Escape the Debt Trap

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=80 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF" bgproperties="fixed" background="04100500dvldtc.gif"> <div> <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Papyrus" ><B>Offensive Words.com</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="Arial" ><B>     |     </B></FONT><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Offensive Words.com"><U><B><IMG SRC="33f32320.gif" border=0 width="50" height="50" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A><B>  </B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="Arial" ><B>    </B></FONT></div> <div> Escape the Debt Trap   |   <A HREF="id150.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="DebtFree Living"><U>Debt-Free Living</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="042d2c00dvldtc.gif"> <div> <B>"Th</B><B>e </B><B>rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender"</B></div> <div> 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yourself; press your plea with your neighbor! Allow no sleep to your eyes, no slumber to your eyelids. Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler.</B><B> —Proverbs 6:1-5</B></div> <div> <B>This is one of the most sober warning in the whole book of Proverbs. Such a sense of danger! Such urgency to escape harm! The tone is matched elsewhere only by the grave warnings against falling into adultery. What exactly is the inspired author so exercised about here?</B></div> <div> <B>In a word: </B><B>debt</B><B>. What is envisioned in the passage is that you co-sign a loan for a neighbor. The neighbor, say, takes out a bank loan to finance his purchase of some building supplies or livestock. He has no credit record (or a less than good one) and needs someone to guarantee repayment of the loan if he defaults. In a magnanimous gesture of neighborliness, you agree to co-sign, assured all the time by your friend that he will have no trouble making payments.</B></div> <div> <B>Notice the passage does not even envision that one of God’s people would </B><B>himself</B><B> voluntarily take out a loan; he just got sucked into sharing another’s debt because of his charitable spirit. (It goes without saying that if securing another’s debt is wrong, willingly going into debt for myself would be all the more foolish.) Notice, too, however, how even this secondary indebtedness is described. The passage no less than six times makes some reference to being caught in a dangerous situation (trapped; ensnared; free yourself; fallen into his hands; a captured gazelle; a snared bird). If you have obligated yourself to re-pay a loan you are in great danger.</B></div> <div> <B>The solution is also forcefully presented: get out of the arrangement </B><B>immediately</B><B>! Not next year, not next month, not next week—but </B><B>today</B><B>, before you even allow yourself to sleep tonight! Do whatever you have to do to quickly get out of the debt you foolishly took upon yourself.</B></div> <div> <B>What is the big deal? What is so dangerous about debt? Why is it that God so dramatically warns his people against it? Part of the answer is found in other portions of Proverbs:</B></div> <div> <B>"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender" (22:7).</B></div> <div> <B>"He who puts up security for another will surely suffer, but whoever refuses to strike hands in pledge is safe." (11:15)</B></div> <div> <B>"Do not be a man who strikes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched out from under you." (22:26,27)</B></div> <div> <B>The most obvious reason you should avoid debt is that you can lose your possessions and even your freedom! If you don’t have the means to repay the obligation, the creditors must be paid somehow. So they will take your bed, your home, your transportation — and if you still owe more, you may have to become a servant of the creditor until the loan is paid off (at least in that culture; debtors prison was a more recent historical method of dealing with bad debts).</B></div> <div> <B>Debt is a form of slavery, in principle. It obligates you financially to another in the same way a servant is obligated to his master. You lose your freedom to control all your economic decisions. You are bound to your master/creditor until the loan is repaid. (Read Nehemiah 5:1-13 to see this principle in operation. This passage also recognizes that sometimes God’s people may become so destitute that going into some form of debt is their only choice, but that is a much different thing than elective debt.)</B></div> <div> <B>The basic problem with debt is not just that you can lose your possessions, or in other cultures your physical freedom; the real problem is that indebtedness is an assault upon your standing as a man made in God’s image. You were created in the likeness of God, to rule, not to be ruled, to take dominion over the earth and any of its people that God places under your care (Gen. 1:26-28). To choose to place yourself unnecessarily under the rule of another (to become his servant) is to yield some of your birthright as an image-bearer of God.</B></div> <div> <B>Further, the freedom that you lost by virtue of sin and its effects is restored in Christ. </B><B>"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. ... You, my brothers, were called to be free."</B><B> (Gal. 5:1,13) The freedom Jesus purchased with his blood is a spiritual and moral freedom, first of all (freedom from sin, Satan, the law, death); but it should overflow in all dimensions of your life (don’t willingly become a slave; if you cannot avoid it, you are still free in Christ; but if at all possible, get free! —1 Cor. 7:21-23). Christ restores the opportunity for you to live out fully your created role of taking dominion for his glory. Becoming a slave through debt is inconsistent with this calling.</B></div> <div> <B>This New Testament call to freedom is underscored in Romans 13:8 which says, "Owe no man anything...." Actually, it is a very emphatically negative statement in the Greek ("To no one no thing owe you!"). So God’s wisdom did not change from the time Proverbs was written until Paul penned Romans under the Spirit’s inspiration!</B></div> <div> <B>Indeed, debt is viewed universally in Scripture as a very negative thing. In Israel, needing to borrow money was a sign of God’s curse for disobedience (Deut. 28:43-45). In the "Lord’s Prayer" debt is used as a metaphor for sin in the petition, "Forgive us our debts." In light of the whole of the Bible’s testimony, why would any Christian voluntarily go into debt?</B></div> <div> <B>The answer, of course, is simply that in this area, as in so many others, Christians have been squeezed into the world’s mold in their thinking and living (cf. Rom. 12:2). Credit and debt are the very essence of our national and personal economies. But this is not God’s way, as Scripture makes clear.