{"id":38780,"date":"2021-09-12T00:00:20","date_gmt":"2021-09-12T05:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=38780"},"modified":"2021-09-12T00:15:26","modified_gmt":"2021-09-12T05:15:26","slug":"the-stranger-in-smokeland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=38780","title":{"rendered":"The Stranger in Smokeland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In his book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ligonier.org\/store\/lessons-from-the-upper-room-the-heart-of-the-savior-paperback\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer\"><em>Lessons from the Upper Room<\/em><\/a>, Sinclair Ferguson provides an allegory he titles &#8220;The Stranger in Smokeland&#8221;\u2014an allegory he says needs little interpretation. For that reason, I will provide it as-is, without commentary. I think you&#8217;ll enjoy it.<\/p>\n<p>The Stranger had lived all his life in the Highlands. Here streams of crystal-clear water run; the flowers and vegetation are luxuriant; the mountain air is pure; the atmosphere is unpolluted. No one who lives here has ever died.<\/p>\n<p>But the Stranger\u2019s father had told him of a distant land where the air is polluted, and the inhabitants die young. The pollution and death are caused by a plant the citizens roll into tube-shapes, light, and place in their mouths, and then they inhale its vapors\u2014they do not realize they are poisonous. Instead, they find their highest pleasure in this; they believe it keeps them healthy and that it protects them and is essential to a good life.<\/p>\n<p>The parliament of the country has never enacted a law to this effect, but it is universally regarded as unacceptable for a citizen not to smoke. Now they have become so addicted to the lighted plant that they can<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his book Lessons from the Upper Room, Sinclair Ferguson provides an allegory he titles \u201cThe Stranger in Smokeland\u201d\u2014an allegory he says needs little interpretation. For that reason, I will provide it as-is, without commentary. I think you\u2019ll enjoy it. The Stranger had lived all his life in the Highlands. Here streams of crystal-clear water run; the flowers and vegetation are luxuriant; the mountain air is pure; the atmosphere is unpolluted. No one who lives here has ever died. But \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":38783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[809],"class_list":["post-38780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tim-challies","tag-quotes","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biblicalcounselor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/alfaz-sayed-38YNjm871rg-unsplash-1-1.jpg?fit=910%2C320&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38780"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38785,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38780\/revisions\/38785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}