The NXR Podcast - July 11, 2025


THE LIVESTREAM - Is Nicotine Addiction Sinful?


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 28 minutes

Words per minute

187.57

Word count

16,674

Sentence count

327

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

10

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Tobacco and nicotine have a rich heritage in the church, and in the country. In fact, tobacco has had a powerful effect on the American ethos, but also as it pertains to the church. There are theologians throughout church history who have used tobacco, and even ministers like Charles Spurgeon.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:00:26.860 tobacco and nicotine both have a rich heritage both in the church and in the country you've
00:00:36.520 probably had some progressive liberal tell you that slaves built this country of america
00:00:42.220 that's not true tobacco built this country slaves were used in the process but tobacco has had
00:00:48.460 a powerful effect on the american ethos but also as it pertains to the church there are
00:00:55.680 theologians throughout church history who have used tobacco and even ministers. I think of Charles
00:01:01.640 Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon was known for keeping a very rigid schedule, a weekly planner, and even
00:01:08.180 in his weekly written schedule, he would write down on the Lord's Day, on Sunday, smoke a cigar
00:01:14.660 in the afternoon after the morning service to the glory of God. In fact, he was so notorious for
00:01:20.940 smoking cigars on the Lord's Day, immediately after the Sunday morning service, that there was
00:01:25.880 one instance, legend has it, where an elderly woman of his congregation came outside the church
00:01:32.800 building as the service was ending and met the minister, Charles Spurgeon, saw him smoking his
00:01:38.820 usual cigar. He would finish preaching, he would give the benediction, then he would quickly exit
00:01:43.500 the church building so that he could say goodbye and greet and say goodbye to each individual
00:01:49.620 parishioner as they were leaving the service and so he'd be standing outside smoking a cigar every
00:01:54.620 single sunday afternoon this elderly woman she passes by and sees him smoking his usual cigar
00:02:00.540 and says don't you think that this is a bit excessive and what she means of course is
00:02:06.060 implying you smoke a cigar every single sunday immediately after church and charles virgin
00:02:12.660 responded by simply saying no and then she said well then what would be excessive i mean how
00:02:19.460 much more would you have to smoke every time i see you as soon as the service is over you're
00:02:23.120 smoking a cigar what what would it take in your mind to be excessive and he simply responded by
00:02:29.740 saying if i was smoking two cigars so if he was double fisting a cigar in each hand then in the
00:02:36.160 mind of pastor spurgeon that would be excessive so the point still remains uh even for more modern
00:02:41.660 guys because i understand that some would push back and say well spurgeon wasn't aware of some
00:02:45.740 of the health concerns. And there's a truth to that. But R.C. Sproul was, and it did not stop
00:02:52.880 Pastor Sproul from enjoying his tobacco and nicotine from time to time. So there is a rich
00:02:59.660 legacy when it comes to nicotine and tobacco. And what we want to do in this episode is we want to
00:03:04.340 address an article that should be satire. But in looking into it, I am grieved to report to you
00:03:11.520 that this article is quite serious. They are not trying to be funny. It is funny, but they did not
00:03:18.240 intend to be funny. Christianity Today has just put out recently an article about Zen and how
00:03:25.020 terrible it is. And in typical gospel coalition Christianity Today fashion, of course, their big 0.65
00:03:31.820 concern is that nicotine could be an idol, as can everything, right? Don't get married because you
00:03:39.020 might idolize your wife. Don't have kids. You might idolize your children. You better not be
00:03:43.100 productive and work because you could idolize your job. You could be a workaholic. And so now
00:03:47.500 Zen nicotine pouches has been thrown on the chopping block. So I want to take just a quick
00:03:53.560 moment here. If we could pan out to the main frame, I think it's fitting right here from the
00:03:57.760 outset to go ahead and do a little promo for some nicotine. So you might see on the coffee table
00:04:03.860 here, I've got some Alp. There's a roll and a couple of cans of Alp. If you're watching the
00:04:08.700 video. We have a little lower third text here. You can save 10% on ALP. ALP is a nicotine patch.
00:04:16.460 And I am obligated, if I advertise this, to read the warning, which states as follows. This product
00:04:23.200 contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical, right? Insert meme. I was already sold.
00:04:30.220 You don't have to sell me on it. Yes, nicotine is addictive, and we're going to talk about that
00:04:35.380 in the episode, but there are actually a ton of health benefits about nicotine, and I think that
00:04:43.920 the Bible does actually not exactly explicitly deal with nicotine, but there are multiple
00:04:52.640 principles and virtues throughout the scripture that I think can help us form a Christian theology
00:04:59.600 and how we should think about nicotine. Is it permissible? Is it not permissible?
00:05:05.500 Spoiler alert, I absolutely think it's permissible, but just because something's
00:05:09.240 permissible doesn't mean that we necessarily do it. So we're going to make a case today,
00:05:14.020 both from scripture and from some of the health benefits and science for nicotine,
00:05:21.200 that it actually has a net positive good. There are some warnings that you should be aware of,
00:05:27.000 one of them I just read on the screen. But I think it's still important for us to address this topic
00:05:33.300 as especially young right wing and many of them Christian men are using nicotine. So we want to 1.00
00:05:39.600 address that. If you want to use the promo code and get 10% off of ALP, all you have to do is go
00:05:46.300 to the show notes, right? So if you're listening through a podcast or if you're on YouTube,
00:05:50.460 go to the show notes and you will find a link. If you follow that link, click on it, you'll be able
00:05:55.620 to get 10% off if you would like to try Alp. That's Tucker Carlson's brand of nicotine pouches,
00:06:01.820 and they're pretty good. I've used some myself. Last thing before we jump into the show for today,
00:06:08.360 this episode, per usual, is brought to you by our premier sponsors. That's Armored Republic
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00:06:26.320 Right Response Ministries. And if you'd like to make a donation today, you can do so by going to
00:06:32.180 rightresponseministries.com forward slash donate. Let's go ahead and dive in.
00:06:39.540 all right all right all right here we are happy friday happy friday okay uh so we're talking
00:06:53.460 about nicotine and tobacco and the two we're going to talk about them collectively but also
00:06:58.360 separately because it is possible to use nicotine without using tobacco um for the longest time
00:07:04.460 those two were usually kind of two peas in a pod, right? So whether you're chewing tobacco or
00:07:11.580 smoking tobacco, you're getting nicotine from the tobacco leaves. But now, in modern times,
00:07:18.080 it is quite possible to use nicotine without using tobacco. So whatever you might be afraid,
00:07:23.240 you know, whatever concerns you might have with tobacco being cancerous,
00:07:26.880 those can be avoided by using nicotine in isolation, whether it be through pouches or
00:07:32.620 those kinds of things and in regards to tobacco yes there can be cancerous effects as there are
00:07:38.960 cancerous effects with many things but in modern times i think it's important to note and we'll
00:07:45.860 talk about this in the episode that a lot of the harmful effects when it comes to modern cigarettes
00:07:51.380 is not the tobacco itself but actually all the additives and chemicals specifically the pesticides
00:07:58.000 so your crop if you're growing tobacco leaves you want to harvest tons and tons and tons of it
00:08:02.480 the best way to keep any type of rot from growing on it, the best way to keep bugs off it
00:08:06.180 is to douse it in pesticides. Now, it turns out those pesticides that kill other bacteria,
00:08:11.480 that kill other bugs, that's also not really good for human beings to somehow get into their lungs
00:08:16.300 or get into their bloodstream. So specifically, that avenue in particular, which is a more modern
00:08:21.580 one, this is the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s, that route in particular, that risk, that's what's
00:08:27.260 actually going to drive a good bit. I'm not a doctor, and I'm not going to say, oh, for sure,
00:08:31.260 that's the only risk whatsoever. But a good bit of that risk is going to just be driven by
00:08:35.700 consuming mass produced tobacco. Right. So second segment of the show today, we're going to try to
00:08:41.580 keep it. We're trying to stay closer to about an hour, hour, 15 minutes. So our second segment
00:08:45.680 here in just a few minutes, we'll start to address some of the benefits and some of the potential
00:08:52.400 pitfalls that you should be mindful of when it comes to tobacco and particularly nicotine.
00:08:56.700 but in this first segment what has brought us to the topic today is again we regret to inform you
00:09:03.640 that christianity uh they posted something um pretty much anytime they post something christianity
00:09:09.240 today um it's always uh it's always negative um and this has not broken that trend uh this is 0.59
00:09:17.340 another slop article that's um pretty pretty pathetic and so we're going to read a few quotes
00:09:23.580 and uh and engage uh wes or wes you want to read the first quote sure i'll start with it so we're 0.58
00:09:30.760 not going to read the whole article here you can go just literally search zin on christianity today
00:09:34.920 and you'll be able to find it we've pulled three kind of longer sections out of this to kind of
00:09:38.680 get a sense of how the author is talking but also to how he's trying to burden the consciences of
00:09:43.920 the readers so he says this he originally had started smoking i think vaping in high school and
00:09:48.800 then someone turned them on to zin as an alternative. So this is zin for anyone not
00:09:52.740 familiar. It's literally a pouch that's maybe the size of a fingernail, your thumb, and then you just
00:09:59.120 store it in your lip. And then the nicotine from the tobacco, or if there is any tobacco in it at
00:10:03.560 all, that simply gets into your bloodstream and then you experience the effects of nicotine. So
00:10:08.000 this is what he's talking about now. He talks about all the benefits. It's discreet. It's this.
