this stuff, but you know, you might go a few days, but then you're back into it. You can't, you cannot make a permanent break from it. That's an addiction. Giving up important activities and friends and with family and friends in order, in favor of using marijuana. You know, instead of going to the, to the, to the family reunion, instead of going to the, to the park with the kids, instead of, you know, hanging out with some buddies, doing something, you know, healthy and wholesome, you want to stay home and smoke some weed and not do anything. You know, and that's, that is something that's an addiction. If you, if that's your mentality, if that's, if that's the, your priorities in life, you're addicted to pot, if you think. And, and this is how I know that it is an addiction, because I've seen people do that. You know, I think specifically on the bus route, when I used to run a bus route in another church, I'd be picking up these parents' kids and you'd come home, you'd bring these kids home from church, and we're talking parents that I knew for years, and they would never darken the door of the church unless you were, you know, putting on some kind of show. I mean, you had to roast a pig, you had to have fireworks, you had to have some kind, you had to make some big deal, you had to have some big promotion and tell them about it weeks in advance and promote it just to get parents to come to church with their own children. You had to get the kids up there to sing on Easter to get them to come to church. They had no interest in going to church or the things of God. And I can't tell you how many times I drop off these kids at their houses and the parents would come out, oh, thanks for taking the kids, just stoned out of their gourd. And it's just rolling, you know, that three or four hours I've got their kids in church is their three or four hours to sit at home and smoke some weed in peace and quiet. And that's what they'd rather do. They'd rather have some peace and quiet at home so they can smoke their weed and then let the kids come home after they've, you know, had their high. You know, if that's your priorities, is you'd rather smoke pot and then rather go to church with your kids, you're addicted, that's an addiction. So don't tell me that pot isn't addictive. Another sign that marijuana is addictive or that you're addicted to pot is that using marijuana, even when it is known that it causes problems fulfilling everyday jobs at home, school, or work. If you're smoking pot as a high schooler or junior high student and you know it's affecting your grades, you know that's causing you to flunk out of school but you continue to smoke it, you're addicted. If you're smoking pot and your wife's angry with you and you can't get anything done around the house, the place is falling apart, the kids are a mess, the kids are undisciplined, you're addicted because you'd rather smoke pot because you're failing at your job because you smoke pot, you're addicted. You know, and another one is work. And I can tell you that I've known people who've lost jobs because they got high on the job. They didn't even have enough sense to smoke it before they went to work, they smoked it at work. And they got an on-camera, hey buddy, we got you on camera smoking pot up on the roof. You're fired. You know, if you're so, you know, I don't know if the word dumb is the right one to use but if you're so addicted to the point where you're willing to put your job on the line, that you're willing to go out and smoke pot on the clock in front of a camera and get busted smoking weed at your job, you're addicted, you have a problem with pot and it's ruining your life, it's having a negative effect on your life. People who are addicted to marijuana may also be at a higher risk of other negative consequences of using a drug such as problem with attention, memory and learning. It is also important to be aware that the amount of THC in marijuana has increased over the past few decades. The higher the THC content, the stronger the effects on the brain. In addition, new popular methods of using marijuana, dabbing, edibles, may deliver very high levels of THC to the user. So like I was going back to saying earlier, the pot, they're smoking a day and these edibles and these, the dabbing or these oils and things like that, they're way more potent than they used to be. Researchers do not yet know the full extent of the consequences when the body and the brain, especially the developing brain, are exposed to high concentrations of THC or how recent increases in potency affect the risk of someone becoming addicted. So these are studies and things that they based on less potent marijuana. They ended up saying, look, we don't even know how much worse it's gonna be with this new stuff. Now if you would turn to 2 Corinthians 5, because really we're talking about the problems with pot and really the only one I parked it on this morning is the fact that pot affects your brain, the fact that it has a physiological effect on your mind that affects the way your brain functions and that it's addictive and that when it comes down to it, pot makes it to where you're not sober. And now it's interesting that there's verses that use the word sober and how it's closely related to your mind. Notice there in 2 Corinthians chapter five, chapter five verse 13. For whether we be beside ourselves it is to God or whether we be sober it is for your cause. Now that term