</B></div> <div> <B>So far we have seen that (1) God warns us against debt, (2) we can lose our possessions through debt, and (3) it contradicts our calling as Christ’s free men. There are other reasons to avoid this trap, as well.</B></div> <div> <B>(4) Going into debt presumes upon the future. We assume that we will keep our current level of income, maintain our health so we can work, and otherwise continue to do tomorrow what we are doing today. But we don’t know what tomorrow will bring! (Jas. 4:13,14) This approach to life is a manifestation of the pride of man who views himself as in control of his own life (v.16). </B><B>"Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’"</B><B> (v. 15).</B></div> <div> <B>(5) Debt places us in a position in which we may have to violate a promise. Since we are promising to re-pay the loan, and since we cannot control the future, we may find ourselves not only unable to pay but also breaking our word in the process. The "yes" of our promises must be matched by the "yes" of our actions. A "yes" promise followed by a "no" in performance is an evil which rightly brings condemnation and must at all costs be avoided (Matt. 5:37; Jas. 5:12).</B></div> <div> <B>(6) Borrowing shows a lack of contentment with God’s provision. The Lord has promised us that if we seek his kingdom and righteousness above all else he will provide for all our needs (Matt. 6:33; Phil. 4:19). If our genuine needs are not being met, then we should examine our lives to see if we are living obediently — we should not mask over the spiritual root problem by borrowing.</B></div> <div> <B>More often the problem is not that we actually lack anything we </B><B>need</B><B>, but that we confuse </B><B>wants</B><B> with needs. We don’t have all we would like to have, consider ourselves deprived, and seek to rectify the "problem" by borrowing. But our Father knows what we need and is providing for us. We must simply learn the lesson of contentment (Phil. 4:11-13). Borrowing says to God, in effect, "You are not meeting my needs very well, so I’ll have to take care of them by own way." This is not an expression of faith.</B></div> <div> <B>If we cannot pay for something today, God does not want us to have it today — or he plans to provide it in some other way. The question is, Are we looking to God as our provider in practice? Or is that just a nice theological concept with no bearing on how we live our lives? The slavery of debt is not God’s method of providing for his people.</B></div> <div> <B>So what does all this mean for the Remnant? It means that </B><B>getting out of debt is a high priority</B><B>. Not only is this necessary because of all that we have seen so far from Scripture, getting out of debt is also one of the most important ways to prepare ourselves for "the coming economic earthquake." And it is coming! Those who are in debt risk losing what they have and will find it hard to retire their debt in the austere days past the crash.</B></div> <div> <B>If you are debt, what steps can you take to find freedom? First, </B><B>confess</B><B> as sin any wrong attitudes you have had that have contributed to your being where you are (like not trusting God, not being content, coveting). Examine yourself to see if your indebtedness may be a form of discipline from a loving Father to get your attention (Heb. 12:7). You can’t clean up the fruit of your life until you deal with the root.</B></div> <div> <B>Second, make a </B><B>commitment</B><B>, along with your wife, that </B><B>you will never again voluntarily go into debt</B><B>. Commit yourselves to accept God’s provision and determine to adjust your lifestyle to the level of his provision.</B></div> <div> <B>Third, begin immediately to </B><B>scale back your living standard</B><B> enough to allow you to do the following: (1) Begin </B><B>tithing</B><B> 10% of your income (if you are not already; don’t expect God’s blessing if you don’t obey him in this, Mal. 3:8-10). (2) Apply at least 10-20% of your income per month to </B><B>debt reduction</B><B>. (Twenty percent is better since you probably should not be trying to save if you are in debt, and a healthy approach to stewardship would have you tithe 10% and save 10% — leaving debt reduction to come from the remainder.) You need to be very serious about this, like a trapped animal who is seeking to escape a trap, like a man who does not sleep until he is free, remember?</B></div> <div> <B>Fourth, </B><B>categorize</B><B> your debts and begin to pay off consumer type debt first (credit cards, furniture and appliance loans, etc.) starting with the smaller ones. Then tackle bigger items like automobiles and homes. But at the same time....</B></div> <div> <B>Fifth, seriously </B><B>consider selling off possessions</B><B> to eliminate debt. Sell that car you have under a loan agreement and buy one you can afford. Sell your house and downsize or buy a mobile home (or rent). And don’t kid yourself that your house is an "appreciating asset" and an exception to the rule of no debt. In a depression, everything loses value. (Serious deflation in the housing market has already hit parts of the country —many folks have mortgages larger than the current value of their home!) These are drastic measures, to be sure, but isn’t that what the Lord calls for in Proverbs 6?</B></div> <div> <B>It may be a depressing thing, at first, to realize the magnitude of your slavery through debt. But that will soon pass as you begin to experience the exhilarating sense of freedom that comes when you live within God’s provision. Don’t get swept away to ruin along with the world. Plan to get totally out of debt, and start today!</B></div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="0d44d0c0.gif" border=0 width="589" height="12" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <B>Sign up for Patriarch Magazine</B></div> <div> <B>Suggested Donation: $25* per year.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Patriarch </B></div> <div> <B>PO Box 50 </B></div> <div> <B>Willis, VA 24380</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="http://Patriarch.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://Patriarch.com"><U><B><U>http://Patriarch.com</U></B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="0d44d0c0.gif" border=0 width="589" height="12" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000033" FACE="Verdana" ><B>To Return to Article Home page, Click-  </B></FONT><A HREF="articles.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Offensive Articles"><U><B>Offensive Articles</B></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="332d1860.gif" border=0 width="721" height="902" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>