Drowning in a debt we can’t repay

Picture a boat with a hole in its bottom that is taking in more water than can be bailed out. Eventually, the boat will sink, and its passengers may drown. That’s precisely what’s happening to our country. It is drowning in debt. The United States routinely spends more than it takes in through tax revenues.

In fact, 32 of our past 45 presidential administrations have spent more money than the country received in tax revenues. In 1980, the national debt was only one trillion dollars. Forty years later, it had jumped to an astounding $28.1 trillion. To explain how large this is, a trillion equals 1,000 billion, a billion equals 1,000 million and a million represents 1,000 one thousand-dollar bills. A stack of one trillion, one-dollar bills would reach to the moon and back four times.

The debt of the United States is so great that at birth, every American child owes $85,000. The 1.9 trillion dollar stimulus bill, signed into law on 11 March 2021, will increase the national debt to approximately $30 trillion. Last fiscal year, interest payments on the national debt totaled $600 billion. This represented 17% of tax revenues. Our nation’s debt is now larger than its Gross Domestic Product ($21 trillion).

Having grown up during the depression years, I learned to be frugal with money. Over past decades, the value of money has diminished. Consider the price of a house or a new car 50 years ago with its price today. During the 1960s and 70s, Beverly and I could take our two small boys to Macon, eat hamburgers at Shoney’s, go to a movie, eat popcorn and drink sodas, for a total expenditure of 30 dollars. Today, it would cost four times that amount. Similarly, after years of compound interest accruing on the national debt, the value of unpaid debt owed decades ago would rise commensurately.

Just as our country has an unpayable debt, we are all “debtors” to Christ who paid the ultimate price for our sins. Romans 3:23 testifies that “all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” The solution to this “debt of sin” is declared by Romans 6:23, which clarifies that “the “wages of sin” is eternal death, but the “gift of God is eternal life.”

How do we receive forgiveness for this debt? Ephesians 2:8 tells us. First, it is through God’s grace, which is “unmerited forgiveness.” Based on the Scriptures, God’s grace can be granted only to those who believe (have faith) that Jesus died for our sins. By shedding His divine, sinless blood, Jesus paid the price for the sins of all humanity (past, present and future generations) and arose from the dead to restore mankind’s broken relationship with God.

Just as every American citizen owes an insurmountable national debt that cannot be paid, every person owes a “sin debt” to God that is beyond human resolution. The latter part of John 3:16 explains what we must do…”whosoever BELIEVES IN HIM (JESUS) shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

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