00:10:12.060 And then he says this. And the buzz, of course. Oh, the buzz. Not harsh or overwhelming, but steady
00:10:18.040 and smooth zin didn't hit like a cigarette or haze my lungs like a vape it sharpened me just
00:10:23.380 enough to take the edge off for a few minutes i felt more capable i could do more and think faster
00:10:27.960 and feel better and stress less and sleep less and work longer and push harder and then suddenly i
00:10:33.360 realized i don't feel anything at all this tiny white rectangle was no longer a tool crutch shield
00:10:38.400 or coping mechanism it was a murderer that that even the way it's written it just drips of a
00:10:46.540 femininity i can't believe a man wrote this yeah it's hard to believe you would think a woman wrote
00:10:51.120 that yeah yeah we'll continue on here this is a little bit longer section this where he's kind
00:10:56.380 of applying it to gen z men in the church so he says it's not just me there are many gen z men
00:11:01.180 churches right now quietly dependent on nicotine pouches zen keeps them steady focused and 0.63
00:11:07.440 emotionally level so subtly that their use of it goes unchallenged this kind of self-medicated
00:11:12.820 serenity is especially tempting for men who are already taught to hide weakness and power
00:11:18.000 through pain that's that's good zinn presents itself as an emotional sponge soaking up just
00:11:23.560 enough stress and sadness to keep us composed driven and in control for young men chasing
00:11:28.420 achievement and terrified of vulnerability it makes it easier to quote man up bury your feelings
00:11:34.920 and push forward without ever confronting what's underneath i'm sold i'm sold but you're telling me
00:11:41.300 all of these things just get easier with this substance there's something super nefarious and 0.73
00:11:46.560 dangerous that's floating out there in the ether there's a bunch of young gen z men who have found 0.81
00:11:52.400 a substance that the bible doesn't forbid and that does not alter sober-mindedness and it's causing
00:11:59.160 them not to be emotional feminist i'm sorry what's the problem like what you're telling me this is an
00:12:05.320 issue it's causing them to be but you didn't hear the scary part yet they're actually working harder
00:12:10.740 and being productive and being less emotional next you're going to find out there's this bean
00:12:15.820 that god made and you take this bean and you grind it you can grind it up and put it in water
00:12:21.260 through it right it tastes good and it wakes you up in the morning yeah it wakes you up in the
00:12:25.640 morning it's enjoyable you find yourself being even more productive um there's a lot guys be
00:12:31.380 safe out there yeah right there's a lot of there's a lot of dangerous things out there i actually
00:12:36.120 find that like more than the conversation we're having about zen is like that that last quote in
00:12:41.540 particular was pretty revealing because that's really what it is about right as you look at it
00:12:45.780 it's it's talking about you know men who are taught to hide weakness and power through the pain like
00:12:50.240 that's really what these kind of people who are criticizing this kind of the use of nicotine for
00:12:55.480 example but many other things that's really what they're concerned about yeah it's some and it's
00:12:59.800 something that allows men encourages men to be men right um and and i just find it fascinating
00:13:05.380 that that it was that does that honestly like i mean we're being facetious but in all
00:13:09.940 truthfulness it does seem like that's kind of the subtle undercurrent it's like are we really
00:13:15.420 concerned uh that all these guys are addicted to something and that they're actually in sin or that
00:13:20.660 they've actually committed idolatry like they're worshiping you know a white rectangle more than
00:13:25.320 the triune god or uh have we noticed a pattern that young men are not going to the gospel
00:13:31.820 coalition conferences and they're not subscribing to christianity today and they're trending more
00:13:37.740 masculine and we know that this might be part of what's causing that and we're going to get into
00:13:44.180 that in the second segment but but nicotine actually does boost testosterone so i could see
00:13:49.880 why um i could see i could see why um this is a dumb analogy but uh i have kids all right so that
00:13:58.460 i didn't sit and watch this movie by myself but uh with with a couple of my older kids for for uh
00:14:03.820 fun we watched a boss baby have you guys ever seen boss baby yeah it's pretty funny it's pretty
00:14:09.620 funny so basically it's like you know all these babies are like corporate you know um workers and
00:14:14.820 so they're you know they're uh looking at spreadsheets and talking about business and
00:14:19.700 all this kind of stuff and it's baby corp is is what they work for and it's like you know
00:14:23.800 basically the consumption of like how many you know how many people worldwide and particularly
00:14:28.440 in america you know love babies is there is there a demand you know a uh is there a consumer base
00:14:34.280 for babies and so they're they're great you know arch nemesis is um is puppy co and so it's like
00:14:41.760 you know uh the the more the cuter the puppies are then it you know it hurts the bottom line
00:14:46.620 in the baby business because people opt for puppies instead of babies and honestly i i feel
00:14:53.180 like with you know organizations like the gospel coalition or christianity today in this case um
00:14:59.720 testosterone going up is not good for their bottom line it is not like i mean they they
00:15:07.320 birth control being flushed down the toilet in the water yeah i mean that's good for business if
00:15:12.260 you're uh russell moore you know your clothing made with artificial uh fabrics like polyester
00:15:17.340 yes i mean selling tickets right there any yes anything that's like they're like i'm surprised
00:15:23.000 haven't wrote you know written an article yet that's like actually you need even more seed oil
00:15:27.760 you know like i wouldn't be surprised if next week they're like you know a shake shack um is
00:15:33.520 idolizing beef tallow because they i mean really idolization of health yeah but because for them
00:15:40.780 yeah idolization of health because seriously like if um a lot of it there are spiritual root
00:15:47.120 spiritual issues sin sin is a real category but there are actually chemical and um and food
00:15:53.560 nutrition and health issues at play um that's part of the reason why testosterone i mean it
00:15:58.860 could be measured it has drastically gone down in the last couple of generations and if it hadn't
00:16:04.980 you you would you would not have christianity today you would not have the gospel coalition
00:16:09.960 their audience is women of both sexes and without having women of both because here's the problem 0.79
00:16:15.500 it's like well they'd still have you know the women who are actually biological women they'd
00:16:19.160 still be a part of their market share you know they wouldn't because um if testosterone boosted
00:16:24.380 and men um were were more um more driven and ambitious and uh then they one of the things
00:16:33.240 they'd be doing is not just being productive and and working but they'd also would be getting
00:16:37.400 married and and all these married men would be telling their wives yeah you you cannot go to
00:16:42.880 that gospel coalition conference right and you you need to unsubscribe from christianity today so
00:16:47.980 um i i see if you are christianity today why it would completely make sense to uh to view nicotine
00:16:55.600 as a threat i this feeds into a point that i think you want to make joel but um it's a it's
00:17:02.540 a very insidious kind of pietism that posits that every single good thing that there's always a risk
00:17:07.840 of overusing it like practically alcohol as an example the bible has a good amount of warnings
00:17:12.320 about alcohol because alcohol honestly like it's millions and millions of people have ruined their
00:17:17.780 lives through alcohol addiction that is not just we found someone somewhere and can you believe it
00:17:22.280 he was addicted to alcohol right the number of people that have ruined their lives over a caffeine
00:17:26.400 addiction now truly over literally just caffeine not maybe like pre-workout or other substances
00:17:31.260 is a tiny amount if practically anybody but just even comparing the two very popular substances
00:17:37.300 very commercialized. One has destroyed millions of lives. The other simply has not. They are not
00:17:42.320 equivalent. Same thing, it would be like marital relations with your spouse. Could it theoretically
00:17:47.320 be possible that a couple could idolize that and it turn into idolatry? Yes, that's possible.
00:17:54.120 Practically, Joel, in your years of pastoring, have you had dozens, 10, 5 couples coming in and
00:18:00.460 like, we are straight up idolizing the marriage bed. No, it's a good thing that God gave to enjoy.
00:18:05.880 And so when it comes to nicotine, we are talking about an addictive substance.
00:18:09.360 I have counseled several cases where people have neglected the marriage bed.
00:18:15.200 Like the problem of a married couple not having enough sex, that problem is prevalent.
00:18:22.420 But the problem of like, I'm sorry, it's been a month since we've been at church.
00:18:26.480 We just can't physically make it because we can't get out of the bedroom.
00:18:30.620 I've never had that problem.
00:18:31.880 That's never come in.
00:18:32.760 and the point being there are some things that just don't have not everything has the risk on
00:18:37.700 the other side of it the way things like alcohol do now sex certainly has women outside of marriage
00:18:42.300 but you come to something like this and it's just what makes a nicotine different than for example
00:18:46.700 heroin or caffeine or alcohol well for one it and you can talk about this joel it sharpens the mind
00:18:51.820 it doesn't dull you it doesn't it's not the the chemical word or the the terminology be intoxicating
00:18:57.440 right it doesn't have an effect like alcohol where you're out of it oh i can't drive a car if i've
00:19:02.040 head too much like weed where it puts you to sleep right the command exactly weed and alcohol
00:19:06.660 marijuana and alcohol are both downers they you know both of them uh they suppress the central
00:19:12.040 nervous system yes and they suppress your your inhibition um so so the things uh the part of you
00:19:18.920 and your mind uh that would keep you from making foolish decisions um is suppressed and dulled i've
00:19:26.300 heard it said like this maybe you guys are familiar with this saying um good times make weed boys
00:19:32.120 weed boys make hard times hard times create nicotine men and nicotine men create good times
00:19:39.760 have you ever heard that uh said that way right so yeah but it's pretty true that's for the
00:19:45.460 listener um the actual adage is that you know good times create soft men soft men make bad times bad
00:19:51.280 times create hard men and hard men create good times uh but honestly i think it's pretty fair
00:19:58.040 to say and even historically looking at our country um you had a time when uh tobacco
00:20:03.560 uh was raining and uh and there was a lot of productivity and then you have marijuana coming
00:20:13.080 in and tobacco is bad bad bad and now you kind of got bad times yeah i think there might be
00:20:21.780 something there uh in the chat nathan can you scroll up just a little bit uh there was someone
00:20:26.720 andy i think yeah right there go down yeah there it is so andy said the bible clearly says it's a
00:20:32.040 bold claim uh because the bible actually does not say this but he said the bible clearly says
00:20:37.320 to put no unclean thing in the body. Our bodies are temples which God has chosen to dwell in.
00:20:46.020 I'm preaching to myself too. I appreciate the humility right there at the end, preaching to
00:20:49.940 myself. You definitely need to add the humility piece, especially when you say the Bible clearly
00:20:54.140 says something that it does not say. So what the Bible actually says is precisely the opposite.
