June 16, 2011- DEBT

As I write this our national debt is around 14.5 trillion dollars and rising. I just looked at a
website (U.S. Debt clock.org) that has counters which display our national debt, the debt per
citizen, the debt per taxpayer, the U.S. Federal Budget deficit, and many others. The 65 or
so counters on that website are almost all racing forward as our various debts increase by the
second.

In the past few days the nation of Greece has witnessed riots and turmoil as the government
takes some drastic measures to curb their rising debt. We also know that financial debt isn’t
just a problem on a national scale. There are many individuals and couples who have maxed
out their credit cards and have bought more expensive homes and cars and other items than was
financially prudent, and now they face the sad prospect of losing their homes and needing to
claim bankruptcy. There are also those who are facing debt for other reasons, perhaps a business
decision gone sour, or a medical emergency and the doctor and hospital bills that come with it.
What’s our reaction to these signs of the times? Maybe our reaction is to re-adjust our thinking
in terms of our individual spending. It may also provoke us to invest differently, to reconsider
our vacation plans, to get more miles out of our current vehicle, etc. Perhaps we spend more
energy deciding who we should vote for in the next election. Hopefully it also drives us to pray
more – knowing that our God owns “the cattle on a thousand hills” and that He alone provides
for our needs.

But another reaction to the issue of debt is to be reminded that we once owed a debt that
we could never repay no matter how hard or how long we worked to pay it off. Every day the
counter of our own debt was rapidly increasing, and yet God, in an act of immeasurable mercy
and grace, chose to forgive us and to declare us “debt-free” in regard to our sin.
Fourteen and a half trillion dollars is a dollar amount that’s nearly impossible for us to fully
comprehend. The depth of our sin is also nearly (if not actually) impossible for us to fully
comprehend. For that matter I’m not sure if we will ever be able to realize the depth or the
immensity of our sin, but I understand why J.C. Ryle wrote these words – “Nothing, I am
convinced, will astonish us so much, when we awake in the resurrection day, as the view we
shall have of sin and the retrospect we shall take of our own countless shortcomings and defects.
Never till the hour when Christ comes the second time shall we fully realize ‘the sinfulness of
sin.’”

As we think about the subject of debt, consider these words from the Westminster Confession
of Faith (11:3) – “Christ, by His obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those
that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to His Father’s justice
on their behalf. Yet, inasmuch as He was given by the Father for them; and His obedience and
satisfaction accepted in their stead; and both, freely, not for anything in them; their justification
is only of free grace; that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the
justification of the sinner.”

But even more so, meditate on these infallible words of our God from Romans 5:8-10 – But
God commendeth (or, demonstrates) His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from
wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of
His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.