I’ve talked about how a person can be ruined through drugs, drinking, adultery, even smoking…but there another that seems to be the sneakiest of all; gambling. It can lead to ruin just as surely as any of the others.

I know of a Christian lady who accepted a free bus ride to a casino…a friendly offer to go with a friend…and “the bug” hit her, and before her husband learned what was happening, she had lost their savings and everything else that could be turned into cash for gambling. The family and her life were ruined. And the “bug;” (the first innocent time a person tries something like taking a drink)…that “bug” can lead to the gutter. The trouble is that no one knows whether he or she has the inner weakness that leads from the first drink, or puff, or the wink, or the pull of the lever, or the buying of a lottery ticket will turn out to have that person hooked.

Gambling is legal, but leads to downfall. Millions lose daily at gambling, but if you’re one in a million who happens to win big, you can take on a host of problems like the risk of robbery or even kidnapping for ransom. And losing jealous friends is small compared to losing car, home, even family or a business if you happen to have one.

Solomon said “labor not to be rich” (Proverbs 22:16), but even gaining riches by labor is not as bad as spending food and rent money on the millions-to-one chance of a big winning ticket. How can a person fail to see that the numbers are stacked for a small-winner suckers, so they’ll keep trying. The visitor to the casino and the pawn shop are often the same one who regularly goes to the food handouts and churches who try to help persons who have taken the wrong road.

Don’t expect God to help you win. You can’t floor-board your car on an icy road and ask God to keep you safe, nor can you gamble the family income and expect God to give you a handout. He sees that the sparrow gets food, but He doesn’t put it in their nest. Nor should a gambler expect even churches and other helpers to give to them, taking away from those in need through no fault of their own. This may be hard to accept, but the truth is that the most important thing for the gambler is to get Christ into your life…truly, not as a tool to further a habit that leads even to sin, but as a way out of such an awful life. “If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” (I Tim. 5:8).

God sees the fake front, so instead of thinking “today,” think of “eternity,” and where you’ll spend it. Don’t gamble on that