The Wages of Sin — Part Four — Conclusion
This world has labored under the curse of sin and death for 6,000 years. Soon this world as we know it will end at a place called Armageddon. At the end of that, Jesus Christ will establish his 1,000-year reign on the earth where the lion will lie down with the lamb. Satan, the author of sin, will be absent from the equation and King Jesus will demonstrate what the beauty of obedience can do when the world rests under his hand.Audio Options: | MP3 |
The Wages of Sin — Part Four — Conclusion
Are you born-again? Have you made your decision for Christ? I once asked several individuals what was the best day of their lives. How about yours? Think about it for a moment. One fellow said it was the day he graduated from high school. Another said it was the day his daughter was born. What was your best day? Listening to the answers given by the gentlemen above, it became obvious that they had yet to enter into the new birth in Jesus Christ. The common answer to the question from the truly redeemed is, “The best day of my life was the day that Jesus Christ became my Lord and Saviour.” You aren’t born into this world as a son or daughter of God. Joining a church will not make it happen. Turning over a new leaf will not accomplish it. Being born into the household of God requires a very real spiritual birth—the new birth; born-again—born a second time. Your first birth made you a son or daughter of Adam. The second birth makes you a son or daughter of God. You had no choice in the first birth, but it’s all about choice in the second. Will you choose the Creator of the universe? Do it and surely today will be the best day of your life. Click onto “Further With Jesus” for immediate, supernatural entry into the Kingdom of God. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.
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. Does sin pay wages? This is the conclusion of the GodSaidManSaid series on the “Wages of Sin.” The following excerpts from this series are foundational to this subject. They follow:
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.
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? [End of quote]
In Part Two of this series we mentioned that a gallon of gasoline in the U.S., which is averaging over the past 12 months around the $3.00 mark for regular, has hidden within its price over $1.70 in government taxes and regulations. We pay much more of our income in taxes than what shows up on the pay stub. Besides all the substantial hidden taxes in the cost of goods, most pay state income tax, local income tax, school tax, sales tax, etc., and a huge portion of those taxes pay America’s sin tax. Also, did I mention the taxes built into imported products by the foreign country of origin?
So far, the wages of sin we catalogued that come out of the U.S. household income are as follows:
1. Crime 35%
2. Pornography 4%
3. Divorce 3.4%
4. Drugs 3%
SUBTOTAL 45.4% SIN TAX
Those of you who are following this series know how we calculated these numbers, and that these numbers are surely not exhaustive. Basically, we take the best national cost statistics we can find and divide by 124,521,886 U.S. households, and then divide that number by the average U.S. household income of $47,034. This yields the percent of household income eaten up by that particular sin. I’m confident you understand the rationale, so in this conclusion we will simply list several more costly evils including usury in the form of charge cards, auto loans, and mortgage debt.
The Word of God says this in Proverbs 22:7:
The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.
Romans 13:8:
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
There is rationale for home mortgages and auto loans, but we will not address it here. Obviously, it’s so much better to “owe no man any thing.” I should note that the usury tax does not include the financing of national, state, and local debt. The cost of usury is huge. The cost to the average American household income for interest expense is 11%. If you earn $10 per hour, $1.10 of it goes to interest.
The U.S. cost of the military and the cost of war, which are necessary because of sin, are estimated to cost each household 10% of their annual income.
Alcohol consumption is a devil’s scourge that is eating up the lives of millions. God says not to drink the wine when it has passed the line as described in Proverbs 23:29-35:
29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.
35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
For more information on alcohol, click onto “Alcohol and Christians,” and “Alcohol and Christians (Part Two).”
Estimates show one out of three people in the U.S. are directly impacted by alcohol abuse. The estimated sin tax levied against the American economy weighs in at $227,401,344,100. This disobedience eats up 4% of your paycheck. Look at our new tally. The new sin tax is as follows:
1. Crime 35%
2. Pornography 4%
3. Divorce 3.4%
4. Drugs 3%
5. Usury 11%
6. War 10%
7. Alcohol 4%
SUBTOTAL 70.4% SIN TAX
This calculation does not include the cost of homosexuality, fornication, adultery, pedophilia, sexually transmitted diseases affecting one out of five Americans, abortion, loafing on the job, etc. With just the sin listed in the calculation, if you earn $10 per hour, $7.04 of it is paid to Mr. Sin.
In six days, God created the heavens and the earth just over 6,000 years ago. On the seventh day, He rested. The Psalmist depicts the irrelevance of time to God when he compares a day to a thousand years and a thousand years to a day (II Peter 3:8). Revelation 20:1-4:
1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
This world has labored under the curse of sin and death for 6,000 years. Soon this world as we know it will end at a place called Armageddon. At the end of that, Jesus Christ will establish His 1,000-year reign on the earth where the lion will lie down with the lamb. Satan, the author of sin, will be absent from the equation and King Jesus will demonstrate what the beauty of obedience can do when the world rests under His hand. Prophetic statements of this soon-coming event include passages such as Amos 9:13:
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
Isaiah 2:4:
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
During the 1,000-year reign of Christ, there will be no more sin tax; no more crime, pornography, divorce, drugs, usury, war, alcohol abuse, or the rest of the cadre of evil. Romans 8:22-23:
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
The wages of sin—is there such a thing? After all these thousands of years, could God’s Word actually be true and righteous altogether? Does man disobey at his own peril? This feature is just another proof that God is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
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.
References:
Authorized King James Version
NIAAA, “Alcohol Alerts,” pubs.niaaa.nih.gov
U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2007
“Wars May Cost 2.4T,” web.ebscohost.com, 10/24/07
Additional Audios
- The 6,000s (Part 4: Adam & Eve Found; They Are Young!)
- Meditation Rebuilds Grey Matter in 8 Weeks (My Soul is Continually in My Hand)
- Fasting and Prayer--The Power that Breaks the Yoke
- The Worms from Hell
- The Truth Remains True — Pigs — Lot’s Wife — Flush It
- Why the Blood of Jesus?
- Dead Men Talking About Life After Death
- Heaven--Looking for Proof? (Let There Be No Doubt!)
- Wicked Thoughts and How to Deal with Them
- Sodom and Gomorrah
- Forty-Eight Hours In Hell
Power Verse
Malachi 3:16 (KJV)
Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of rememberance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.