Hard Work and Bad Pay; no Work and Rich Reward
A. G. Brown. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I. HARD WORK AND BAD PAY. 1. Who are the servants who receive the pay? (1) All by nature. We are slaves born upon the estate of sin. (2) But we are servants also by voluntary choice. (3) The servants of Satan are many. His workshop is the world. Go where you please you find his liveried servants. Unlike other employers he never diminishes the number of his hands, for if any are by grace persuaded to leave his service it goes much against his grain. It matters not to him whether trade be slack or otherwise, he can always find employment for all. (4) They belong to all ages. Children not in their teens, and lads not out of them, are every day through the medium of our police courts astonishing even a sinful world with their proficiency in guilt; and side by side with them stands the criminal whose locks have grown white in the service of the same relentless master. (5) They belong to all grades of society. In the sight of God there is not much to choose between Bethnal Green and Belgravia, Westbourne and Whitechapel. Kings, princes, statesmen, and paupers are all equally his servants. 2. The work they have to perform. To be Satan's servant is no sinecure. (1) To one he says, "Get rich": and at the word of command the poor wretch at once begins to toil, and laborious toil it is. The miser is a lump of incarnate misery. (2) To another he gives an order summed up in the word drink, and there is no slavedom more killing both to body and soul than slavedom to the drink. He who enters a drunkard's grave has worked hard for the result. (3) He sets another to obtain pleasure. Men will even in the most lawful pleasures do that which if required of them in an ordinary day's work would be the subject of much grumbling. Who does not know by experience that a day's pleasuring is more tiring than an equal number of hours' work? And how much more is this true with the gay man of the world. Possessed with the evil spirit, he goes hither and thither seeking rest and finding none. The quiet of the home he terms slow, so he launches into a whirlpool of dissipation, and singing "Begone, dull care." The pleasure that once enchanted him by frequent indulgence becomes insipid; something stronger, more vicious is needed to stimulate his jaded spirits. He goes from bad to worse, until at last every sinful pleasure has in its turn been tried, and in its turn grown tame. Of all the miserable sights on earth that of an aged roué is the most miserable. (4) Satan sets a fourth to act the hypocrite, and for this service he pays the highest wages, and right he should, for the work must be tremendous. How great a strain to have always to remember the part he has to act. But whatever the work may be to which the sinner is set it is work without a pause. Satan has no old pensioners permitted to end their days in peaceful idleness. 3. The wages paid them. (1) The death of the body is but the result of sin. For six thousand years men have been receiving the wages of death. But death here is placed in contrast to "eternal life," and means eternal death. (2) Sin pays some of its wages on account, it gives sometimes an instalment of hell on earth. The wretched debauchee often finds it so. Mark his haggard countenance, his trembling gait, follow him to the hospital — nay, don't — let his end remain secret; terrible are the wages he receives on account. And yet after all this is nothing. Eternity is one long pay day, and the wages paid is death. II. NO WORK AND RICH REWARD. 1. The pivot word is "gift." God absolutely refuses to sell salvation. He will give to any, but barter with none. 2. The blessing specified. "Eternal life"; and this the Lord permits His children to enjoy on earth; for as part of the wages of sin is paid on account in this life, so even in this life foretastes of the gift of God are enjoyed by the saints. Peace with God, quiet trustfulness as to the future, beside a thousand other joys, are some of the clusters of the grapes of Eschol, that refresh the wearied one on his journey to the land where the vine grows. And how about the end, when the gift is received in full? 3. Forget not the channel through whom it flows; it is a gift to thee, because thy Lord paid all. (A. G. Brown.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. WEB: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.