Marijuana Use: Willingly Walking Into Bondage

A couple of weeks ago I preached a message on the Christian views on legalizing marijuana in America. If you’ll recall, I wasn’t very supportive of the idea. The notion that we can legalize sin and somehow make state sanctioning of sin a good thing despite the fact that legalizing marijuana will simply encourage more drug abuse.

You may also recall that the message wasn't just about the Christian views changing towards the legalization of marijuana but I was really talking about the underlying sin issues related to marijuana abuse. And how the pro legalization crowd pushes for medical marijuana use and then uses that to work towards the legalization of recreational use of marijuana.

But the problem goes much deeper than just whether people should be able to smoke pot if they want to. The deeper issue is that we as Christians are supposed to know better. We should know that God wants and expects better from us, His children. God knows that nothing good can or will ever come from marijuana abuse or drug abuse in general.

The enemy on the other hand is glad that we as Christians are split on the issue of marijuana legalization. He is excited about the fact that many Christians now hold the opinion that state sanctioned misery, sin and bondage is a good idea. He is glad that many Christians are turning away from sound biblical doctrine and are being misled by the world’s opinions on this subject.

And I don’t know about you but whenever satan is happy, I’m not.

Satan loves for people to be in bondage, in bondage to sin, in bondage to ungodly things, in bondage to worldly thinking. But what is bondage? What does this word really mean to people and especially to those of us who are Christians? Bondage means to be enslaved by something or someone, it means that your freedoms have been taken or given away. Simply put it means that you are no longer in control of yourself.

Who here wants to be in bondage to anything in this world? There are multitudes of things that people can find themselves in bondage to. Things like cigarettes, drugs, food, alcohol, gambling, clothes, shopping, etc. you get the idea.

There are basically two types of people when it comes to being in bondage to something. Those who know that they’re in bondage to something and want to get out and those who don’t yet realize that they’re in bondage and don’t know that they need to get out of it.

The latter of these two are the ones who generally want to legalize marijuana because they don’t even know that they’re in bondage to it. And yet they will willingly try to tell other people that “hey, come on into bondage, it’s a great place to live!” Living in bondage to anything in this world is never a good place to live.

In fact, Jesus came and died on the cross to do what for all people? Set them free from the bondage of sin. In Galatians chapter 5 verse 1 we read this: It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

No truer words could we find to dispel this notion that we as Christians should support legalizing any illegal drug like marijuana.

How many of yall have been in a specific kind of bondage such as drug or alcohol abuse? Smoking? Well, I was at one time. I was in severe bondage for about twenty years to drugs and alcohol and even swearing. I know that most of you here have heard my testimony before but all of our testimonies should be heard and reheard throughout our lives if for no other reason than to remember all the great things that the Lord has done for us and is still doing in us to this very day.

I started with marijuana and later as my addiction grew, a couple of things happened, one was that my inhibitions towards drugs in general went down because I thought that if pot was good then some of the other drugs that my so called friends were using had to be good too. So I tried them without nearly the trepidation that I had about marijuana when I first came in contact with it. To be honest the first few times that I saw my friends smoking pot I was scared of it. How I wish that I had been just a little more afraid of it!

The second thing that happened was that marijuana just didn't get me high enough anymore. It was still my drug of choice but it wasn't the same to me later in my addiction as it was at the beginning of it. Therefore I moved on to stronger drugs like speed, cocaine, and crack. And at this time satan was really having a field day with me and my life. I was in severe bondage and it all started with smoking a little pot. Now the legalization crowd wants us all to believe that smoking pot is harmless and benign. That’s like saying that playing with a rattle snake is harmless because not everyone who handles one gets bit. If you play with a poisonous snake long enough you’re going to get bit. Period!