00:20:59.060 The Bible says it is not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles him, but what comes out of his
00:21:05.540 mouth, not speaking of his diet, but rather his speech. So it's actually not what goes into a
00:21:10.180 man's mouth. And this is Jesus himself saying this. It's not what goes into his mouth that
00:21:14.820 defiles him, but rather what comes out of a man's mouth, his speech that defiles him. And then the
00:21:20.000 parenthetical statement right there in the text next to it says, and thus he declared all things
00:21:25.220 clean. This is also similar to what we see in Acts chapter 10, as the Lord is speaking through
00:21:32.040 a vision to Peter right before commissioning him to go to the house of Cornelius, who was a Gentile,
00:21:39.020 to preach to him and his household the gospel. And what Peter sees in this vision is a sheet
00:21:45.040 from heaven being lowered down by its four corners with all kinds of different beasts of
00:21:50.520 the field and animals that were, according to the Jewish custom under the Old Covenant,
00:21:56.940 unlawful for him to eat and he hears a voice and it's very um it's very clear that this voice is
00:22:03.540 the voice of the lord corresponding with this this visual vision that he's having that says take and
00:22:09.380 eat or kill and eat and peter responds and says uh surely not no um for i i i've never defiled
00:22:17.620 myself or eaten that which is unclean and uh and it happens over and over again and then finally
00:22:23.300 do not call unclean what I, the Lord, hath made clean. So I think what Andy is probably thinking
00:22:30.220 of would be 1 Corinthians 6, would be the closest that the Bible gets to, but it does not clearly
00:22:34.540 say what Andy said. 1 Corinthians 6 does, however, it does say that your body is a temple of the
00:22:41.760 Holy Spirit, whom you have received from God. You are not your own, therefore. You were bought with
00:22:46.880 price therefore honor um honor uh uh honor god by um by i think by being good stewards of your body
00:22:57.520 i'd have to i'd have to look at it i think it's first corinthians chapter 6 verse 12 is where it
00:23:02.340 picks up let me i've got a bible in front of me might as well grab it trying to look for it too
00:23:06.680 here we go we'll find it first corinthians chapter 6 well he says this i'll follow it up while you
00:23:11.600 find that piece later on in the chapter and remember the context of first corinthians 6
00:23:15.800 is sexual immorality, which is a different category of sin than every other sin.
00:23:19.760 Alcohol addiction is not a sin against the body the way sexual immorality is.
00:23:23.980 But 1 Corinthians 6, 12,
00:23:25.560 All things are lawful for me, reading the New King James,
00:23:28.380 but all things are not helpful.
00:23:29.900 All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought into the power of any.
00:23:33.000 Foods for the stomach, and the stomach for food,
00:23:35.300 but God will destroy both it and them.
00:23:37.000 Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord,
00:23:39.880 and the Lord for the body.
00:23:40.940 And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
00:23:45.500 Right.
00:23:45.800 yep um you were bought a price therefore glorify god in your body and in your spirit which are
00:23:51.060 gods you were bought with a price therefore glorify god with your body so yeah so this
00:23:54.840 is first corinthians chapter six starting uh with verse 12 and going through verse 20 wes is right
00:23:59.580 um but what i did want to point out right there in verse 12 all things are lawful unto me but
00:24:04.220 all things are not expedient um other translations say beneficial so all things are permissible
00:24:10.300 but not beneficial necessarily i'm reading from the the king jimmy then it says all things are
00:24:17.080 lawful for me again permissible morally permissible but i will not be brought under the power of any
00:24:24.460 other translations say i will not be enslaved to any or i i believe um the esv might use uh the
00:24:30.880 term mastered by any and so that's the only thing biblically speaking because i've i've thought
00:24:36.000 about this because I use nicotine from time to time, and I'm a Christian man first and foremost,
00:24:42.860 but secondarily, I'm also a local pastor, and I want to be above reproach, and I want to be
00:24:48.720 biblically qualified. I want to honor the Lord, and so I don't want to be sinning, a breach of
00:24:53.900 any clear commandment in Scripture. And the only thing, and I've done a fairly deep theological
00:24:59.280 study on, you know, the Bible's principles, how it would apply to the modern use of nicotine. The
00:25:04.660 only um forbearance that the bible would even have and it's a it's a possible forbearance it
00:25:11.240 depends on the manner of use and the frequency of use um but the only possible forbearance that
00:25:18.000 the bible offers is being mastered by something so the addictive nature of nicotine um that can
00:25:26.520 not not by necessity it doesn't necessarily create a problem but it creates the potential
00:25:31.780 for you to actually be in sin. If you've gotten to the point, and that goes for anything for that
00:25:36.900 matter, that would go with caffeine. Like if you're at the point where if you can't get a cup
00:25:42.040 of coffee, you know, you ran out of coffee, you forgot to buy some more at the store and you find
00:25:47.360 yourself, you know, unable to get out of bed, or you find yourself not just a little, you know,
00:25:52.980 on edge, but you find yourself with such a loss of control that you're viscerally angry
00:26:01.660 and and shouting at your children or your wife um then yeah that's that's a problem uh but you can
00:26:08.580 be mastered by food in that way right in such cases like hangry anybody ever heard i mean it's
00:26:14.100 kind of a dumb word um you know but but it you know i've heard it before you know or like the
00:26:19.420 the commercials like hungry grab a snickers you know and the whole commercial is like some guy 0.96
00:26:23.780 you know raging because he hasn't had his you know his his mid-afternoon snack you know and he
00:26:29.120 and without satiating his physical hunger he cannot control his emotions right so you can
00:26:36.760 you can be mastered by food and yet food is a need so i understand food is different than caffeine
00:26:42.460 and different than nicotine because if you never use nicotine your entire life here's the good
00:26:47.520 news um you'll be all right you won't die if you stop eating food from this point on for the rest
00:26:53.960 of your life you will die right you'll be okay for about five days and then yeah you'd be okay
00:26:58.760 for a little bit. But so I do want to make that categorical distinction, to be fair. Food, I'm
00:27:05.700 not saying that it's in the same category as caffeine or nicotine, because it's not. Food
00:27:10.640 actually is a necessity. But here's the point. You have to eat, but you don't have to be mastered
00:27:16.060 by food. A godly, self-controlled man should be able to miss a meal without lashing out at his
00:27:25.040 family right you should be able to miss a meal um without you know i mean that's and and there is a
00:27:31.000 biblical principle of intentionally missing meals first and foremost to spend time with the lord so
00:27:37.480 fasting and prayer but also part of that is it there's there's a message that's being conveyed
00:27:43.400 part of what we're saying when we fast and pray is we're we're saying um to the lord it's not just
00:27:49.500 like, man, the amount of time that it takes me to eat, I've got to miss this meal so that I have 15
00:27:56.720 extra minutes to pray. You could probably find that you could go to bed 15 minutes later, right?
00:28:00.720 You can make up that time. If it was just creating room for prayer, you can make up the time somewhere
00:28:06.060 else. But there's something significant with giving up food, because what you're saying is
00:28:10.940 you're not just creating extra time for the activity of prayer, the discipline of prayer,
00:28:15.320 but you're also conveying something you're saying that man does not live by bread alone that
00:28:20.160 ultimately the lord is my true nourishment that he is um he's my portion right he's the strength
00:28:27.000 of my heart it is the lord that sustains me um you know man's not sustained by bread alone but
00:28:32.420 every word that comes uh proceeds from the mouth of the lord and so my point is that every christian
00:28:37.600 man should be able to fast it's a spiritual discipline you should be able to fast and what
00:28:43.440 that implies and includes is that you're not mastered by food. And we all know that it is
00:28:52.000 entirely possible to be mastered by food. So 1 Corinthians 6, verse 12, I think is one of the
00:28:58.500 only texts that would even give a yellow flag, a potential warning towards nicotine. It's not
00:29:07.980 because nicotine is going to make you fat. Well, actually, it will, if anything, suppress appetite
00:29:13.040 and you'll lose some weight. It's not that nicotine, like alcohol, will cause you to lose
00:29:17.960 sobriety. Well, actually, it sharpens your attention, your focus, and you'll get more done.
00:29:22.840 It's not that nicotine will cause you to be lazy, like marijuana, and just want to eat a whole
00:29:28.840 pizza. Nope, it actually causes you to narrow and focus in and be more productive. So it's like,
00:29:34.760 oh my gosh, are there any negatives? There are a ton of positives, but surely it would at least
00:29:41.760 make me a little bit more effeminate actually it raises your testosterone i mean at every single
00:29:46.300 level nicotine is an incredible it's an incredible substance um and who made it that way like god did
00:29:52.560 not wake up and be like oh my goodness i did not realize in this plant it affected these different
00:29:57.580 receptors all across the body that stimulated the central nervous system right oh i designed it that
00:30:02.420 way right exactly so the many many many positive effects of nicotine um however the only negative
00:30:10.000 of potential pitfall is that you can become addicted to the point where you are dependent
00:30:18.080 on nicotine, where you are unable to go without it, without, you know, being enraged, without
00:30:25.380 losing self-control, where it's very clear that you have become mastered by it. So all that back
00:30:31.040 to Andy's comment when he said the Bible clearly says to, you know, I forget exactly how he wrote
00:30:37.300 Nate, scroll up one more time. Put no unclean thing into your body. Put no unclean thing into
00:30:41.680 your mouth. The Bible clearly says put no unclean thing in the body. Our bodies are temples which
00:30:49.040 God has chose to dwell in. So the Bible does say that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit,
00:30:53.800 yes, but Jesus actually says the opposite in terms of unclean thing into your mouth. He actually
00:30:58.640 says it is not what goes into a mouth that defiles him, but rather what comes out of a man's mouth.
