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Saturday, July 30, 2011

a few more trillion dollars

                                  "....the borrower is servant to the lender." Prov. 22:7

As everyone that has a TV or radio, or reads the news in some form or fashion, has to be well-aware of the current economic/financially "chaotic" situation dominating the news from our nation's capitol. They make it sound like the fate of the free world hinges on whether we raise the "debt limit" a few more trillion dollars.

And two of the three branches of government are accusing each other of either being (1) the cause of our indebtedness, or (2) being a party-pooper to any plan to allow us to borrow even more money from other countries, even though we already owe so much money that it'll probably never be paid off. I'm just going to accredit what I believe to be the responsible party for this mess and point my finger at every one of our legislators who've been there for the past 50 years or so.

You know, good old Solomon had it right many, many years ago when he passed on to us the wisdom God had given him, one piece of which is our above passage taken from Proverbs 22:7. But, I doubt that Solomon, with all of his wisdom and judgmental abilities, would ever have dreamed that the "leaders" of a nation would get in the financial pickle that ours have gotten us into.

Solomon knew, as just about every responsibility-minded person knows, that you cannot keep spending more money than you have coming in without there someday being a day of reckoning for such behavior. He knew that when he gave us the warning in Prov. 22:7 that, whether talking about individuals, families, companies or nations, that "... the borrower is servant to the lender." In other words, the entity to which you are indebted OWNS YOU!

I see this current mess we're in as just being indicative of some of the other things we've discussed in our lessons regarding the ignoring of God's Word (Wisdom) in our lives, both individually and nationally. In just this area alone, wouldn't it have been great if back some years ago someone read this verse and said, "Hey, maybe we should listen to what God says about this borrowing money from other countries?" That, "maybe we don't want our citizens to be slaves to some other country." Well, I think it would have been great anyway.

Since I'm on a roll talking about our governmental leaders today let me pass on a few more thoughts fitting this topic. I read about a "Rasmussen Poll" that said that members of Congress are now the "least respected job in America." I wonder why?

Another thing that we're constantly hearing broadcast from Washington is that one of the things bad about our country is that there are a lot of rich people and a lot of poor people and we must "redistribute the wealth." This reminds me of a little humorous story I once heard that is very appropriate to this "redistribution" philosophy pervading some of our legislators. It went like this.....

A preacher came home after Sunday morning services and his wife, bedridden with the flu, noticed that he looked very despondent. Being concerned about his apparent sadness, she asked him, "What was your sermon subject about that has saddened you so much? He said, "I tried to tell them that it was the duty of the rich to help the poor."

She then asked him, "Well, did you convince them?" He replied, "Only half of them. I convinced the poor."

I'm going to use that little story to illustrate a statement made by Christ in His sermon on the mount and this little short statement has been repeated so many times that it's probably known to people who don't own a Bible. When you read it in a moment you may wonder how I make application to our story and the subject of "redistribution." I'll do my best to explain how I attach it.

The statement of which I speak is just seven little words taken out of verse 6 of Matthew 7: "...neither cast your pearls before swine..." In order to see how I relate this statement to our story and the redistribution of wealth, allow me to define a couple of words in that statement. By doing so, I think you'll get my drift.

"Pearls" are representative of something valuable. "Swine" represents something that has no appreciation of what's valuable. I understand this concept because of something my dad used to say to me when I wanted something. He'd say, "You need that like a pig needs a Sunday hat."

We have now, and have had for some time, a large segment of our society that is totally dependent upon the government. I recently saw some figures that put that segment at around fifty percent of the population. Since the "government" can only give someone something that it has taken from someone else, it stands to reason that this is not a good ratio.

I truly believe that someone who does not work for what they receive, has no appreciation for what they are given. (Prov. 18:9 and 2Thess. 3:10) Some very astute person once said: "You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity." It just seems to me that our government is taking "pearls" from others and "casting" them to people who have no appreciation of their value. And that's how I relate Matt. 7:6 to our topic.

Let me return to our first topic, indebtedness, for a closing thought for today. My closing point is this; that we are indebted to God for the "gift" of His Son on the cross that provides everyone with a "way" of obtaining salvation. The apostle Paul speaks of this debt, this obligation in the 8th chapter of Romans.

He tells us in verses 12-15 that, if we are Christians, we have an obligation to live a "Spirit led" life rather than a life of sin. Let me leave you with a little saying I have in my "neat sayings file" and I don't know who the author is, I just know it's neat.

                                He came to pay a debt He didn't owe,

                                because we owed a debt we couldn't pay.

Ron Covey

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