A Bankrupt World by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 31, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 42.

A Bankrupt World.

By G.

Financially this world is practically bankrupt. The governments set the example of debt. Few, if any, of them ever expect to pay their debts, except by incurring others, and most of them are continually increasing their liabilities. Business men are enormously in debt. Few of them could bear a general push for what they owe. The amount of business done on credit is almost appalling. Men strain their credit to the last notch, hoping for a “streak of luck” to help them out. Even the great leaders of finance do business on this principle. In fact, business to-day is largely a series of games of chance. An instance is found in an article by Mr. Henry Dexter, of New York, from which we take this paragraph:

“In looking over last year’s reports of 120 railroads, I find they had stock issued to the extent of $4,900,000,000 and bonds for $5,900,000,000, showing that the bondholders practically own the railroads, as they control over fifty-four per cent. of all the money invested in them, besides having first call on the earnings.”

He further points out that very few of these companies make provision for paying debts; their principle aim is to make large dividends, and let the liabilities be subject to speculative manipulation.

But the world owes a much heavier debt than any financial liability, and this is also being allowed to go on unheeded. This is the debt of love and allegiance to God. We are indebted to Him for “life and breath and all things,” and especially do we owe it to Him to obey His law. Notwithstanding that men have become liable to eternal death because of sin, the Lord Jesus Christ has payed that debt for every one, on condition of the acknowledgement of the fact by faith in Him, and the rendering to Him of the obedience of faith.

Furthermore, we who have accepted His mediation by faith are debtors to the unbelieving, spiritually bankrupt world to witness for Christ and His Gospel, to the end that others may benefit by His liberality also. The time is fast approaching when this debt will be overdue, and the opportunity to pay will be forever past. The time is near when we can not plead the merits of Christ as a substitute for our failures. It is high time for us all to be laying up treasures of love and faithful service against the great day of reckoning, when the plea, “I have nothing wherewith to pay,” will meet only condemnation instead of mercy.