Debt Part 4 from C. H. Spurgeon

Debt
C. H. Spurgeon writing as John Ploughman
From John Ploughmans Talk

My motto is, pay as you go, and keep from small scores Short reckonings are soon cleared. Pay what you owe and what you're worth you'll know. Let the clock tick but no "tick" for me. Better go to bed without your sup per than get up in debt. Sins and debts are always more than we think them to be. Little by little a man gets over head and ears. It is the petty expenses that empty the purse. Money rolls away easily. Tom Thriftless buys what he does not want because it is a great bargain, and so is soon brought to sell what he does want, and find it a very little bargain. He cannot say "No" to his friend who wants him to be security; he gives grand dinners, makes many holidays, keeps a fat table, lets his wife dress fine, and by-and-by he is quite surprised to find that quarter-days come round so very fast, and that creditors bark so loud. He has sowed his money in the fields of thoughtlessness, and now he wonders that he has to reap the harvest of poverty. Still he hopes for something to turn up to help him out of difficulty, and so muddles himself into more troubles, forgetting that hope and expectation are a fool's income. Being hard up, he goes to market with empty pockets, and buys at whatever prices tradesmen like to charge him, and so he pays more than double and gets deeper and deeper into the mire. This leads him to scheming, and trying little tricks and mean dodges, for it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright. This is sure not to answer. Schemes are like spiders' webs, which never catch anything better than flies, and are soon swept away. As well attempt to mend your shoes with brown paper, or stop a broken window with a sheet of ice, as try to patch up a falling business with maneuvering and scheming. When the schemer is found out, he is like a dog in church, which everybody is after, and like a barrel of powder, which nobody wants for a neighbor.

They say poverty is a sixth sense, and it had need be, for many debtors seem to have lost the other five, or were born without common sense. They appear to fancy that you not only make debts, but pay them by borrowing. A man pays Peter with what he has borrowed of Paul, and thinks he is getting out of his difficulties. He is only putting one foot into the mud to pull his other foot out. It is hard to shave an egg, or pull hairs out of a bald pate, but they are both easier than paying debts out of an empty pocket. Samson was a strong man, but he could not pay debts without money. He is a fool who thinks he can do it by scheming. Jews and Gentiles, when they lend money, generally pluck the geese as long as they have any feathers. A man must cut down his outgoings and save his incomings if he wants to clear himself; you cannot spend your penny and pay debts with it too. Stint the kitchen if the purse is bare. Do not believe in any way of wiping out debts except by paying hard cash. Promises make debts, and debts make promises, but promises never pay debts. Promising is one thing, and performing is quite another. A good man's word should be as binding as an oath. He should never promise to pay unless he has a clear prospect of doing so in due time. Those who stave off payment by false promises, deserve no mercy. It is all very well to say "I'm very sorry," but—

A hundred years of regret
Pay not a farthing of debt.

Now I'm afraid all this sound advice might as well have been given to my master's cocks and hens as to those who have got into the way of spending what is not their own. Advice to such people goes in at one ear and out at the other; well, those who will not listen will have to feel, and those who refuse cheap advice will have to buy dear repentance. To young people beginning life, a word may be worth a world

Debt Part 3 from C. H. Spurgeon

Debt
C. H. Spurgeon writing as John Ploughman
From John Ploughmans Talk

"Debtors can hardly help being liars, for they promise to pay when they know they cannot. When they have made up a lot of false excuses they promise again, and so they lie as fast as a horse can trot.

You have debts, and make debts still, If you've not lied, lie you will.

Now, if owing leads to lying, who shall say that it is not a most evil thing? Of course, there are exceptions, and I do not want to bear hard upon an honest man who is brought down by sickness or heavy losses; but take the rule as a rule, and you will find debt to be a great dismal swamp, a huge mud-hole, a dirty ditch. Happy is the man who gets out of it after once tumbling in, but happiest of all is he who has been by God's goodness kept out of the mire. If you once ask the Devil to dinner it will be hard to get him out of the house again; better to have nothing to do with him. Where a hen has laid one egg she is very likely to lay another; when a man is once in debt, he is likely to get into it again; better keep clear of it from the first. He who gets in over shoes is very liable to be over boots.

