Subject: The Wages Of Sin
Scripture Reading: Romans 6:23
The question that has been asked for centuries, the question that has effected more people, the question that is asked by every prospective employee, young people ask it, middle age people ask it, even older people ask it.
The question that has effected more people Is: How much does It pay?
Oh, It may be asked in different ways, You may ask, How much will I make?, spouses may ask How much will you make? But the question is asked over and over again each day around the world.
You see, we are living in an age where most people are interested in making a good living, getting paid wages so they can live comfortably and enjoy life.
Now there is nothing wrong with that.
Most of you when you are offered a job, sometime before you accept the job and commit yourself you ask, What’s the
pay? How much will I make?
But today, I want us to think about another question and that question was asked by Jesus Christ himself it is found in Mark 8:36:
For what shall it profit a man, If he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Let me paraphrase it like this: What shall it profit a person if he should get what they want in life and in the end lose his soul?
Most of you this past week when you got paid, opened that pay envelope and checked the figures on that pay check very carefully.
You wanted to make sure that you got the exact amount that was coming to you.
Why? Because you put in X number of hours and you expected X number of dollars for those hours of work, Right?
Did you know that the Bible tells us that every day that person chooses to live in Sin, doing their own thing, refusing to let Jesus Christ come into their life, that they are earning a wage?
Just like you earned a wage this past week for the hours you worked.
So every person who has not come to Jesus Christ in faith and asked him to come into their heart and life, and has not let Him take control of their life is earning what the Bible calls the wages of sin.
Paul tells us this in Romans 6:23, He says the wages of sin is...
Now the Bible tells us that there is pleasure and fun in sin, If sin wasn’t fun, Hollywood and the devil would go bankrupt in a week.
If sin wasn’t fun, then every bar in town would close down, and the places of sin would go out of business. No the Bible clearly tells us that there are pleasures in sin, but they only last for a short time.
The life of a sinner is a lot like the story of Pinocchio. Remember how he was played hooky from school and got on the stage coach that was headed for Pleasure Island, because the fox and the cat told them that If he would go there that it was nothing but fun and games all day long?
Never any school to go to, never any work or rules, just fun, fun, fun!
That reminds me of what Satan is saying to every unbeliever today.
He is saying, just go ahead, do what feels good, enjoy life, don’t obey what your parents say, don’t worry about what the Bible says, don’t worry about is right, you only live once, so enjoy life, live it up, do your own thing!
But in the story of Pinocchio remember how one day the fellows began to turn into donkeys, there was a price to pay for all that fun.
Even today even though Satan has not told you, there are some wages that we earn when we continue to live in sin, and do our own thing.
No you don’t grow donkey ears, It Is something far worse. it is called the wages of sin.
Every day that you continue to live in sin, the greater your wage becomes.
Today I have four checks that I want to share with you. These checks are already made payable, the amount is filled in, and they are signed.
Check Number 1: Pay To The Order Of Any Sinner:
Blasted Hopes
And it is signed S.A. Tan
Satan’s blasted hopes.
I don’t want to alarm you, but there are multitudes who have already cashed this check. Oh they never planned to cash it, but the sad thing is they have.
I’m sure that some of you can look back a few years and remember when you said, I’m going to enjoy life. I’m not going to be like Mom & Dad, I’m going to make something of my life.
I’m going to get married, and raise a family and have nice things, I’m going to enjoy my life and fulfill my dreams.
And you built your wonder air castles in your mind and you have beautiful hopes and plans. But something crossed your path that you weren’t planning to effect you the way that it did.
The thing that crossed your path you spell it in three letters: S-I-N! Sin!
Today my mind is full of all kinds of illustrates of people who I have pastored and known who never planned to, but have already cashed this check of Blasted Hopes.
I don’t enjoy sharing these true stories with you, but part of my job as pastor is to warn you of the dangers of continuing to live your life doing your own thing. Stubbornly setting your will against what is right.
I think of a young lady, a promising young lady who attended my home Church as a young person, She had a lot in her favor, She was well liked, she was very attractive. But one day she began to date a young man from another church who had a bad reputation.
Her parents begged her not to do it, the Pastor talked to her, but she wouldn’t listen.
To make a long story short, they decided to get married, Things went from bad to worse after the marriage, the husband began to run around on her, and finally, it was separation & divorce,
The last time I had any connection with her, She sat on her front porch, a sad, depressed lady, trying to raise her teenage children as a single parent, and with tears in her eyes, she said, I had my whole life ahead of me, and I blew it. I wish I would have listened!