there, whether we be beside ourselves, beside ourselves, that's an old way of saying of being mad or being crazy or being insane. Like they said of Jesus, he is beside himself because in the book of Mark when he's doing all this work and he's going and going, he's mad, he's beside himself. You're not your normal person, you're beside yourself, man, you're crazy. You're not acting like you normally should. Right, that's what he's saying here, Paul. So Paul's saying that whether we be beside ourselves it is to God. And then he says whether we be sober it is for your cause. So he's doing a compare and contrast there between being beside yourself and being sober. So what he's saying here is that the opposite of being sober is being mad, it's being crazy, and that's an effect of the mind. An insane person, you could look at a person and not know they're crazy until they open their mouth or do something, then it becomes very apparent. You see these guys walking down the street and if they weren't talking to themselves, you wouldn't know that they were crazy because they look like everybody else. So to be beside yourself is to be crazy, it's to be insane. So if you're not sober, if you're smoking pot, you're not in your right mind. That's what it means to not be sober, you're not using the right mind and that's why it's interesting that pot has such a profound effect on your mind directly. Another verse that would show us the link between sobriety and the mind would be 1 Peter chapter one. Go ahead and turn to 1 Peter chapter one. 1 Peter chapter one verse 13, the Bible says, 1 Peter 1-13, wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So we see there, he says that to gird up the loins of your mind and to be sober, an association between your mind and sobriety. So, because a lot of people say, well, being sober just means being serious and that's true, that is the way that it's used but also it has something to do with your mind, the way your mind is functioning. When you think about it, if you're telling somebody to hey man, be serious here, you know, quit acting a fool, quit joking around, either saying, you know, get your mind right. So if we're gonna be sober, we can't be taking things that affect our brain, we can't take things that are gonna be affecting our mind. And we see also how, if you want to turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter five, we'll see how sobriety is associated with being alert. If we're gonna be sober, as God has commanded us, we have to be alert, we have to be able to know how to use our mind, we have to keep our mind in the right state, we can't be beside ourselves. And we have to be alert. 1 Thessalonians chapter five, beginning in verse five. You are all the children of light. Now what is light, I mean, if you're in the light, you can see clearly, you know, you can see, things are distinct, you won't stumble around. You are all the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. Say let us be alert, let us walk in the day, let us see what it is that we have to see, let us be able to see clearly, let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the light in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith, and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. So we see that being sober is associated with being alert, with watching, with being, if you would turn to 1 Peter chapter five, I should have kept you over there, but 1 Peter chapter five, 1 Peter chapter five, we'll see, we're looking at how sobriety is associated with being alert. If we're gonna be alert as we're commanded to, if we're gonna be sober as we're commanded to, then we're gonna have to be alert, which means we can't smoke pot. Because pot causes you to not be alert. It impairs those functions. 1 Peter chapter five verse eight, be sober, be vigilant. Now what's vigilant? Now I think about that. That's being watchful. You think about people keep a candlelight vigil, right? They stay up all night. We're having a vigil tonight. We're being vigilant. And we're gonna stay awake. We're gonna stay alert. We're not gonna slumber. So to be sober is to be vigilant. They're associated together. And if we're gonna be sober, we're gonna be vigilant. And if we're gonna be vigilant, then we can't be smoking pot. We can't be taking things into our body that are gonna cause us to dull those senses. And we see, last part of this point is that sobriety is a command. You know, and it's not something that's optional in the Christian life. Sobriety is something that is commanded in scripture. If you were to turn over to Titus chapter one. Titus chapter one. Sobriety is a command, and it's not just a command for the pastor. It's not just a command. It's a command for all Christians. I thought that was interesting. I was reading this. Every person in the Christian life, every demographic, if you wanna put it that way, is commanded to be sober. I'll read to you from First Timothy three here in Titus one. First Timothy three says, this is a true saying. If a man desired the office of a bishop, he desired the good word. A bishop must then be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober. So we see that being sober, or being vigilant, or being alert is a requirement if a man wants to be a bishop, if a man wants to be a pastor, if a man wants to lead a church, then he has to be vigilant. He has to be sober, which means he can't be a pothead. He can't smoke pot and be a pastor. And