00:31:03.840 his speech is what the Lord is concerned about. And thus he declared all things clean, all things
00:31:09.760 clean. So the Bible does not say that part, but the Bible does say that our body is a temple of
00:31:14.300 the Holy Spirit. And in that same text where the Bible says that, namely first Corinthians chapter
00:31:18.500 six, and now looking at verse 12, the Bible tells us that all things are lawful or permissible,
00:31:24.600 morally permissible, but we should not be mastered by anything. And because nicotine is, it does have
00:31:30.580 the potential to be addictive. It therefore does have the potential to chemically bind a man,
00:31:36.880 enslave a man to where he is mastered. And so does caffeine for that matter. Nicotine is more
00:31:42.020 addictive than caffeine. I don't want to say that they're equal, but there are many things that you
00:31:46.240 can be mastered by. And nicotine is one that has the potential to master you. And so you need to
00:31:51.400 be aware of that. Other than that, I'm unaware of any biblical argument against it other than
00:31:57.380 school marms just you know repeating propaganda from a bunch of different corporations and a
00:32:04.700 government that for the last 50 years has tried to emasculate men yeah that's i like how someone
00:32:11.140 said it in the comments because it's a good example joseph said uh if you could scroll up a
00:32:15.240 little bit nate said i used to be addicted to nicotine it was a bad addiction i needed it to
00:32:19.780 function would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night for it would sneak dip in class having
00:32:24.600 to swallow it when the teacher called him yeah that's too much too much got addicted need to
00:32:30.100 cut down a bit yeah like that that category does exist yes but practically that's not 95 percent
00:32:34.560 of people right antonio any thoughts no no i i like the way you framed it because like that
00:32:39.240 going back to the article that gets to the heart of the matter which is um there is the christian
00:32:44.620 is expected to exercise discretion and and discernment with respect to these things like
00:32:50.740 i was just thinking a thought popped in my head as you were framing it like courage um is
00:32:55.380 demonstrated in the presence of fear self-control is demonstrated in the presence of deprivation
00:33:00.780 yeah and so it's actually not the thing itself it's not nicotine itself or the absence of nicotine
00:33:06.640 that that is the problem it's your lack of self-control nicotine has revealed that and so
00:33:11.800 a discerning thing to do would would be to say i ought not use this thing when i can't exercise
00:33:18.540 that control right well i mean and i'll just i'll just say that in the sort of in contrast with what
00:33:26.420 the article is saying which is i couldn't exercise that self-control and so no one should use this
00:33:33.640 thing right right yeah that's a great great we can end this first segment with this quote from
00:33:39.580 this article listen to how he pretty much ends it if the church wants to disciple my generation
00:33:44.760 this is a young man gen z it can't ignore this this being nicotine pouches many gen z men like
00:33:51.220 me the biggest obstacle listen to this the biggest obstacle can i keep a straight face
00:33:56.000 i don't think i can that's funny the biggest obstacle the wholehearted devotion to jesus
00:34:00.660 isn't on their phones or at their schools it's in their gums right yeah so it's yeah it's not
00:34:05.900 only fans it's not pornography on their phones this is which is written in the bible about
00:34:10.420 many times yeah so yeah the things that actually are clear in scripture uh like avoiding sexual
00:34:15.800 immorality that's not actually the biggest enemy of young men today guys uh if you thought that
00:34:20.560 pornography was a problem you'd be wrong uh that's a minor problem the real problem is uh is knick
00:34:26.880 knacks uh the real problem is zen and that's the biggest obstacle to wholehearted devotion to 0.53
00:34:33.000 jesus the biggest obstacle for gen z is uh is nicotine no that is not the biggest obstacle
00:34:39.940 Not even close.
00:34:40.820 Let's go to our first commercial break, and we'll be right back. 0.94
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00:37:42.420 All right, real quick, I got to say this.
00:37:44.340 somebody in the comments uh is and i you know you gotta he's probably nicotine maxing right now
00:37:50.140 because you gotta appreciate the drive the ambition the persistence right just the sheer
00:37:54.640 diligence uh he is in the comments his name is paul baker and we appreciate you paul thanks for um
00:38:00.680 for piping in um kind of like the persistent you know uh old widow you know just 10 times knocking
00:38:06.300 at the unrighteous judge is finally like yeah he's yeah so i mean every few comments he's right in
00:38:11.900 there um now here's the unfortunate uh thing and this is why i'm going to hand it over to west in
00:38:15.980 just a moment as soon as i make my joke uh but um i can't pronounce the word that he's even using so
00:38:21.120 pyrazines pyrazines pyrazines nailed it first try um so he keeps saying uh pyrazines are the
00:38:27.680 addictive uh element uh but not nicotine itself um but i'm pretty sure that nicotine itself is
00:38:36.240 addictive and again we're not saying therefore don't do it we're just saying you know proceed
00:38:39.600 with caution um but i'm pretty sure uh nicotine itself in and of itself is addictive and the
00:38:45.760 reason why i know is because uh because wes is absolutely addicted wait a minute um to you wes
00:38:54.300 yep so pyro cnc is completely correct these are additives to cigarettes and typically cigars it's
00:38:59.320 an organic compound has some additives some flavor that it helps with especially when you're burning
00:39:03.980 it and so he's kind of making the argument that the nicotine in and of itself people could take
00:39:07.740 it or leave it, but it's really this kind of flavor additive in there that really is getting
00:39:11.120 people hooked on it. The reason I, at least in a limited, what I know of nicotine, that really
00:39:16.520 doesn't hold up. You have a lot of studies with rats where they'll add nicotine to water, for
00:39:19.900 example. Pure nicotine. Pure nicotine. You're not adding pyrazine into that. Rats will self-administer
00:39:24.580 to the point of absurdity. They will get addicted to it. Just water with nicotine. You also, in 0.94
00:39:30.900 pouches, those also don't have the pyrazines added either. So a pure pouch like Alp that isn't a
00:39:35.540 tobacco leaf ground up like dip or something like that that's also not going to have pyrazines and
00:39:39.480 there are many individuals like the individual in this article who have said i use pouches 24 7
00:39:44.400 and i am addicted and all that's to say is nicotine has a positive effect it makes you sharper it makes
00:39:49.020 you focused it suppresses appetite like it's it boost testosterone it's normal it's expected that
00:39:54.280 people would continue to use something real quick i got an important question um what can i get this
00:40:00.220 nicotine water from i saw the other day for a friend yeah nicotine water nicotine water
00:40:07.180 no um so i don't i don't see any scientific basis that the only addicting thing about nicotine is
00:40:15.640 these pyrazine additives that they've added to it they are certainly there in cigarettes and
00:40:19.360 cigars he's not completely off base but they're just not in every form and people and rats and
00:40:23.360 animals they all still get addicted to it i want to bring some of the science in because we've
00:40:26.820 talked about the testosterone piece and we even talked about this is really interesting about it
00:40:30.740 the list keeps growing anti-parasitic and anti-viral a lot of studies which seem to suggest
00:40:36.600 that nick uh nicotine and tobacco leaves nicotine obviously being most of the active ingredient in
00:40:42.060 tobacco has a very positive effect as far as warding off uh ticks is one example birds very
00:40:48.460 interestingly in the city they'll sometimes line their nests and then when they've gone and studied
00:40:52.580 those nests when they've lined them with cigarette butts they'll go and they'll look at them and
00:40:55.860 they'll say yeah there's actually less activity of typical worms parasites sea elegans that find
00:41:00.920 their ways into birds nests and so we see in nature a lot of animals they kind of recognize
00:41:04.820 like hey whether it's leftover from humans whether it's tobacco just on its own this has an
00:41:09.300 antiviral property that helps protect me let's go to the scientific literature and this is kind of
00:41:14.460 crazy i will say there have been times i have five children one in glory six but five you know with
00:41:19.840 us and um there have been times the entire webbing household is just down for the count with sickness
00:41:26.120 all five kids and mom and i am by the grace of god i'm able to serve everybody i'm taking care
00:41:32.040 of mom i'm taking care of the kids and this has happened a few times and my wife would be like
00:41:35.700 how are you not sick and i'll look her in the eyes and i'll say nicotine you have not missed
00:41:41.940 a day of recording never in a year and a half never i've never missed a sunday nope never and
00:41:47.380 i almost never get sick either it's like oh that's case study too but that's that prosperity
00:41:52.180 gospel preaching uh no no no no it's nicotine yep yep yep um check out this study so this was
00:41:58.660 very interesting during covid which was a respiratory illness of the lungs spread virally
00:42:04.180 this is a study from 2024 a huge study in south korea i think it was 12 000 individuals
00:42:09.920 the relative risks so this is comparing two groups and their relative risk relative to each other
00:42:14.320 The relative risks, 95% confidence intervals for COVID-19 related hospitalization were lower among current smokers, 0.51.
00:42:24.500 That's almost a 50% reduction, half as likely.
00:42:28.200 So current smokers were half as likely and current users of any tobacco product relative to never users.
00:42:35.400 So users of any forms of tobacco were half as likely to be hospitalized for COVID.
00:42:41.140 and again just for the listener for the record uh we're not saying so you know go and buy a pack
00:42:46.880 of paul malls and uh start smoking smoking behind the mall paul malls now these days because of all
00:42:52.600 the tobacco tax which i think is a lot of that is propaganda to stop um americans from doing
00:42:58.640 something that uh would cause it like like why does the government want um want states like
00:43:04.460 Colorado to have weed dispensaries everywhere because it makes the populace more docile they're 0.60
00:43:11.680 easier to govern there's actually a reason for that it's much easier to pull the wool over a
00:43:17.860 bunch of you know people who are stoned out of their minds and and I actually think there is
00:43:23.000 kind of an effort and has been for decades to to take away some of the drive and some of the
00:43:29.780 ambition, particularly from men, and kind of lower testosterone and masculinity and those kinds of
00:43:35.340 things by demonizing tobacco. Now, that said, modern cigarette companies put a lot of chemicals
00:43:44.260 and pesticides and additives into their cigarettes, and those are not good for you. So if it's like
00:43:50.020 a viral disease like COVID, then yeah, smoking cigarettes may stop you from getting COVID.
