The Wages of Sin — Prepare To Be Shocked

Psalms 119:105:

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

God’s Word is His owner’s manual to the sons and daughters of men.  His beautiful and glorious Word is true and righteous altogether.  It is filled with secrets of living and the secret of eternal life.

A common cry heard in the Christian ranks is, “I’ve been set free.  I’m not interested in the Do’s and Don’ts of the Bible!”  When a believer understands that the restraints of the scriptures are the blessings of God, they will view them differently.  Inherent within each of God’s commandments is a blessing or a curse.  The blessing is simply the fruit of doing the right thing.  The curse is the fruit of doing it wrong.  Thus Proverbs 9:8:

...rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.

The Word of God is full of Do’s and Don’ts, and the wise will embrace them.  Psalms 119:93:

I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me.

Psalms 119:126-128:

126  It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law.

127  Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.

128  Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.

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GOD SAID, Genesis 4:7:

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door....

GOD SAID, Galatians 6:7:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

GOD SAID, Job 4:8:

Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.

GOD SAID, Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death;...

MAN SAID: Sin is an old, archaic term that has no relevance in today’s erudite society.  The term is a throwback to the Bible, a book that also has no real relevance.

Now THE RECORD.  Could there be something to the Biblical concept of the wages of sin?  This is Part One in a short series on the wages of sin which will once again prove the full veracity and unerring nature of the Word of God.  Prepare to be shocked.

The definition of sin is found in James 4:17:

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

The rule or law of first occurrence has been mentioned on GodSaidManSaid several times.  The idea of first occurrence is foundational to etymology, which is the study of words, and it basically states that the first time a word is used in the historical record, it there declares its definition.  The first time the word sin is used in the Bible is quoted above in Genesis 4:7, and basically states as James 4:17 did, that if one does evil, sin lieth at the door.

Consider the following passages.  John 8:34:

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

Romans 6:17-18:

17  But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

18  Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

Disobedience and sin are synonymous, and if we choose to be disobedient, we must serve sin with the literal sweat of our brows, and if not repented of, in eternal punishment.

Is it possible that if you serve Mr. Sin, the wages he will actually pay you will be the literal subtraction of life?  Remember, “the wages of sin is death.”

A simple concept to remember in this series is the one of employment.  A person takes a job agreeing to sacrifice so many hours a day in exchange for wages.  In essence, you give hours of your life, which cannot be replaced, in exchange for a paycheck.  You give life for cash.  When you give up your cash, you are in fact giving away part of your life.  Imagine that when someone or something takes money from your wallet they are very literally taking part of your life.  In this series, we will be measuring the wages of sin.

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God’s Word is a lamp unto our feet.

God’s blessings are found in His do’s and don’ts.

The wages of sin is death.

To know to do good and not do it is sin.

Does sin actually pay wages?

Those who sin must serve sin, and Mr. Sin pays his servants death.

Mr. Sin’s wages are the subtraction of life.

The principle of employment and trading life for cash.

All of mankind belongs to the common family of Adam and Eve, and as in any family, what one single member does has an effect upon the others of that family.  Even though I may not have participated in the particular deed, I am still affected.  So, when Mr. Sin is served, the wages he pays is death.

Could God’s Word actually be correct?  After all these thousands of years, is the Bible still the unadulterated truth?  The following information has been lifted from the Congressional record:

THE COST AND IMPACT OF CRIME

Statement of Jens Ludwig Profess Georgetown University

Committee on Senate Judiciary

September 19, 2006

Chairman Specter, Ranking Member Leahy, and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is Jens Ludwig. I am a Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University, as well as a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research. It is an honor to appear before this committee to discuss what is known about the costs of crime to American society.

My testimony is divided into two sections: a summary of the conclusions, and supporting analysis.

Summary of major conclusions:

The costs of crime to America are plausibly on the order of $2 trillion per year. By way of comparison, total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the United States in 2004 was equal to $11.7 trillion. Put differently, the “crime tax” on Americans—that is, the reduction in quality of life due to crime—is the equivalent of around 17% of GDP.

Included in the overall cost of crime is around $200 billion in government expenditures on the criminal justice system and another $167 billion in costly private measures to protect people and businesses against crime. Non‑pecuniary costs also figure prominently in the burden of crime to American society.

While “street crime,” particularly violent crimes, is disproportionately concentrated among our nation’s poorest residents, the costs of crime are much more evenly distributed than victimization statistics would suggest. Available research indicates that crime imposes large costs on middle‑class families through increased taxes, private measures to reduce the risk of victimization, and the fear and anxiety associated with the risk of victimization to one’s self and loved ones.

Given the enormous toll that crime imposes on American society, even costly new initiatives to reduce crime can generate benefits to American taxpayers and citizens that justify the increased government expenditures.

Particularly cost‑effective may be crime‑control interventions that focus on those people who are at the highest risk for criminal activity, such as ex‑offenders who are re‑entering society from prison.

Supporting text:

The annual costs of crime to American society each year are probably on the order of $2 trillion. These costs include the costs of victimization from both “street” and “white collar” crimes, the costs of administering the criminal justice system and costly private activities, including out‑of‑pocket expenditures, designed to reduce individual risks of victimization. The specific components of this estimate are as follows; details about the methods through which I derive these estimates, based primarily on updating previous work by the leading economists who work in this area, David A. Anderson (1999) and Mark A. Cohen (2005), are included in a Technical Appendix:

• $694 billion Victimization costs

• $192 billion Government expenditures on criminal justice

• $167 billion Private expenditures on crime prevention

• $253 billion Lost value of criminals’ time

• $730 billion White collar crime

• $2.04 trillion Total

These costs are enormous by any standard. By way of comparison, the entire federal defense budget in 2005 was $465.9 billion. The total budget for the federal government as a whole in 2005 was $2.48 trillion. Total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2004 for the United States was equal to $11.7 trillion. It is important to note that my estimate for the cost of crime includes non‑pecuniary costs that do not show up on a government budget ledger or in the official GDP calculations, which should be kept in mind when comparing my estimate to these other figures. But the non‑pecuniary costs of crime are just as real as federal spending or GDP figures, even if they are “off budget,” because they reduce the quality of life to Americans in a real way. The implication of my estimate is that crime reduces the quality of life in America—a “crime tax”—by the equivalent of around 17% of GDP.  [End of quote]

When members of the family work for Mr. Sin, he pays wages and those wages are death—the subtraction of life.  Keep in mind, we traded irreplaceable time—our lives for money. 

The number of American households in 2006 was 124,521,886.  I took the cost of crime at $2.04 trillion, and divided it by the number of households, yielding a cost of crime per American household of $16,383.  Next, I took the cost of crime per household of $16,383, and divided it by the median U.S. household income of $47,034 (‘04 adjusted numbers at 3% growth per annum).  This yielded the annual crime tax of 35% levied against every American household.  The wages of sin are staggering in every conceivable way.

GOD SAID, Genesis 4:7:

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door....

GOD SAID, Galatians 6:7:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

GOD SAID, Job 4:8:

Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.

GOD SAID, Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death;...

MAN SAID: Sin is an old, archaic term that has no relevance in today’s erudite society.  The term is a throwback to the Bible, a book that also has no real relevance.

Now you have THE RECORD.