a lot of people in the pews will say, well, that's great for the pastor, but it's okay for me on Friday night to kick back and smoke a doobie. You know, the pastor can't do it. It's all right for me to unwind a little bit and get high. Here and there in First Timothy chapter one, the Bible says in verse seven, I'm sorry, Titus one, verse seven. For a bishop must be blameless, the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate. Again, well, that's for the pastor. He's commanded to be sober. You know, he's the one who can't be given too much wine. I can drink a little. I can go ahead and smoke a little weed. It's okay for me. But is that really the case? You're there in Titus. Turn over to chapter two. Titus chapter two, beginning in verse one. But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, that the aged men be sober. So there's another group of people that are commanded by God to be sober, the aged men. Gray, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women, likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things. Well, did it mention sobriety there? No, but what does it go on and say? That they may teach the younger women to be sober. You can't teach what you don't know. So we see that the old aged men are to be sober, the aged women are to be sober, that they can teach the young women to be sober, to love their own husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Verse six, young men, likewise, exhort to be sober-minded. So we see that being sober is a command to all of God's people, it's not just for the pastor. It's not just for the man who wants to serve God behind the pulpit and leading a church. He is to be sober, but he's to be an example to the flock, to show them how they ought to live. And it's not for God's people to smoke pot. And if we're losing our job, if we're failing his parents, if we're flunking, we're having poor grades because marijuana, we're addicted and we're not right with God if you're not sober. The lack of sobriety leads to a host of other sins, and this is my next point, this is the next problem with pot, is that it makes you lazy. It makes you lazy. I mean, there's all kinds of other ones that we could probably talk about, we could probably brainstorm some other ideas, well, what are some of the other sins that pot would lead you into? Maybe gluttony, you know, people, you know, get the munchies, you know, next thing you know, they're just gorging themselves and all these junk foods and stuff like that. But it makes you lazy. I read another study here, I'll read for you quickly, I thought this was interesting. Smoking cannabis could make you lazy according to a new study. Researchers at the University of British Columbia gave the chemical THC, the main brain affecting ingredient in cannabis, to laboratory rats. They found this made them less willing to carry out a complex task for a large reward, with most opting for an easier one despite a smaller prize. So they give THC to these rats, and they give them the option of a more complex task for a larger reward, or a much simpler task for a much lesser reward, and they opted for the lesser. Mason Silveria, who led the study, said, perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that when we gave THC to these rats, they basically became cognitively lazy. Cognitive, meaning they were aware of the fact that they were choosing to be lazy. It wasn't against their will, they cognitively chose to be lazy. The rats could still do the task, they just didn't want to. It wasn't that they lost the ability to perform the complex task, they just didn't want to do it. You know, you tell your pothead son, go mow the lawn, boy. You know, it's not that he can't start the mower, ugh, everyone forgets how to do it, and push it down the yard, it's that he doesn't want to. He'd rather sit there on his butt and play video games and smoke weed. It's not that you can't do it, it's that you don't want to do it. That's the definition of being lazy. Being lazy is not a disability, you know, it's an attitude. The type of cannabis sold as recreational drug, as the recreational drug, contains much higher levels of damaging THC than cannabis produced for medicinal purposes, which has more of a chemical called cannabinoid that is better for the brain. THC has been linked to anxiety and psychosis, as well as with problems with learning, memory, and attention. But the new study suggests that rather than making people less able to complete tasks, cannabis simply makes them less motivated to do so. The researchers said that their findings might explain why cannabis is linked to poor education, lower earnings, and worse employment prospects. That's why a lot of these companies, you go and get a job, they drug test you, because they don't want potheads working for them. Especially if you work in these places where there's any kind of machinery or these factories that have any kind of manufacturing, where they have a lot of moving parts, a lot of dangerous equipment that people could get hurt or even killed, they will drug test people on a regular basis because they know that if a pothead comes in there and is not alert, is not vigilant, is not sober, is not paying attention, somebody could get hurt. Scientists gave 29 rats doses of THC to see whether it made them less likely to opt for tasks that required more effort. Rats were presented with a choice of levers, with some resulting in low effort tasks that