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Get out of Debt

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 23, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 39, No. 19.

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Get out of Debt.

By R. F. Cottrell

From an excellent article in the Sabbath Recorder, of Apr. 4, I extract these words: “Do not say, ‘Next year I will do more for God. Next year will find no place for this year’s duties. Do not say, ‘Next year I will pray in my family, and make special efforts to lead my children in the way of truth.’ You ought to do that now. Do not say, ‘I will cease my questionable forms of business after a few years,’ like one whom we knew who proposed to raise hops and tobacco ‘until he got out of debt.’ If a course is questionable, decide in favor of that which is known to be right. You have no time to waste or lose.”
Debts should certainly be paid. “Render to all their dues.” If men have claims against us, discharge them. “Owe no man anything.” And certainly God has claims upon us. “Pay your vows to the Most High.” No debt is more sacred than that which we owe to God. “Will a man rob God?”
To postpone our duty till we can pay our debts to our fellow-men is neither right, nor is it likely to be successful. It is God that gives us power to get gain. To be faithful to God, to do that which is right in his sight, is the surest and safest way to discharge our obligations to men. How should we regard the man that would resort to robbery to get money to pay his debts? Would that evince a regard for the rights of men? and that he felt the sacredness of his obligations? You answer, No. Then that man is not one who feels the sacredness of his duty to God and man, who pursues a wrong course to gain means to fulfill his obligations. And if his business is even questionable in his own mind, he is under condemnation before God till he abandons it, and engages in that which he is sure will be approved of God.
Let all labor to be out of debt; and let not God be forgotten in our efforts, and his dues neglected, under a pretense of our sacred obligations to men.
R. F. Cottrell.