What was it? This ugly thing called sin crossed her path back there when she was in her early 20s and she turned from God and sought after the pleasures of sin, and before she knew it she had cashed this check of blasted hopes.
Oh, today her life ought to be different, but sin brought her down, sin wrecked those beautiful dreams and air castles.
Oh, listen whether you are a teenager, middle aged, or an older person.
Sin is an awful thing. And one of the wages you earn from living in sin and doing your own thing is Blasted hopes.
Let me tell you, that sin is to strong for any of us.
And I know what Satan says to us. But it won’t happen to you. All I want for you is happiness.
But Satan is a liar and what He wants for you is for you to cash this check and the sooner the better.
Oh the lives that have been ruined because they listened to Satan and would not obey God.
As a pastor, I often have to listen to the sad stories as people sit in my office and weep and tell me of how they never dreamed it would turn out this way. But somehow before they knew it they had cashed the check, and they don’t even know exactly when.
Oh today the hundreds and thousands of people walking the skid row sections of our large cities, some selling their bodies for a few dollars to try to satisfy a sinful habit.
They have little or nothing left to live for, all joy and pleasure is gone out of sin, the fun is over, now all they are doing is simply existing from one day to the next.
Why? Because they were tricked into cashing this check from Satan and they hopes and dreams have been blasted.
Now many of them were just like you today, they never dreamed to go that far, but the wages of sin cashed in on them.
All because of Satan’s blasted hopes.
Oh, I am here today as God’s messenger to warn you that if you have not yet done so, to turn from your life of sin and give your heart and life to God before you cash this check.
If you have already cashed, let me tell you that there Is a Heavenly Father who loves you and wants to bring forgiveness and peace into your heart and life.
And even though you can not go back and relive the years you wasted, God wants to give you a brand-new start in life.
Check Number 2: Pay To The Order Of Any Sinner:
Ruined Health
You see, sin not only pays you blasted hopes, but it also pays in terms of Ruined health.
Now Satan never advertises the end result of sin. Whenever he advertises it, it is always at the beginning. So he put up big hunk of man or s sexy young lady and uses them to advertise his sin and sinful habit.
But I am here today to tell you that it will cost you dearly to live in sin. Because sin actually has a way of shortening your life.
You say not me pastor, I can stop anytime I want. Can you? If you were honest, you would have to admit that you can’t.
You would have to admit that you are entangles more than you ever planned to be.
You know why? Because that is the characteristic of sin.
Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay, it will take you further than you want to go and it will cost you more than you want to pay.
In one of the churches that I have pastored, was a young man who called me one day and said, Pastor would you go visit my step mother, she is in the hospital in the Intensive care.
I said sure I’ll go, But I was not prepared for what I saw as I entered her room. Here was the form of what was suppose to the body of a young 42 year old lady. But what I saw was a body that looked like she had been pumped full of air.
I could hardly tell where her face was.
How did she get that way. Donna was an alcoholic, who began to drink every day and then 3 times a day, finally all she did was drink beer for breakfast, lunch and supper.
People tried to warn her, but she would not listen, She said, I can handle my beer leave me alone.
But now I am looking down into what is suppose to be her face and I try to talk to her and tell her that God loved her so much He died in her place. But there is not sound or response, except the machines by here bed that are keeping here alive.
A few days later I sat in the funeral home and as the service was going on I had to think, how did she get to where she was. How was that she was dead at only 42 years old?
I’ll tell you she cashed this second check.
Oh, again let me warn you that sin is too big for any of us, Yes we can play with it, and fool with it, but if we don’t get rid of sin out of our lives, it will some day get rid of us.
Sin pays in terms of blasted hopes and ruined health,
Check Number 3: Pay To The Order Of Any Sinner:
Wrecked Lives
For years I have wished that I could take people who thought that sin was just fun and games and show them the other side.
All Satan does is advertise sin from the fun side. You see the bill boards, you see the Commercials and It show a picture of a muscular man surrounded by beautiful young ladies, and he has a can of beer in his hand and the essence of the ad is: If you want to have fun, drink our brand of beer.
But if I could, I would like to paint a picture of Skid Row in New York City or Chicago, and show you a man now in his fifties who looks like seventy.
