National Debt

Currently the national debt of the United States stands at around 28 trillion dollars. It is a number which most of us would have trouble “getting our minds around.” 28 trillion which is growing at a rate of $37,000 per second or so, $1,000,000 every 30 seconds, 2 million dollars every minute, 120 Million every hour, which is around 2.9 billion per day. I would think that most of us have trouble getting our minds around even thatnumber. That amount increases as a result of new agendas and interest, every minute of the day, whether or not we are sleeping or awake. Again, hard to get our minds around. 

Let me try to help a bit. 28 Million seconds equals 324 days. 28 Billion seconds equals 882 years. 28 Trillion seconds equates to 887,264 years. Give or take. Check my math if you so desire; I didn’t have enough fingers and toes. 

Moneywise, that equates to every man, woman, and child in this country (about 330 million) carrying a debt-load of around $86,000 each. 

With the present “discipline” of those in congress and government, there seems little chance of arresting that exponential growth, much less paying it down. Present propositions in the House and Senate offer to send that paltry number of 28 trillion into the stratosphere. 

Left unchecked we threaten to saddle all future generations with this suffocating load. Left unchecked we will progressively move toward identifying with other failed economies of the world. Left unchecked.

Unchecked, the United States of America, a Constitutional Republic, a Federalist Republic, and a Representative Democracy, which it has been for some time, will move toward something other: a Socialist movement, Democratic Socialist movement, even toward Marxism – a moral erosion, a diminished reverence for God, a superiority of self-indulgence, and reduction of any work ethic. The momentum driving the forces is swelling, and it seems just a matter of time until that battering ram penetrates the bulwark of democracy and we join the other Marxist, and communist countries which have “thrived” over the years. My! How things have changed, that a nation who had patently rejected any move toward communism should so quickly welcome it to our doorstep!

Over and above the “economy,” my concern is the exponential growth of sinfulness in our country. Every day, week, month and year, our “national debt” so to speak, of sin only continues to grow exponentially on its vertical climb. I fear it is a debt for which we will never be able to account. Through individualism and the assertion of “rights,” we have been seduced to a moral void… as “everyone does what is right in their own eyes.” And so, the blood-guiltiness increases. All of that sin could not, will not, cannot be “reconciled” by any human agency.

Fundamental issues of a pagan worldview, which includes abortion, funding of abortion, what the nuclear family composed of (the definition of marriage), the question of gender, the value and beginning of life (and end of life), even issues of taxes, foreign policy, and immigration come into play… as well as our preoccupation with pagan idolatry, and even Christian mysticism in what has been called the Church. 

On this present course, at some point bankruptcy will become a reality; financial, moral, and spiritual… on this present course.  Great as it was, I know that this country will not continue into eternity; that is not the plan for this present world. Sin has so compromised what was once declared “Good!”, that it will indeed be destroyed, and the good Lord will restore Creation according to His new architecture. 

I can’t help but compare ourselves to another culture under looming doom–Nineveh. Real Old Testament depravity centuries before the coming of Christ, yet God reached out to them through Jonah:

 “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me” (Jonah 1:2). 

We know the story well. Nineveh embodied evil, but God wanted them to change. Jonah is the reluctant evangelist tasked. Eventually, the fish transports him toward Nineveh where Jonah delivers a rather lackluster sermon, a prophetic warning that would classify as an evangelistic appeal for repentance. Yet, the Spirit of God moves and the people do repent. From the king on down they don sackcloth, and humble themselves. 

“… let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish” (Jonah 3:8b-9).

And, what do you know?… “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it”(Jonah 3:10).

God relented of the proposed annihilation, at least for the moment. Sadly, around 150 years later evil would define Nineveh once again, and God would indeed punish them into oblivion. 

Spending by our government has surpassed the wildest ideals of drunken pirates (No specific insult to any pirates, drunken or otherwise), and our corporate national indiscretions and wickedness both leave us unable to find absolution through our own ingenuity. By all rational accounts we are moving in the wrong direction. 

It is unlikely, (IMHO) that we will ever stem the tide of wanton debt. But, there is a way for the sin our country to be reconciled, paid for, wiped out; it is through faith in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ upon the Cross. We must turn to Christ. 

It is only with hearts of contrition that we can move securely into the future.

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, 
The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12).