delivered small rewards and others that led to high effort tasks that resulted in big food rewards. Under normal circumstances, most rats chose a harder challenge to earn a bigger reward. But after being drugged, they switched to the easier option. THC was found to cause and changes in the medical pre-frontal cortex, a part of the brain involved in decision making. And there was another study here that I didn't put in my notes, but they actually tested it on humans. And the task was to take your non-dominant hand pinky and press a keyboard space bar like so many times and so many seconds, and you would get so much money. Like they would give you so much, if you did it this many times and this many seconds, you could get this much money. But if you did it this many times and this many seconds, you would get this much money. And most people would only do it for the lesser amount after they got them high. It was interesting. Anyway, it was lengthy. I couldn't put it in here. But so we see that one of the problems with pot is that it makes you lazy. I mean, it's just a medical fact. And anybody who's known pot heads knows that that's not really, do we really need science to tell us that it makes you lazy? It's kind of the stigma with being a pot head. It's kind of the stereotype of the pot head is that they're lazy. Number three, it's illegal. That's one of the problems with pot. Now, again, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, I don't think it should be illegal. I think you should be able to take it. I think people should suffer the consequences. And then people say, well, you know what? Person, you get high and go affect somebody else's life. Yeah, that could happen, you're right. And they should suffer the consequences for that. And it's unfortunate. We don't live in a perfect world. And we can't be just locking people up for every little thing. And the thing is, if you go out and kill somebody because you're high, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, that wasn't an accident. You knowingly took something. That's probably the kind of thing that should take place. It's illegal. And the consequences of being busted with pot will affect your life terribly and probably for the rest of your life if you get a felony. And if you get a felony marijuana charge, I mean, you're done. As far as a decent job. You're gonna have a very hard time making it. Now, it's not impossible, but why not just avoid that? Why not just not have that problem in your life? I have a friend in high school and he was a dealer. He sold a lot of pot. And we were coming back from Southern Michigan from Ann Arbor's pot fest or something like that. I don't know what it was. Like it was the 420 fest or something like that. We're all on the University of Michigan's campus in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, where everyone just gets together and smokes weed. You know, that was like the big thing to do. And we're driving back from that and everyone's got some pot on them. And my friend, Zach, had quite a bit. And we got pulled over by a state trooper. And his words were, you guys scream pot. I mean, you're talking about we looked the part, you know, because we were. So we all get out and somehow, you know, I didn't get caught, you know. But my friend, Zach, he was the one out of the four of us that I take back to the state trooper station. And it was arrested. We didn't see him for days. Well, it came out later that Zach became an ARC. That he, because he was able to deal and he had connections, instead of him facing jail time, he decided to start turning his friends over. He started to start working on, you know, he continued to deal and smoke weed. And I hung out with the guy. And he got involved with some people that, you know, some pretty shady guys that were not good. And it came out that Zach was an ARC. It was found out. He ended up getting raided again. And people found out that the reason he was raided is because he invited these other drug dealers over to his place and said, hey, they're going to be at my place at this time. And then the SWAT team showed up and raided these guys. I had been in his apartment the night before. And they found guns and stuff like that. They tried to make it look like Zach was arrested. But the next day we see Zach, all these other guys go to jail. Zach's walking around free. So it became pretty obvious that Zach was an ARC. And it got around and Zach found out that everybody knew that he was an ARC. And unfortunately, it affected his life so badly that he committed suicide. They ended up one day going over his girlfriend's house, went out in the garage, ran a hose from the exhaust of his car into his window. And he killed himself. Because of pot. Because of a joint. Because of weed. Because of wanting to get high. You know, because he started smoking pot in high school and got addicted. And it ruined his life. So that's the problem with pot. You know, it makes you lazy. It has all these neurological effects. But it can have devastating consequences on your life that reach far beyond just the physiological effects. You know, the societal effects. You know, it can cause you to be an outcast with your peers to the point where, you know, they're threatening your life and you decide to just off yourself because you feel like your reputation is ruined. You know, Zach probably, you know, if he had been in his right mind would have seen the foolishness of the