He is dressed in old dirty clothes and he stumbles along looking for a bottle so that he might pour the few drops from the bottom of that bottle into another bottle , hoping to get enough to satisfy the craving of drink that is controlling him.
Watch him as he come to a trash can and begins to search through it, and he finds a piece of stale bread but he quickly chews it down, to try to stopped the hunger pangs that he feels.
Watch him at night as he makes his way under the bridge or down a back alley, and climbs into a large cardboard box and tries to get out of the cold wind, that is the only home that he knows.
And then roll back the curtain of time a number of years, and see that same man as a young person who has a bright future, and a whole life ahead of him.
What happened? Sin cashed in on him. And the check that he cashed was a Wasted lived.
No one who starts to take drugs says, I hope I end up a junkie. No, they begin to take drugs for a good time and a high.
No one who takes His first drinks says I hope I end up on Skid row, No they take it for good time and to be accepted.
No young fellow looks at a filthy magazine and says, I hope I spend 20 or 30 years of my life behind bars for rape & murder.
No! No one plans to go that far, but the wages of sin pays In terms of blasted hopes, ruined health, and wrecked lives.
Let’s quickly look at one more check:
Check Number 4: Pay To The Order Of Any Sinner:
Outer Darkness
It could be that you might be able to live your life in sin and not cash check number 3 or 2 or even 1. But you can not live a life in sin and die that way without cashing this fourth check.
Satan knows if he can keep you away from Christ, and if He can keep you from trusting Jesus Christ as your Savior and turning your life over to Him, that there is coming a day when you will die.
And when you die without Christ, you will have to cash this check and when you do you will spend an eternity in Hell.
Now I know that I am talking to intelligent people. I am talking to thinking people, and today there is not one of you who for a moment want to cash this check or any of these checks.
And yet if you do not make a definite choice not to cash and you just go through life the same as thousands of others, you will cash them before you know you have.
However, It isn’t all dark and hopeless today.
Thank God, there is hope!
Thank God that there is a Heavenly Father that loves you and has provided a way for you to live this life without cashing these checks.
Today I have a Gift Certificate that is available to every single sinner.
It is not a check because a check is something that you have to earn. And you can never earn what this Gift Certificate has to offer.
Look At this Gift Certificate:
Presented To Any Sinner: in The Amount of: Eternal Life Given by God Almighty Through Jesus Christ
Today, God Almighty, wants to takes these checks that Satan has for you to cash and He wants to write void across them and present to you His gift of Eternal life.
Paul tells us in Romans 6:23: For the wages of sin is death; But the gift of God is Eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Today, your life may be a mess, and you might have cashed Check # 1, or even 2 or 3. But I want to tell you that God loves you today and God has a way of taking those checks and writing void across them and giving you a wonderful gift called Eternal life.
Eternal life begins down here the moment you ask God to forgive you for your past life of sin, and you ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart and life to live. And it continues in the life hereafter in a wonderful place called heaven.
It is really the only real life worth living. Again you can not earn it, or buy it, It has already been purchased for you through the blood of Jesus Christ. The only thing you can do is accept it or reject it.
I remember some time ago when a family in town were going through a rough time, and we found out that they didn’t have any money to buy food, so we went and bought them a gift certificate and we took it to them.
When my wife presented it to the lady, she had the option of either saying Thank You, or No thanks, we will try to make it on our own, even though we have nothing to buy food with, we’ll try to make it.
Now she would have been a fool to say no thank you, and she didn’t but rather she hugged my wife and cried and said, Oh, thank you, you didn’t have, but thank you so much for caring.
And that is what God wants us to do with His gift of eternal life. He wants us to accept it and say thank you Lord, You didn’t have to come and die for me, you didn’t have to love me and care about me, But I’m so glad you did, thank you for loving me. Come into my heart and live and forgive me and make me a new person, so I can serve you.
Oh, today, if you are still in your sins, if you do not know Jesus Christ in a personal way, you have a choice, you can either continue the way you are right now and cash the checks that sin pays.
And let me just let all of us in on a secret. Even if we do know Jesus Christ in a personal way, Satan is still out trying to get us to cash these checks by making some bad decisions in life.
Now we can either listen to Satan and end up cashing these checks or we can turn to Jesus Christ and accept God’s wonderful Gift of eternal life. The choice is yours. I beg of you today, leave your life of sin and wages sin pays and come and accept God’s gift today!