00:43:56.860 um but over the long haul you'll get something else from the cigarettes and so we're not saying
00:44:02.840 you know everybody should go out and buy you know a carton of cigarettes and start chain smoking
00:44:07.420 but we are saying that there are wise and prudent ways of using nicotine that uh that doesn't have
00:44:13.420 the additives and also doesn't involve inhaling smoke into your lungs even if you're not using
00:44:18.440 tobacco if you um if you for instance like if you know back in the day if you were a blacksmith and
00:44:24.140 you were constantly over a fire right like um a lot of times guys like that would eventually you
00:44:29.880 know they'd have a shorter lifespan they would get certain you know diseases related to inhaling
00:44:34.680 smoke you know 12 hours a day or somebody working in a coal mine or something like that so uh
00:44:40.400 inhaling that's a different calculus right and then inhaling not just nicotine or tobacco but
00:44:46.300 but additives and chemicals well now that's certainly a different uh calculus but if it's
00:44:51.460 not inhaling the smoke and especially not inhaling regularly it's different smoking a cigar once in
00:44:56.500 a while with your friends but if it's not inhaling smoke and also it doesn't have all these chemicals
00:45:02.080 and additives and pesticides uh then really all you're talking about from a christian perspective
00:45:06.820 at that point is like everything else do not be mastered by it and we are admitting that nicotine
00:45:13.140 is more addictive than uh cheetos you know and on the inhalation piece like it is carcinogenic like
00:45:20.260 i'll just i'll be right up front compared to for example like dip or something like that a nicotine
00:45:25.080 pouch by with cigarettes where you specifically inhale the ash and the byproducts of the flame
00:45:30.700 that you're bringing in they're not great for your lungs yeah nicotine is good the ash is not
00:45:34.880 great like i'm not going to sit here and bs you like no probably not the best thing in the world
00:45:38.500 all things all else being equal but it's also not the worst thing in the world yeah okay back to you
00:45:44.580 all right so this was another study uh this is another one from 2024 our study suggests this is
00:45:50.120 a conclusion from the results and this is incredible because i mean like the public
00:45:55.220 health was they were basically saying like oh man smokers you're at huge risk the evidence this is
00:46:00.080 another one our study suggests a potential association between smoking and a reduced risk
00:46:04.700 of SARS-CoV-2 infection and pneumonia this indicates that nicotine and ACE2 it's a receptor
00:46:09.500 in the lungs play important roles in preventing COVID-19 and its progression. I'll even highlight
00:46:15.160 one comment we have here because I've seen research on it. If you scroll up just a little
00:46:18.520 bit, Nate, from MB East, I think it's a woman. And she said, my husband, hope it's a woman.
00:46:23.880 My husband uses it for a protocol against his brain cancer stage four. I've heard doctors say 0.91
00:46:29.940 we think it has some anti-carcinogenic cancer properties to it as well. That is not proven
00:46:35.060 in the literature now again the literature is five to ten years behind what people already knew
00:46:39.760 for the first time right like oh the science says eggs are bad like 20 years later it turns out they
00:46:44.020 weren't and people who were smart knew that 20 years ago right so i will say it's not born out
00:46:48.560 in the literature however i've heard doctors real doctors say i'm wearing a nicotine patch for the
00:46:52.860 rest of my life because i want to be healthy and so nicotine patch if you can't tolerate the pouches
00:46:57.000 you don't want to do the smoking that is another way to potentially get it if you think that's the
00:47:00.820 right choice for you they've demonstrated i think there are some studies coming out about
00:47:04.840 alzheimer's and parkinson's and nicotine's ability to abate uh the risk for those things so um so
00:47:11.940 there is something there is more to it i think even than than what we've been talking about like
00:47:17.340 testosterone for example i think general health and obviously you can supplement the thing these
00:47:21.140 things and you should and we're not saying you shouldn't with metabolic health exercising
00:47:25.360 regularly eating properly like all of these things are playing into it in fact as we like look at
00:47:29.920 some of these studies i'm sure that that's a large uh variable is people who are smoking tend to have
00:47:36.700 a particular lifestyle that is that subjects them to less risk for example we've talked about
00:47:41.280 appetite suppression so they're more like they're less likely to be overweight we know that that
00:47:45.820 covid19 was um incredibly deadly for those who were morbidly obese so yep yep and none of these
00:47:52.400 paul baker real quick he piped back in and he said thanks for bringing up the clinical research guys
00:47:57.080 you're welcome paul thanks for well here's the most for i have the best one yet comedy best
00:48:01.200 clinical research save it for the end all right so this is a meta-analysis a meta-analysis is not
00:48:05.500 a single study but it takes all the studies that have methods that are similar enough
00:48:08.940 and it pulls them together to get an analysis so in 22 studies this is a meta-analysis from 2016
00:48:15.160 of 13 317 men mean age aged 18 to 61 years old so 13 000 men of prime of their life smokers had
00:48:25.820 higher mean testosterone than non-smokers by 1.4 uh moles nanomoles a liter 95 confidence in full
00:48:34.440 1.11 to 1.96 which is actually pretty meaningful 1.11 to 1.96 so you actually you have to do some
00:48:43.200 like conversion with that to actually convert it to the nanograms so the typical testosterone
00:48:47.480 measurement is nanograms per liter or per deciliter i think it actually is average ranges in the past
00:48:54.140 six seven eight hundred most men on average today two three four hundred and so you're talking about
00:49:00.440 right there with your conversion potentially up to about 100 to 200 nanograms a deciliter
00:49:06.320 difference in testosterone which could be 10 20 percent higher i will caveat and say here is the
00:49:12.640 difficulty with parsing out this data are these the bad boys that already are higher testosterone
00:49:18.520 It's a higher testosterone man, just more attracted to nicotine.
00:49:22.920 Are they more likely to engage in high-risk behavior?
00:49:25.500 That's possible.
00:49:26.380 But again, we're talking about 22 studies, 13,000 men,
00:49:29.920 and even if it is that, fake it until you make it.
00:49:32.940 But practically, the clinical research, it does bear out.
00:49:35.740 This is a random effects model, inverse variance, weighting.
00:49:38.340 I've looked at the methods.
00:49:39.420 It all looks good.
00:49:40.480 Like, we can definitely say, on average,
00:49:42.620 men that smoke have higher average testosterone than those who ever have.
00:49:45.720 I mean, in both cases, it's pretty significant
00:49:47.660 because what we're essentially saying is this it's either you don't use nicotine and you might
00:49:53.660 actually cause lower testosterone in yourself or if you don't use nicotine and as this research
00:50:00.120 becomes more mainstream people will think that you have less testosterone so in either case
00:50:05.420 you need to be nicotine maxing all right yep and all that all that being said like i'll just say
00:50:12.400 practically i don't really use pouches i don't feel great it's very easy for me to leave it in
00:50:16.380 too long. And then I just, I get lightheaded. Every single person is going to have to make a
00:50:20.760 calculus. There's some risk to this. There's some downside to this, or I do enjoy it. And so what
00:50:25.360 we're saying is that when you do that calculus, the biggest thing in your mind does not have to
00:50:29.060 be as Christianity today, try to burden your conscience and tell you, well, what if I get
00:50:33.400 addicted? What if I'm addicted? What if I'm dependent on this? Sure. That maybe happens.
00:50:37.340 We had someone say like, I was waking up in the middle of the night to get a dip in, you know,
00:50:41.540 grab a quick smoke outside yeah that's too much to be honest i don't know if i've met
00:50:46.600 more than five people in my life or you just have to go to sleep with the dip already
00:50:51.140 the other day it's like me going me going to sleep knowing i get to wake up and pop another
00:50:58.060 it's like a kid giggling in his bed yeah so practically speaking it's just it's a different
00:51:06.320 calculus like people have to understand it's very easy in our egalitarian time to say well
00:51:10.120 there's caffeine there's alcohol there's nicotine you know they're all fun all enjoyable but really
00:51:15.620 the christians shouldn't be mastered by anything used sparingly and just practically they are
00:51:19.640 different caffeine doesn't have these effects alcohol has way more downsides you just can't
00:51:24.620 take that away every single one we've been reading proverbs in family worship and man does solomon
00:51:30.080 over and over stress not individual hard rigid fast rules but wisdom and understanding right
00:51:36.320 this works for me this doesn't he would much rather his son as he's instructing him
00:51:40.560 much rather him be wise be instructed be contemplative he'd much rather that than
00:51:47.480 sit there in proverb and say i'm going to lay down a list to you of all the streets in jerusalem
00:51:51.460 that you shouldn't go on because a wicked woman could be there right he always prefers to defer
00:51:55.280 to here's the wisdom you should inculcate yeah exactly um real quick nathan go ahead and pull
00:52:00.620 up the lower third one more time i want to promo again and i also want to give a little future
00:52:05.420 direction for the listener so uh right now um we are advertising on this episode alp and basically
00:52:12.420 this is how it works if uh if you use the link that is in the show notes below that they just
00:52:18.100 copy when they check out well i in the show notes we added a link so you just you click on the link
00:52:22.720 and uh and you're good to go oh it's a code i'm sorry okay so in the show notes there is a code
00:52:28.760 then you would go to their website, which is alppouches, Nate, .com?
00:52:35.220 Alp Pouch.
00:52:36.340 It's all in the show notes.
00:52:38.080 Great.
00:52:38.520 So there's a link to their main website in the show notes,
00:52:41.460 but the website is alppouch.com.
00:52:44.900 And then also in the show notes, you'll find a promo code.
00:52:47.380 If you use that, you'll get 10% off of your purchase,
00:52:51.180 and also Right Responsive Ministries will get 10% as well.
00:52:54.380 So you're helping us out.
00:52:55.380 You're helping yourself out.
00:52:56.400 There's no reason not to do it.
00:52:57.540 You save 10%.
