National Debt-- it's not that big!

A good reminder on the most important debt we owe:

From Ray's Blog at Living Waters:

According to the recent news, America is so in debt that the amount we owe would be enough to buy every American worker three years of paid vacation.

I’m not worried about our nation’s debt. Politicians got us into it, and they can worry about getting us out. I am more worried about two other, more important debt problems. These are much deeper than the mere national debt. I have a huge debt to this world, and this world has a massive debt to the moral Law.

When I bike to work each day, I always have my hand near the brake. There are two reasons for this. One is that I have fallen off three times in ten years, and each time was painful. The second reason is closely tied to the first. I have often watched young people ride with no hands and thought about how unthinking they are, because they could never reach the brake in an emergency.

The “brake” for the Christian is his tender conscience. He should always be ready for danger. The ungodly don’t prime their conscience, and so they often land on their face because of their foolishness. Many survive emergencies in this life, but they won’t in the next. Hell is a very real place, and I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to end up there. Therefore, I am in a moral debt—to “warn every man” of the danger (Col. 1:28). If the world won't listen, their blood will be upon their own head.

I recently saw a TV program called "I Should Have Died." It reenacted a true story of a man who became lost in a desert for four days. He had neither food nor water. He finally stumbled upon a road and was at the point of death when he saw a car heading toward him. He waved it down, but couldn't speak because his throat was so dry. All he could do was gesture for water. One of the passengers reached out with a bottle of water, tipped it on the ground, and off they drove laughing, leaving the man to die of thirst in the desert . I was horrified that they could do such a thing. His blood was on their wicked hands.

If I don't warn the lost of their terrible danger without Christ, I'm as guilty as the men in that car. But my conscience is primed and its voice stops me from ignoring the unsaved. In Psalm 51:14 David speaks of something called "bloodguiltiness" (KJV). Most commentators believe it is referring to murder, but according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, it "seems to indicate that the phrase does not necessarily signify bloodshed, but any grievous sin which, if it remains, will block God's favor to His land and people."

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, you God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness" (vv. 13,14, emphasis added). The context is speaking of our debt to the unsaved. Paul said that he was only free for the blood of all men when he preached to them the whole counsel of God (see Acts 20:26,27). He said that he was "a debtor" to preach the gospel "both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise" (Romans 1:14). We are in debt to this world, because the world is in debt to the moral Law, and there will be hell to pay for those who die in their sins.

So let's leave politicians to worry about the temporal debt, and instead be deeply concerned about the eternal debt, to a point where we reach out to this dying world.