Sin and Death

Have you ever played word association (what a friend of mine calls word association football)? You know eg Dog Cat, Cat Fur, Fur Coat, Coat Hat, Hat Head, Head Hair, Hare Rabbit, Rabbit Pie, Pi Maths, etc. It is used by psychiatrists to learn things about people but it can be fun too. Now what about the word sin? Do you associate the word death with it? You ought to – sin – death: the wages of sin is death. Sin leads to death. It is inevitably connected with decay and with death, with darkness and with hell. We need to connect not only the general idea of sin with death but individual sins too.

You know how children are not born with an innate sense of danger. They do not instinctively know that the road can be dangerous or that they can fall downstairs or that they can burn themselves on the oven – no, they have to be taught. They need to learn that stepping out into the road without looking is likely to lead to injury. Coming down the stairs backwards is a better way than forwards when they are little. They have to learn that hot ovens can burn. So we need to teach ourselves to connect sin with death. The wages of sin is death.

Wages

Most people today get paid through the bank and often month by month but some still get weekly wages in cash. I grew up in a working class community where most people would get their pay in cash every Thursday. This is why it was on a Thursday evening or a Friday everybody would be busy at the shops or paying bills with the money they had earned over the previous week. My dad would often bring us chocolate because he had been paid. Wages were what people were paid for their week's work. If you didn't work you would not get paid.

I remember working in a factory one summer. On Thursdays the wages trolley would come round with the pay packets. You were given a brown envelope with holes in so that you could see exactly how much was in there before you opened it, in case of any discrepancy.

See Romans 6:23

Sin and Death and Danger

If we know that there is the danger of death if you drink bleach or electrocute yourself or if you catch a certain disease, then you will do all you can to avoid it. It is the only sensible thing to do. Given that the Bible connects sin and death so closely, as it does in Romans 6:23, we must turn from it. Are you turning from sin? Are you making a daily conscious effort to turn from all known sin? That must be the way you live.