00:52:58.540 we get uh an additional 10 that said um i do agree with christianity today at least on one
00:53:06.700 one issue uh they made it about zen and i i thought of the meme was like you know uh you
00:53:13.120 don't do zen because you know you're a part of christianity today and wrestle you know friends
00:53:18.100 with russell moore i don't do zen because it's a liberal left-leaning company that gives to act
00:53:23.700 blue and supports uh a bunch of terrible things like abortion um so nobody actually should be
00:53:29.800 using zen i just want to make that abundantly clear tucker carlson you know alp is his his 0.56
00:53:34.700 pouch of choice it's uh it's what you know what he uh promotes on his show and he was a um a zen
00:53:41.660 aficionado i mean the guy was you know zen maxing um delivery trucks pulling in the other ones
00:53:47.700 pulling out all the time i mean you still see him like on this show like as you know as he's you
00:53:52.360 know podcasting he'll be popping them in but he stopped doing his end when he found out that
00:53:56.600 zen is just a terrible progressive liberal company that supports all these terrible progressive
00:54:01.560 liberal um values and so uh don't don't do zen um alp is much better that said i will i will mention
00:54:09.300 not trying to disparage tucker carlson or alp uh the one thing that i don't like about alp is that
00:54:15.500 it is made in india so it is not an american made product and we want to be america first
00:54:20.960 I'm aware of a few but there's one major name that is continuing to kind of rise you know to
00:54:28.220 the the cream of the crop I've used it it's a great product it's called knickknacks okay so
00:54:35.360 knickknacks are American made it seems as though the company from the little bit of research I've
00:54:41.520 done I don't know if they're expressly Christian but they definitely seem like they are politically
00:54:46.840 and culturally right wing um so it seems like a right wing company and uh and they make their
00:54:51.960 product here in america uh and instead of pouches they're um they're dissolvable tablets and so you
00:54:59.880 you put in like a hard uh tablet kind of like almost um pez you remember pez the little candies
00:55:07.300 you know you're pushing like your little mickey mouse or whatever like an altoid it's like it yeah
00:55:11.900 or an altoid it's like a mint exactly except it's it's a little bit larger rectangle it's flat
00:55:16.820 and so it's it's comfortable um and it just dissolves in your mouth so there's nothing
00:55:20.940 there's not even you know a pouch to spit out when you're done and it lasts probably 20 minutes
00:55:25.000 before it dissolves but uh they they you know tucker carlson is right wing uh knickknacks also
00:55:30.180 seems right wing but also made in america and what we'll probably do um is because i think it's a
00:55:36.240 worthy topic we're not going to you know do it once a week but probably you know in the next few
00:55:40.360 months or so we'll probably hit the topic one more time for guys who didn't tune in today um
00:55:45.100 you know what what what is a christian you know view towards uh the consumption of nicotine and
00:55:51.040 the wise prudent use of nicotine so we'll probably do this topic again in the future and hopefully
00:55:56.620 by then one of the things that we'll try to to iron out is um an affiliate deal with knickknacks
00:56:03.000 so we'll be able to offer um a promo code for knickknacks so knickknacks because here's the
00:56:07.600 only thing so they're american made they're right wing but they are a little pricey they cost like
00:56:11.800 a little bit more uh alp is is significantly cheaper um so like zen uh for instance is 15
00:56:19.100 pouches inside of a can um and it's maybe seven bucks depending what state you live in and what
00:56:25.220 the taxes are if you go to you know the corner store um alp is closer to six bucks a can so it's
00:56:30.440 like a dollar cheaper and then today again you can get 10 further off get it close to five bucks a
00:56:35.940 can and it's 20 pouches instead of 15 so when you factor in you know the amount of pouches
00:56:41.420 you got a you know a 33 increase in the number of pouches and a dollar off plus 10 if you use
00:56:48.420 our promo code today which is in the show notes um you're looking at like two-thirds the price
00:56:54.100 and a third more of the pouches so again um christianity today and joel webin boom we are
00:57:02.560 united uh do not use in yeah we are united for very different reasons but uh united nonetheless
00:57:10.080 less yeah yeah just practically if you're listening to this you're like i want to start it where do i
00:57:13.800 start i want to try and use it you can always you can always uh add more but once you have nicotine
00:57:19.380 in your system if you start feeling sick it's impossible to take it out just has to get out
00:57:23.120 of your system so i would say start low if you're a bigger dude if you're 220 pounds you're probably
00:57:27.620 going to be able to tolerate more than someone who's starting at 170 i would recommend everyone
00:57:31.820 i think alp starts at three milligrams three milligrams a great place to start don't start
00:57:36.080 with nine milligrams nope don't lock in three of them and just be like i'm taking off you will take
00:57:40.800 officer to the bathroom to throw up uh yeah so start low uh you can also pop it out throw it in
00:57:45.520 for 10 minutes see if you're feeling a buzz take it out um don't be start small and uh and that's
00:57:50.720 gonna be your best way to not overdo it and actually get the benefit so say like i'm gonna
00:57:54.480 sit down and write at 2 p.m 1 31 i'm gonna pop one of these in i'm gonna leave it in for 10 minutes
00:57:59.340 i'm gonna see how i feel with writing and a lot of people they just some of them respond differently
00:58:03.420 some of them take it and they're like i love it some take it they didn't feel great some take it
00:58:07.980 and feel nothing in terms of not being mastered by anything like you know here's your sign right
00:58:12.420 like if you if you're starting today you've never used nicotine once in your life and you start with
00:58:16.580 three milligrams one pouch right so you're at three milligrams and by the end of the month you
00:58:21.640 find yourself you know uh buying the nine milligrams and and doing an upper and a lower you
00:58:26.280 know so you're like i graduated from three to 18 in 30 days yeah then okay like you know it may
00:58:33.060 maybe time to take a week off you know but even there some people just have a high genetic
00:58:37.140 tolerance you're 250 pounds high genetic tolerance that would be addicting for someone else right that
00:58:41.960 has lower tolerance but you're gonna have to search your conscience and say lord i'm not
00:58:46.120 idolizing this i'm using it to be productive it's a good thing that's the one i'll turn it to you
00:58:50.460 but that's the one last i it just it came to me about 10 minutes ago in the conversation so i'm
00:58:55.560 glad you mentioned it the only other scriptural uh potential forbearance um so we said not being
00:59:00.540 mastered by anything and the addictive nature um and so you know being on check uh with that and
00:59:05.900 having some accountability uh which you know again you can be mastered by food you can be mastered by
00:59:10.700 sleep you could you know like you can be mastered by a lot of things so that's not that doesn't you
00:59:15.340 know take it you know off the table entirely it just means you need prudence and wisdom and
00:59:19.220 self-control uh the only other scriptural potential forbearance that i could think of
00:59:23.140 is romans chapter 14 where it says anything not done in faith where anything that does not proceed
00:59:27.980 from faith is sin. So there actually are things that categorically in the objective theological
00:59:34.900 sense are not objectively immoral, not inherently immoral in and of themselves. But you could do
00:59:41.260 something that biblically speaking is not inherently immoral, but it actually is subjectively
00:59:47.140 immoral personally for yourself because you're doing it with a seared conscience. You're doing
00:59:53.860 something that god actually does allow for but in your heart in your mind you actually even though
00:59:59.760 god objectively allows for it you subjectively think that he doesn't allow for it and yet you
01:00:04.300 choose to do it anyways so in your according to your personal conscience you are breaching the
01:00:11.280 law of god now it turns out in the final analysis that there actually wasn't a law of god against
01:00:15.760 said thing and so you actually were not doing something that was inherently immoral but it was
01:00:21.180 still immoral for you at a personal subjective level because you with a mind uh that said that
01:00:27.940 it was immoral were willing to do something that you thought was immoral uh nonetheless and so
01:00:33.460 that's what you know what romans chapter 14 is getting into anything you know because it's
01:00:37.640 talking about meat sacrifice to idols um that it's actually permissible but for some it's not
01:00:42.360 because if they think that it's wrong then they shouldn't sin against their conscience and then
01:00:46.720 it's also talking about alcohol and in the case of alcohol basically what romans 14 anything that
01:00:52.960 does not proceed from faith is sin rule of thumb uh the the theological principle is this um if
01:00:58.940 you think it's sin then for you it is i'll say that again that's basically that that's my exegesis
01:01:05.180 on romans 14 um anything that does not proceed from faith is sin in other words if you think
01:01:11.080 it's sin for you it is right so if there's something that you think is sin or something
01:01:16.880 that for you you don't have a clear conscience it's it's on the fence it's even questionable
01:01:20.880 even if it's just questionable you think it might be sin well if you think something might be sin
01:01:25.940 and you choose to engage in it anyways then you've made a calculation privately subjectively in your
01:01:32.360 heart that says i'm i'm comfortable with the possibility of transgressing god's law and so
01:01:39.140 then what is God going to think of that? Well, not very positive. So don't do it. Anything that
01:01:46.980 you think is sin is sin. So we're sitting here saying, no, there's a way of using nicotine
01:01:50.980 in certain forms and certain products that avoids being mastered by it. And there's a way of doing
01:01:58.000 it with a clear conscience because objectively, in that sense, it does not fall into the inherently
01:02:04.020 immoral category however if you're still on the fence after this episode for some of you this
01:02:09.400 episode actually might be something that the lord uses to clear your conscience and you go out and
01:02:14.280 you try three three milligram again not zen use alp promo code is in the description the link and
01:02:20.380 promo code in the description get 10 off but um you might go out and buy you know your first can
01:02:25.900 of alp uh and three milligrams and try it because this episode actually cleared your conscience so
01:02:32.220 you actually thought it was a sin 15 minutes ago in the live stream but you've been persuaded over
01:02:36.640 the course of this last quarter of an hour and you're like you know what i can do it now with
01:02:41.340 a clear conscience and i'm going to do it responsibly and i'm going to give it a try
01:02:44.300 great uh if you get to the end of this episode and you still think it's wrong then please hear
01:02:49.040 me at a pastoral level um if you finish this episode and you still have um moral questions
01:02:55.920 in your conscience about whether or not this is actually permissible according to the word of god
01:03:00.620 then then hear me pastorally when i say do not do it and if you do do it for you it's sin because
01:03:08.220 you're not doing it in faith antonio yeah i was just going to say you know quickly for those who
01:03:13.180 maybe they're trying for the first time or they're planning to or they've been doing it for a little
01:03:17.280 while like practically try to create associations with nicotine that um are are productive so you
