Too High a Price
October 12, 2018 • By Ed Wrather
For the wages of sin is death…. – Romans 6:23a NKJV.
If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. – Matthew 5:29 NKJV.
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. – Matthew 5:30 NKJV.
Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? – Romans 6:16 NKJV.
A Dubai tourist and his seven friends had a 20-course dinner (Who knew there was such a thing?) and the bill was just $58,000 (400,000 yuan). Sounds a little high to me! But they did have a few exotic items from the menu. Including: Abalone, Premium Caviar, Yangtze River Crab, Salt-seared Miyazaki Steak, Duck with Olive, Shrimp Roe with Crispy Sea Cucumber, Fish Maw in Abalone Sauce, and…Crocodile Tail Soup for $2,449, and…Wild Yellow Croaker for $2,303. I don’t know about you, but that is just too high a price to pay for Crocodile Tail Soup and Wild Yellow Croaker. It’s Just TOO HIGH!
You know what else is too high a price to pay? The cost of sin is just too high. The result of sin is…death. That’s a little sobering if you really think about it. It’s serious enough that Jesus talks about plucking out your eye or cutting off your hand if it causes you to sin. In other words, Jesus is saying this is deadly as in dead serious stuff, you need to pay attention.
The apostle Paul continues the warnings against sin by saying that we either have one of two masters. We can be a slave to sin which will lead to death is one of the options. Whatever the sin you commit it only leads downward. Anyone with an addiction understands this, it never becomes better it only grows worse. Anyone committing a theft understands that they may at anytime be discovered and often additional thefts are committed to cover up the first. Anyone who tells a lie quickly knows that additional lies become required to cover up the first lie. Sin is a harsh master. One thing is for sure and that is that sin is just TOO high a price to pay!
The good news, the great news is that you don’t have to keep on paying the far too high a price. There is a way out of this deadly downward plunge into eventually eternal hell. Because the second part of Romans 6:23 says, “…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is a gift, and unbelievably extravagant gift from God Himself, but it must be received. God did love us so much that “He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).” Now is the time to receive the gift of eternal life by believing upon Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior; because, the price of sin is just TOO high!