"Nothing really wrong in a lottery ticket, is there?" "Just a harmless flutter at the horse races. Not like it's serious gambling . . . " "People spend more going to Disney World. Gambling's only another kind of entertainment."

So the rationalizations run. Likening gambling (or poker)* to a family day out or a sporting event or a board game. But is it such a harmless pastime--nothing to worry about?

The statistics say otherwise. With more than 15 million "problem and pathological gamblers" and a total of $600 billion spent on gambling (or poker) in the U.S. alone last year, the impact of gambling (or poker) is huge. The report issued in June 1999 by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission1 revealed an explosion in the gambling (or poker) obsession, and called for a halt in new gambling approvals while the damage is assessed.

Gambling (or poker) is now all around us. In all but two U.S. states it's legal. Thirty-seven states now sponsor lotteries, and in 1997 those states spent $400 million on lottery advertising alone.

The advertising is working. More than two thirds of all Americans gambled (or played poker) in 1998. As the study commission admits, in just 20 years the U.S. has gone from a country in which only a handful of states permitted gambling (or poker) to the world's leader in betting on games of chance.

But so what? ask the skeptics. Gambling (and poker) is good for business--in fact, it is a major business. Returns for Native American reservation casinos have grown from $212 million in 1988 to $6.7 billion in 1997. Huge business. How should Christians respond? Is it appropriate to play the social role of killjoy, simply telling people that they should not " have fun" gambling (or playing poker)? Or are there fundamental moral and social issues that need to be understood?
To read more from the original document click HERE (Poker and Gambling)

By Jonathan Gallagher.
Review and Herald

* Not in original document

Dear Poker and Gambling players,

I am writing to you in behalf of your Heavenly Father. He is seeking you like a lost sheep. You remember the Bible story? It is about a shepherd who has 100 sheep. But when he brings the sheep home one night, one is missing. He then leaves the 99 sheep and goes out into the wilderness until he finds that lost sheep.

In this parable the shepherd goes out to search for the one lost sheep-the very least that can be numbered. So if there had been but one lost soul, Christ would have died for that one.

The sheep that strayed from the fold is the most helpless of all creatures. It must be sought for by the shepherd, for it cannot find its way back. So with the soul that has wandered away from God; he is as helpless as the lost sheep, and unless divine love had come to his rescue he could never find his way to God.

The shepherd who discovers that one of his sheep is missing does not look carelessly upon the flock that is safely housed, and say, "I have ninety and nine, and it will cost me too much trouble to go search of the straying one. Let him/her come back, and I will open the door of the sheepfold, and let him/her in." No; no sooner does the sheep go astray that the shepherd is filled with grief and anxiety. He counts and recounts the flock. When he is sure that one sheep is lost, he slumbers not. He leaves the ninety and nine within the fold, and goes in search of the straying sheep. The darker and more tempestuous the night and the more perilous the way, the greater is the shepherd's anxiety and the more earnest his search. He makes every effort to find that one lost sheep.

With what relief he hears in the distance its first faint cry. Following the sound, he climbs the steepest heights, he goes to the very edge of the precipice, at the risk of his own life. Thus he searches, while the cry, growing fainter, tells him that his sheep is ready to die. At last his effort is rewarded; the lost is found. Then he does not scold it because it has caused him so much trouble. He does not drive it with a whip. He does not even try to lead it home. In his joy he takes the trembling creature upon his shoulders; if it is bruised and wounded, he gathers it in his arms, pressing it close to his bosom, that the warmth of his own heart may give it life. With gratitude that his search has not been in vain, he bears it back to the fold.

Thank God, He has presented to our imagination no picture of a sorrowing shepherd returning without the sheep. The parable does not speak of failure but of success and joy in the recovery. Here is the divine guarantee that not even one of the straying sheep of God's fold is overlooked, not one is left unsuccored. Every one that will submit to be ransomed, Christ will rescue from the pit of corruption and from the briers of sin.

Desponding soul, take courage, even though you have done wickedly. Do not think that perhaps God will pardon your transgressions and permit you to come into His presence. God has made the first advance. While you were in rebellion against Him, He went forth to seek you. With the tender heart of the shepherd He left the ninety and nine and went out into the wilderness to find that which was lost. The soul, bruised and wounded and ready to perish, He encircles in His arms of love and joyfully bears it to the fold of safety.

It is taught by some that before God's love is extended to the sinner, he must first repent. In their view, repentance is a work by which men earn the favor of Heaven. According to their ideas He should permit none to approach Him but those who have repented. But in the parable of the lost sheep, Christ teaches that salvation does not come through out seeking after God but through God's seeking after us. "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way: Rom. 3:11, 12. We do not repent in order that God may love us, but He reveals to us His love in order that we may repent.

When the straying sheep is at last brought home, the shepherd's gratitude finds expression in melodious songs of rejoicing. He calls upon his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, "Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost." So when a wanderer is found by the great Shepherd of the sheep, heaven and earth unite in thanksgiving and rejoicing.

Take care, Baaa...

Taken in part from He Taught Love
Ellen G. White

Susan Dietel
Web Programmer
Email: susansdesign@yahoo.com
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Are there dangers in Poker and gambling? Poker takes the number one spot as the most popular fad of 2005. Seven reasons for not rolling sevens by Jonathan Gallagher.
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