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: