The Wages of Sin is Non-negotiable

"But [my people] also have erred through wine...For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean." Isaiah 28:7, 8

The same folly of Ephraim (vs. 3) is also the folly of God's people. They are also full of their own pleasures, their works, themselves. "The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink." (vs. 7b) Even they that should know better are caught up in it all. "They err in vision, they stumble in judgment." (vs. 7c) They are consumed with themselves, they cannot see clearly anymore, and therefore they cannot do justly. The evil of Ephraim has touched Israel, and it took no prisoners. It spread to all its corners, "for all tables are full of vomit and filthiness."

Here we see the power of choice as well as sin itself. Even after Christ's disposition replaces our old one and we become God's adopted children, we can still choose to sin. In addition, if you think that being God's child removes you from falling into sin and its consequences, you are fooling yourself. No matter who you are, "the wages of sin is death," whether temporally or ultimately. Sin can only bring about destruction and negation; it is its very nature to do so. It will do the same to us if we let it.

We can choose to let sin reign in our mortal bodies (though not in our inner man, for our inner man is Christ; see Galatians 2:20). Because we accepted the light of Christ, choosing to sin will not damn us in the life to come (see John 3:16-19), but it will damn us in the here and now, damn everything we do or touch to death and destruction, until all tables are foul with vomit and filth. Such is the doom for the life of anyone (believer or otherwise) who turns from God to self. On the other side of the grave, sin can never touch us; but it can still kill us here if we let it. The wages stay the same.

"My Flesh would drag Me

Into Me,

But I am hollow without You.

May your Spirit forever lift Me

Into Your great Love..."

-Jon Vowell