situation. And just said, you know what? Just wiped his hands clean. You know, move to another state, man. Don't take your life. Go start your life anew somewhere. You know, or, you know, at best, realize the fact that your reputation has ruined a bunch of potheads. Well, who cares what a bunch of potheads think about you? You know, but it's a sad story. It's one that I'll never forget because I knew, I wasn't real close to the guy, but I hung out with him quite a bit. You know, I had him over to my place and it was sad. And I think about him, you know, whenever, you know, this kind of subject comes up. So we see that, you know, one of the problems with pot is that it is illegal. Whether that's right or wrong. And you will suffer the consequences if you get caught with it. Whether that's right or wrong. Now, lastly, I'll just wrap up by saying this, that there is no scriptural justification for smoking pot. You know, I kind of started out saying that in the sermon. And it seems like that's why I preach it. It's because people want to justify their sin. And it seems like pot smoking, I think even amongst God's people, even people that are in churches like this, they think that smoking pot isn't that big of a deal. Hey, I'm not getting drunk. I'm not committing fornication. I'm not doing all these other things that the pastor rails on. All these other wicked sins that are specifically named. But you're not sober. That's the problem. And being sober is incredibly important. And there is no justification for smoking pot. You know, there's no book of Marley, chapter four, verse 20. You know, 1st and 2nd Peter, that was the Apostle Peter, not Peter Tosh. You know, you guys, you know, no reggae fans, okay. Anyway, you know, like people get, well, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, chronic, maybe? No. That's not what it means, man. So anyway, that's the point I wanted to make, is that, you know, there might not be a, you know, specific command in scripture saying, thou shalt not smoke pot. But there isn't anything against cigarettes. There isn't anything against, you know, junk food. Those things are terrible for your body. And they're affecting, you know, your organs below the neck. Think about the one that's affecting it above the neck. You know, pot is affecting your mind. Probably, you know, the most important organ, the one that's controlling all the other ones. I mean, do we really need to be told that pot is a sin? That smoking weed is something we shouldn't be doing? Well, you know, unfortunately I think some people do. Or those of us that have had a history with it, we should be warned about it because the temptation might be to go back. You know, maybe get a little bit of weed and smoke it. I'm not gonna go full bore. You know, I'm not gonna get the bong and, you know, everything and just have a party. But, you know, the temptation might be there to smoke a little weed. But we shouldn't do it because being sober is something that's very important. I'll read to you again from 1 Peter 4 where we started. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries, wherein they think it strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you. We shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to the men of the flesh, but live according to God and the Spirit. But the end of all things is at hand. You know, we've been in the prophecy conference this last three days if you've been up here. Probably all of us have been there. And we've been hearing a lot of great preaching about the end of things. We've been hearing about the new heaven and the new earth and the tribulation and the rapture and all these things. You know, we look around and we're vigilant and we're sober. We can see how the end of all things is at hand. And I love what Pastor Anderson had to say last night about, you know, these things are real. Everything that we've been, the purpose isn't just to fill our heads with knowledge, it's to motivate us. You know, and that's why it says the end of all things is at hand. Be sober, be therefore sober and watch unto prayer. You know, the end of all things is at hand and God's people more than ever need to be sober. And that would mean that God's people ought not to be smoking pot. It's a sin and sobriety is something that we absolutely must have in our lives. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, again, thank you for the Bible. Lord, we thank you for, Lord, the clear warnings of scripture, Lord, that you make it abundantly clear that sobriety is something that you put an emphasis on for our own benefit, Lord, and for the benefit of others that we would be able to watch and be vigilant to guard our own lives, our own families, and Lord, to walk with knowledge to them that are without, Lord, that we might reach them with the gospel. Lord, that requires a mind that is functioning. It requires a mind that is sharp and ready to preach your word. And Lord, so I pray and ask that you would help us to not give into the temptation to not be sober, whether it be pot or alcohol or any of these mind-altering drugs that are out there today, Lord, they abound. It seems like even they're coming out with new ones all the time, Lord, that even God's people can fall prey to. But I pray help that not be the case for any of us, Lord, but that we would remain sober, that we might be used greatly for you in these last days. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.