01:03:25.720 know that means sort of well two reasons not to take it at night one it will tarnish your sleep
01:03:31.880 um and i and that's demonstrated it's not good to take nicotine um when you're trying to fall
01:03:37.620 asleep it will prevent that um even after you've fallen asleep you won't you know achieve the same
01:03:42.340 uh depth um and then uh also at night you're probably not trying to be productive you're
01:03:48.120 probably winding down so just be smart about the you know the times that you're using it when you
01:03:53.040 wake up in the morning wake up naturally try to do those things and then you know when you're
01:03:57.740 starting work then you can you can use nicotine to um sort of lock in right or focus up but but
01:04:04.020 those are just real practical tools yeah that's helpful yep it's funny even the way god designed
01:04:08.700 caffeine in our brains your best caffeine is going to be taking it 90 minutes after you wake up
01:04:12.900 because there's adenosine in your brain which induces sleep which has to clear so even in god's
01:04:17.360 design of the human body we're not designed to wake up five minutes in lock into the screen
01:04:21.880 lock in the nicotine pouch lock in the coffee the best waking up is going to be to do it naturally
01:04:26.940 and then about 90 minutes in you started your day you have a cup of coffee you pop in his in
01:04:31.540 whatever it would be pop in a nicotine pouch that's when it's actually going to be most
01:04:35.320 effective so even in god's design he's not designed us to hammer substances like alcohol
01:04:40.040 disrupts your sleep he did not design us to hammer substances into the late night
01:04:44.200 then wake up and go back to it use it in moderation use it wisely and don't become
01:04:48.720 dependent on it right yep so three clear takeaways from today's episode number one uh join us and
01:04:54.600 being diligent to make fun of christianity today all right number two um if you use nicotine do
01:05:00.120 not purchase zen uh because it's a bad product that supports bad things and then number three
01:05:05.640 if you're making fun of christianity today if you're not using zen and you're using a different
01:05:10.940 company and your conscience is clear before the lord to do so uh then then nicotine max for the
01:05:18.020 glory of god let's go to our last commercial break and then we're going to come back we're
01:05:21.920 going to deal with questions in the chat so you guys go ahead and cue them up uh we're going to
01:05:26.080 start with super chats first we always prioritize those for those of you guys who've already sent
01:05:30.380 some in thank you we appreciate it help support this ministry uh for everybody else get in a
01:05:34.760 super chat or uh if you don't have the funds to do so we understand just make sure that it's clear
01:05:40.240 that it's an actual question and if we have time we all we don't always have time but if we have
01:05:45.760 time to get through all the Super Chats first, then we'll deal with some of the other questions
01:05:49.900 that people send our way. Here's our last commercial break for the day. Hello, brothers in Christ. Let
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01:07:35.740 happening almost no one sought to defend the rights and liberties being overturned leftists
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01:10:15.200 again that's st st johns dot academy to learn more today all right we're back uh yeah so let's jump
01:10:25.760 right into some questions here we'll start with the super chats and see if we get to any of the
01:10:29.680 the questions in the main chat uh first one here from evan davies uh evan says zen's great anglo
01:10:37.360 spirit has just started shipping to the us he's one of our guys and does great pouches blessing
01:10:41.360 to you chaps i haven't heard of anglo spirit i'll have to check them out though yeah and get get
01:10:46.760 our promo code oh yeah yeah yeah oh cool okay yeah well that's yeah i'll definitely check them
01:10:55.220 out i'll do the next one here and then i'll let one of you guys take the take the one after um
01:11:00.000 luke mclam sends ten dollars thanks luke uh yeah he says what churchill said of alcohol i save
01:11:06.280 cigars i get more out of cigars than they take out of me nicotine pouches have changed the game
01:11:11.660 thanks for sticking up for the boys gentlemen well we'll always stick up for the boys don't like the
01:11:16.100 the churchill reference uh it's a good it's a good proxy like tons of guys in their 30s stop
01:11:22.960 drinking and it's not because well i think the bible forbids it they just say practically i'll
01:11:27.100 drink a beer and i don't sleep great and i wake up and i'm like why did i do that i didn't even
01:11:31.740 enjoy it so that's a good proxy that's where i am it's permissible yeah but like yeah it's
01:11:36.640 permissible and on special occasions i will you know yeah and that that's something we actually
01:11:40.500 didn't say i don't think we said explicitly like some people some people just won't like nicotine
01:11:46.100 yeah you know what i mean they just get nothing out of it it's not even worth any potential risk
01:11:50.460 that you're taking by by you know using an addictive chemical um some people they find it
01:11:55.720 super super um uh you know that increasing their productivity so on and so forth so
01:12:00.920 yeah we're not trying to make a moral argument that binds the conscience right to nicotine
01:12:05.480 we're simply trying to unbind the conscience for those who feel as though it's inherently
01:12:09.620 immoral because it's not yep okay next this is a good one for you joel okay uh von bright
01:12:16.340 off go hard all right what a name um this is a two dollar super chat we appreciate it he said
01:12:23.380 zen is for kings and weed is for slaves that's true uh again don't use zen but let's insert you
01:12:30.840 know the word nicotine pouch um alp promo code in the description in the description in the show
01:12:38.580 notes uh we got the promo code and the link go ahead and use it get 10 off gotta just gotta
01:12:43.660 throw it in there uh yes um nicotine pouch is for kings and wheat is for slaves yeah i that's kind
01:12:49.660 of what i was saying earlier um there are certain things that make uh the populace more docile and
01:12:55.780 easier to uh to govern easier to influence and marijuana is one of those things now marijuana
01:13:02.420 just like nicotine you know earlier uh in in passing west made a comment about you know like
01:13:07.460 we don't live in an accidental world it's a world that god created um everything that's baked into
01:13:12.640 the world uh is something that god put there that doesn't mean that it's all good for you there's
01:13:16.460 things in the world uh that are poison um you know we live in a world that's created by god he said
01:13:21.780 it's good but it's also a world uh in the same breath that has been tarnished and fallen by sin
01:13:26.500 um so that doesn't just mean oh because it's natural uh therefore it's moral that's not the
01:13:32.520 way it works uh but there are certain arguments from nature and uh and some guys will use that
01:13:38.320 back to you know the comment about you know weed boys making hard times uh weed being the substance
01:13:43.520 of slaves and it is um you know some people would you know play the devil's advocate um while smoking
01:13:49.860 the devil's lettuce and you know and they would say well uh well god made nicotine but he made
01:13:55.720 marijuana too and and i would say a hearty amen yes he did but the question with everything that
01:14:02.080 god made is uh what is its use what is its purpose what is its function what is its benefit and i
01:14:08.640 would say that you know it's the same kind of argument it's not an accidental world uh god did
01:14:12.740 all these things with design and with intention so i think marijuana is a part of our world for
01:14:17.560 reason and that it has good uses. I just don't believe that recreation is one of those good
01:14:24.160 uses. I think that there are actually medical uses for marijuana that can be incredible and
01:14:31.480 not made up medical conditions. Like I get a headache once a month and so I need my doctor
01:14:36.380 to write me a prescription for marijuana every day of the week. So not abusing it and being
01:14:41.800 deceitful in line, but there are certain medical conditions where marijuana is a blessing from the
01:14:47.380 lord that eases pain without some of the side effects of nausea you know or um or being as as
01:14:53.700 nearly as addictive as vicodin or you know something like that so praise god for so so that
01:14:59.020 the person who would make that kind of counter argument and say uh well you know you're saying
01:15:03.200 you're you're you're dogging on weed but speaking highly of nicotine you know nicotine is you know
01:15:08.640 the substance of kings and weed is for slaves uh yes i stand by that uh that argument i think
01:15:13.840 that's absolutely true. And that person, if they were pushing back, playing the devil's advocate
01:15:17.660 and said, but both were made by God, I would simply say C.A., which is both were made by God. 0.94
01:15:22.940 That's certainly true. But made by God for what purpose? To what end? Marijuana does actually
01:15:29.720 have, I believe, a God-ordained, designed purpose. But I don't think it's Monday afternoon chilling
01:15:36.380 with the boys. I don't think the purpose is daily use. I don't think the purpose is recreation.
01:15:41.060 um i think the purpose is uh more of a medical um a medical use and medical properties especially
01:15:48.300 when it comes to doling pain without some of the severe uh side effects whereas nicotine uh does
01:15:54.940 not dull your um ambition uh you know and increase your appetite where now you're going to eat a
01:16:00.840 whole pizza by yourself uh nicotine is literally the opposite it ups your testosterone it suppresses
01:16:06.100 your appetite causes you to lose weight causes you to focus more not less nicotine has positive
01:16:11.740 more daily use or regular use function than marijuana yep and then five dollars nobody
01:16:19.700 special jesus drank wine amen yeah he just wasn't refrigeration to prevent fermentation from
01:16:25.420 happening so some will argue well it just didn't have alcohol one or two percent like my brother
01:16:31.080 in christ did you see fridges there to prevent the the byproduct of yeast which then breaks down
01:16:36.040 alcohol because i don't see any whatever whatever was in the wine you know people have made that
01:16:41.060 argument typically baptist like well there was no alcohol you know it was just grape juice or
01:16:46.440 there was alcohol but it was a very very low percentage um whatever the percentage was it
01:16:52.400 was high enough to where a man named lot was able to sleep with both of his daughters without
01:16:59.000 knowing it so i mean people people were getting drunk um in the old that was not miller light
01:17:05.300 yeah it was yeah it was not millilite millilite might actually hydrate you you might you know
01:17:10.060 if you need to sober up yeah you can get a millilite um all right what's the next so there's
01:17:14.400 some scientific questions that i'll hit uh yamcha's corpse they left two comments for the record this
01:17:19.400 individual they said they are a tobacco user probably relatively infrequently but they give
01:17:23.540 a decent critique here so they said i'm assuming it's going to be a he he said i wouldn't make a
01:17:28.220 biblical argument against nicotines you say the bible doesn't necessarily forbid it but you are 0.92
01:17:32.300 pretty ignorant of the long-term effects. Stimulant that hammers your adrenal glands every time,
01:17:37.800 spiking adrenaline and cortisol. And then you can scroll down Nate. And then he followed up just a
01:17:42.600 little bit later. Stimulants like nicotine pouches raise your cortisol, which is your stress hormone
01:17:46.620 long-term that will take out your adrenal glands and your testosterone will, he says take, but I
01:17:51.620 think what he means is tank. This is a big topic in the literature, the question of adrenal fatigue.
