Is Using Marijuana a Sin?

I think you're calmed down. So quickly. Isn't it amazing? He used just a single drop and his hands afterwards were rock steady and the dyskinesia left. It was going bad. It works most of the time. That's it.

Ah!

Did you guys eat lunch? Are you hungry now? I am. Yes. That is truly a gift. A gift from God to that man. Now you can also talk to people suffering from HIV and AIDS, cancer, arthritis, and seizure disorders.

Now it's worth noting that there are good medicinal strains that are now CBD dominant without the psychoactive feeling and effects of THC. Now I had a member of our church who was suffering with HIV. It was awful.

When it would flare up and get bad for him when he was having difficulties, he had a choice between strongly addictive narcotic medication and physically damaging medicine, or he could take small doses of marijuana medication with accountability and the marijuana had absolutely no chemically addictive issues with toxicity, unlike the narcotics.

And he could testify to the fact that the marijuana was the only thing that helped him to keep food down. The other medications didn't help and actually made him physically ill and uninterested in food.

Now the medical industry is well aware of the fact that marijuana has tremendous and life-altering benefits for children with certain seizure disorders. It has literally changed their lives. I challenge you to look it up.

Now marijuana is also used worldwide to help people get off of narcotic pain medication and other opiates. Now while I was a chaplain at the Drug and Alcohol Recovery Hospital, it was common knowledge that there was no detoxification protocol for marijuana.

Now that means that when someone came into the door that was abusing marijuana, there was no medical detoxification that was administered because marijuana doesn't have the same chemically addictive problems as opiates.

The procedure to end that is just watching the Bob Newhart video. Stop it! That's pretty much it. However, businessmen and soccer moms who had become addicted to the commonly prescribed narcotic pain medication were put through a medical detox because of how painful the detox was and they were even put on lower doses of chemically addictive medications just to wean them off.

Now let me be absolutely clear. This needs to be said. Abuse of any substance is sin and wrong from a Christian perspective. Ultimately, it's idolatry. That's it. However, Dr. MacArthur's position is not only inconsistent, it is simply not true from a scriptural, factual, or scientific perspective.

I just want to say this with respect. It's the very ill-informed opinion of a very great man.

Look, that's just your opinion, man. That's like your opinion though, right? Thanks, Chad.

Now we need to talk about marijuana and the government. Marijuana has been legalized in nine states and Washington, D .C. It's also been allowed to be used in more states for medicinal purposes. In Colorado, marijuana legalization led to a financial surplus of $66 million due to the taxes imposed on marijuana sales.

Now some might argue this. If you legalize marijuana, then it will be abused. My friends, that's true with sinners about alcohol, guns, narcotic pain relievers, NyQuil, hot dogs, donuts, and if you're the president, fast food and Twitter.

Now we can't solve the problem of the human heart and free people from addiction by legislation and punishment. Here's an important question. When marijuana is illegal, does it stop people from using it?

No, it doesn't. As a matter of fact, it creates a very dangerous criminal underworld led by organizations like the cartel. For more on the downfalls of illegal marijuana, check out the documentary Pineapple Express.

Further, our prison and jail system has been filled with people who did not engage in any violence, and yet were put into a cage like animals for the mere possession of marijuana. What's the problem with that?

Well, besides the very profitable criminal enterprises created, the communities have been punished through coercive taxation to fund this war on drugs and to pay for the prisons, security, electricity, food, and medical, including maybe sex changes, for all the people incarcerated for these crimes.

If we think about this like Christians, biblically, then we have to recognize that the problem of addiction and abuse isn't solved by putting an image-bearer of God into a cage. Not all of us are meant to be David Blaine.

Now, as a matter of fact, out of all the thousands of addicts I've ministered to in the recovery industry, I can tell you with full confidence and unequivocally that not one of them, not one, was ever delivered from their addiction to drugs and alcohol through arrest and incarceration.

What saved them? Well, Jesus, for starters. And what was used to help open their eyes and to give them support? One thing, their community. The answer to addiction is Christ, and the means of support and transformation is the community around the person struggling.

Steel bars in isolation don't purify the human heart. Never. Wars on drugs don't solve the problem of people who are seeking peace, wholeness, joy, goodness, satisfaction. Only God can do that. You see, if we think about this as Christians and we think about the marijuana question, we have to recognize that the Bible does address this.

God's law is perfect and good, right? And if you didn't know it already, in God's law there were people abusing drugs and alcohol. The Bible doesn't call it alcoholism. It calls it drunkenness. And in the Bible there's a difference between a sin and a crime.

So, for example, some things are sins and crimes, like murder, that's a sin and a crime. Theft, it's a sin and a crime. Coveting, sin, not a crime. Drunkenness, sin. But there isn't punishment in God's law from the civil magistrate for drunkenness, for addiction.

It's considered a very serious sin. It's condemned outrightly, but it is not penalized by the justice system because that's not how you solve the problem of coveting or drunkenness or drug addiction. It's a problem of the heart.

If we think about this like Christians, we have to all acknowledge that any addiction, whether it's to pornography, whether it's to drug addiction, whether it's alcohol, whatever it is, it's idolatry.

It's seeking satisfaction. It's seeking goodness, wholeness, peace, forgiveness, something in a substance in exchange for God. It's switching God for an idol. And if we're going to address the problem from a Christian perspective, we have to recognize that you can't save the human heart through steel bars and cages.

It is only through the gospel and the condemnation that goes towards addiction needs to come with the recognition that there is hope to get free from addiction and a recognition that you don't solve the problem by legislation and cages.

You solve it through the gospel and a loving community around the person who's struggling. This really is a problem, yes. Final word here is I'm not telling anybody, and make sure that you hear this loud and clear, to now go out and roll a fatty and smoke it.

That's not what I'm saying. I condemn drug abuse, whatever the drug, whether it's Tylenol, NyQuil, Oxycontin, marijuana, whatever it is, I condemn it. I condemn it, and I know there's hope in Christ. But this truly, this issue of marijuana, if we will let our traditions go, we will see that there are real people, neighbors, that we're commanded to love, where this substance is actually better for them.

It's something that can solve their problems and give them help that doesn't damage them chemically like a lot of these harsh narcotics. I guarantee you of all those godly men on that stage that day that were answering this question, the men that I adore and I love and I respect, I guarantee you some of those men have had surgeries.

I guarantee you some of those men have had injuries. And I guarantee you some of them were prescribed hard, very harsh, and damaging, chemically addicting narcotics, and they took them because it was right to do so.

In some cases, with some people's struggles, the right thing for the long term is something else.

Next week with Jeff Durbin, the late night show with the unpopular opinion. Tuesday, only on Facebook Live.