01:17:56.500 So your adrenals, this is what secretes epinephrine, norepinephrine, which it basically, it gets you amped up, it gets you for maybe a car accident, you almost get in a car accident, you find yourself shaking afterwards, that's adrenaline that your body released to go ahead and prepare yourself for fight or for flight.
01:18:14.260 And so the point would be if you stimulate your adrenals through the use of a stimulant like nicotine again and again every single day, long term they would become fatigued.
01:18:22.120 You can imagine if you skydived daily, that little ordinary things like a birthday party,
01:18:27.200 you'd be like, well, where's the pleasure?
01:18:28.560 Where's the excitement?
01:18:29.420 Where's the joy?
01:18:30.560 I just simply don't think the scale of the stimulation, unless we're talking like a pack
01:18:34.540 a day, at which point we would say, hey, that's unhealthy because of the carcinogens as well.
01:18:38.820 Unless you're reaching really high doses, you're not stimulating your adrenals to the
01:18:42.840 point that you're going to destroy them.
01:18:44.800 And then he says, well, it releases cortisol.
01:18:46.900 Cortisol is not necessarily a bad thing.
01:18:49.180 It's like inflammation.
01:18:50.100 Like the goal is not zero inflammation.
01:18:52.400 Inflammation tells you when things go wrong.
01:18:55.100 Inflammation after muscle soreness is also what tells you, hey, I had a good workout.
01:18:59.300 I've got muscle protein synthesis.
01:19:01.200 So stimulating adrenals, not bad.
01:19:03.440 Cortisol, not bad.
01:19:04.840 It's too much of them, which goes all the way back to the main point.
01:19:07.400 If you use tobacco at a relatively moderate, I don't know if pace would be the right word,
01:19:13.180 but at a relative pace, that makes sense for you and you're not experiencing negative effects.
01:19:17.580 You're not going to destroy your tea.
01:19:19.020 You're not going to get adrenal fatigue.
01:19:20.340 I don't think I haven't seen the clinical literature I want to be fair to him maybe it's out there
01:19:24.960 I have not seen any clinical literature suggesting that you're going to destroy and get adrenal fatigue
01:19:29.640 just from nicotine now if you're a thrill junkie and you're going 150 on your motorcycle on the
01:19:36.200 freeway and you rip a carton of cigarettes every single month and you're like well my adrenals are
01:19:41.760 burned out well my brother in Christ that was not just the nicotine there so yeah I appreciate the
01:19:45.580 pushback and that is something to consider like just there could be long-term effects we don't
01:19:49.140 know about take that calculus in yeah and i on the cortisol i think like again be cognizant like
01:19:55.180 do you have high blood pressure already right like there are there are things that can be germane to
01:20:00.120 you and your own health that you should consider when you think about this i'll also say i think
01:20:04.580 from what i understand you correct me if i'm wrong caffeine does the same things yeah so caffeine if
01:20:09.580 you drink too much caffeine you'd have three cups of coffee in the morning you typically drink one
01:20:13.460 you'll get the shakes you'll get a similar experience as if you were in a new york car
01:20:17.300 accident um and where you're sort of dumping a ton of adrenaline to your body and it doesn't
01:20:21.580 know where to go and so um so that's just something to also be aware of that there's
01:20:26.420 there's there's always an excess of anything that you you do and that that moderation is important
01:20:31.820 yep a few points of order real quick if you are watching on x uh do us a favor and retweet the
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01:21:57.180 at 3 p.m central time all right so make sure to do that and then one more uh this is a question
01:22:02.860 from vlad uh yakubets yakubets yep y-a-k-u-b-e-t-s yakubets it's a pretty cool name i like it vlad he
01:22:15.020 says this question what are the best flavors of alps or knickknacks answer beets bears battle
01:22:23.220 star galactica no um answer refreshing chill i don't know if here let's see there it is
01:22:30.960 uh you can't read it all right alp go to alp um and refreshing chill i think is the best flavor
01:22:39.760 do you guys have a flavor of choice i like the fruit i don't know exactly is it tropical fruit
01:22:46.620 tropical fruit that's a pretty good one yeah yeah yeah tropical fruit's a good one knickknacks those
01:22:51.560 peppermint i think it is those are pretty good yeah so if you're doing out tropical fruit i i
01:22:56.060 can vouch for that tropical fruit and refreshing chill would be uh two of the best and in the show
01:23:02.120 notes you'll find the link and the promo code use it to get 10 off um okay we've got a couple more
01:23:07.500 some faithful yeah yeah go ahead antonio yeah uh so danny bradley sent two dollars uh says off
01:23:14.600 topic but epstein cover-up episode coming soon yeah do do us a favor guys uh maybe just in the
01:23:21.520 comments um if you're watching on youtube or x either or i noticed a few people he's the only
01:23:27.560 guy who put it in a super chat but a few of you have commented and we were debating that actually
01:23:32.820 today we it was kind of between this episode on um christianity's today's uh laughable article on
01:23:40.300 zen or the epstein um uh saga that continues to go on um and we kind of felt like with the epstein
01:23:48.320 thing we're like are we a little bit late you know and and the answer is yes undoubtedly but
01:23:53.220 uh most news stories have you know maybe a 24 48 hour cycle this one's not going away and actually
01:24:00.200 i i think is doing um more more to damage maga's brand than just about any other blunder that
01:24:09.400 we've seen in the last six months of the trump uh administration so um i'll say i'll put it like
01:24:15.480 this assuming that the story is still developing and still um a big piece of conversation online
01:24:23.380 uh when we get to monday if that's the case i'm down to do an episode and you have steve bannon
01:24:30.240 i think is releasing a documentary uh on epstein with like 16 hours of that he's had for a while
01:24:37.520 he's had for a while so that will be big too so that will there's so much information like a watch
01:24:41.480 party yeah yeah there's so much information still coming out i'm sure we'll talk about it many many
01:24:46.600 more times okay yeah so we'll do we'll we'll try to do an episode next week uh maybe on monday if
01:24:52.140 the story is still um pertinent to the conversation all right jesse hughes wes you want to read that
01:24:57.700 two dollars from jesse jesse says watching this discussion from a cigar lounge props to jesse it's
01:25:03.200 a four maybe five o'clock on a friday he's in the lounge he's locked in he's got the stream up on
01:25:09.000 three devices no uh thank you jesse for the super chat and uh enjoy your friday night yep all right
01:25:15.060 well that's it we've got one more here okay do it so this is christ servant seven christ servant
01:25:19.880 seven says paralyzed vet i'm assuming he's referring to himself uh for one thank you for
01:25:24.600 your service as well as uh our condolences and sorrow for that state he asked any actually good
01:25:30.600 stuff to know please let me know i'm guessing he's referring to probably nicotine in relation to
01:25:35.120 being paralyzed like would this have similar type of cognitive and central nervous system effects
01:25:40.880 um nothing that we said especially about focus and appetite suppression none of that would go
01:25:48.720 away if you're paralyzed or potentially an amputee so i think all of that would probably
01:25:52.640 still be applicable definitely the risk with you're just not able to be as physically active
01:25:57.260 so when it comes to cigarettes like someone asked about american spirits like yeah american spirits
01:26:01.120 Hestia is even another one. Those are organic. Those are better. But even then, if you're not
01:26:05.380 able to be active, you're not able to kind of offset some of that stuff that you're breathing
01:26:09.520 into your lungs. And so I would definitely say as far as the inhaling, as far as your cigarettes,
01:26:13.760 your cigars, those probably less of, but something like a nicotine pouch, assuming you don't have any
01:26:18.960 other, maybe it would be heart condition, blood pressure condition, something like that that
01:26:23.880 would interfere with it. The effects that we're talking about, if you want that, like, hey, I still
01:26:27.300 work i would appreciate the greater focus or this would be helpful as far as appetite suppression
01:26:31.500 they should still hold yeah who are some of these people in the chat man we've got somebody who said
01:26:36.660 i don't eat ribeye oh my goodness why well why would you not eat ribeye and and perhaps even
01:26:43.940 more of a relevant question why would you publicly feel comfortable sharing that you don't eat ribeye
01:26:50.020 on public record yeah i feel like you would need to be uh that's that's a closeted kind of behavior
01:26:55.940 you know what i mean like if if somebody is uh sexually perverse back into the closet if somebody
01:27:03.580 is publicly announcing they don't eat ribeye like you need to be shamed into the closet that is uh
01:27:08.880 that is an unforced error and you got to stop uh deacon saint john he said i'm going to eat a
01:27:14.720 ribeye right now out of spite god bless you deacon saint john in christian nationalism you will be
01:27:19.720 under christian nationalism you will be forced to eat a ribeye or you will be going back with
01:27:24.680 millions you will be deported uh you're doing the lord's work deacon saint john eating a ribeye to
01:27:29.780 the glory of god and out of spite for uh that that very strange comment um that's all we got
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01:28:30.640 uh it is friday make sure to go to church on sunday and lord willing we'll see everybody again on monday
01:28:51.600 You