If you want to sleep soundly, buy a bed of a man who is in debt; surely it must be a very soft one, or he never could have rested so easy on it. I suppose people get hardened to it, as Smith's donkey did when its master broke so many sticks across its back. It seems to me that a real honest man would sooner get as lean as a greyhound than feast on borrowed money. He would choke up his throat with March dust before he would let the landlord make chalks against him. What pins and needles tradesmen's bills must stick in a fellow's soul! A pig on credit always grunts. Without debt, without care; out of debt, out of danger; but owing and borrowing are bramble bushes full of thorns. If ever I borrow a spade of my next door neighbor I never feel safe with it for fear I should break it. I never can dig in peace as I do with my own; but if I had a spade at the shop and knew I could not pay for it, I think I should dig my own grave out of shame. Scripture says, "Owe no man anything," which does not mean pay your debts, but never have any to pay. My opinion is, that those who break this law ought to be turned out of the Christian church. Our laws are shamefully full of encouragement to credit: no body need be a thief now; he has only to open a shoj and make a failure of it, and it will pay him much better. The proverb is: "He who never fails will never grow rich." Why, I know tradesmen who have failed five o six times, and yet think they are on the road to Heaven What would they do if they got there? They are a dea more likely to go where they shall never come out til they have paid the uttermost farthing. But people say "How liberal they are!" Yes, with other people's money I hate to see a man steal a goose and then give religioi the giblets. Piety by all means, but pay your way as par of it. Honesty first, and then generosity. But how oftei religion is a cloak for deceiving! There's Mrs. Scamp a fine as a peacock, all the girls out at boarding-school learning French and the piano, the boys swelling abou in gloves, and G. B. Scamp, Esq., driving a fast-trotting mare, and taking the chair at public meetings, while hi; poor creditors cannot get more than enough to live front hand to mouth. It is shameful and beyond endurance to see how genteel swindling is winked at by many. If I hac my way, I'd give them the county crop, and the prisor garb for six months; gentlemen or not, I'd let them see that big rogues could dance on the treadmill to the same tune as little ones. I'd make the land too hot to hole such scamping gentry if I were a member of Parliament or a prime minister. As I've no such power, I can at leasi let off the steam of my wrath in that way."

Debt Part 2 from C. H. Spurgeon

Debt Part 2

Debt
C. H. Spurgeon writing as John Ploughman
From John Ploughmans Talk

Ever since that early sickening I have hated debt, and if I say some fierce things about it, you must not wonder. To keep debt, dirt, and the Devil out of my cottage has been my greatest wish ever since I set up housekeeping. Although the last of the three has sometimes got in by the door or the window, for the old serpent will wriggle through the smallest crack, yet, thanks to a good wife, hard work, honesty, and scrubbing brushes, the two others have not crossed the threshold. Debt is so degrading, that if I owed a man a penny I would walk twenty miles, in winter, to pay him, sooner than feel that I was under an obligation. I should be as comfortable with peas in my shoes, or a hedgehog in my bed, or a snake up my back, as with bills hanging over my head at the grocer's, and the baker's, and the tailor's. Poverty is hard, but debt is horrible. A man might as well have a smoky house and a scolding wife, which are said to be the two worst evils of our life. We may be poor, and yet respectable, which John Ploughman and wife hope they are and will be; but a man in debt cannot even respect himself. He is sure to be talked about by the neighbors, and that talk will not be much to his credit. Some persons appear to like ov/ing money; but I would as soon be a cat up a chimney with the fire going, or a fox with the hounds at my heels, or a hedgehog on a pitchfork, or a mouse under an owl's claw. An honest man thinks a purse full of other people's money to be worse than an empty one; he cannot bear to eat other people's cheese, wear other people's shirts, and walk about in other people's shoes. Neither will he be easy while his wife is decked out in the milliner's bonnets. The jackdaw in the peacock's feathers was soon plucked, and borrowers will surely come to poverty—a poverty of the bitterest sort, because there is shame in it.

Living beyond their incomes is the ruin of many of my neighbors; they can hardly afford to keep a rabbit, and must needs drive a pony. I am afraid extravagance is the common disease of the times, and many professing Christians have caught it, to their shame and sorrow. Girls must have silks and satins, and then there's a bill at the dressmaker's as long as a winter's night, and quite as dismal. Show, and style, and smartness run away with a man's means, keep the family poor, and the father's nose down on the grindstone. Frogs try to look as big as bulls, and burst themselves. Men burn the candle at both ends, and then say they are very unfortunate—why don't they put the saddle on the right horse, and say they are extravagant? Economy is half the battle in life; it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well. Hundreds would never have known want if they had not first known waste. If nil poor men's wives knew how to cook, how far a little might go! Our minister says the French and the Germans beat us in nice cheap cookery. I wish they would send missionaries over to convert gossiping women into good managers. This is a French fashion which would be a deal more useful than those fine pictures in Mrs. Frippery's window, with ladies rigged out in a new style every month. Dear me! some people are much too fine nowadays to eat what their fathers were thankful to see on the table. They please their palates with costly feeding, come to the poorhouse, and expect everybody to pity them. They turned up their noses at bread and butter, and came to eat raw turnips stolen out of the fields. They who live like fighting cocks at other men's costs will get their combs cut, or perhaps get roasted for it one of these days. If you have a great store of peas, you may put the more in the soup; but everybody should fare according to his earnings. He is both a fool and a rascal who has a quarter coming in, and on the strength of it spends five dollars which does not belong to him. "Cut your coat according to your cloth" is sound advice. Cutting other people's cloth by running into debt is like thieving. If I meant to be a rogue I would deal in marine stores, or be a pettifogging lawyer, or open a loan office, or go out picking pockets, but I would scorn the art of getting into debt without a prospect of being able to pay.

A Timely Word on Debt from C. H. Spurgeon

Debt Part 1

Debt
C. H. Spurgeon
From John Ploughmans Talk

WHEN I WAS A VERY SMALL BOY, and went to a woman's school, it so happened that I wanted a slate pencil, and had no money to buy it. I was afraid of being scolded for losing my pencils so often, for I was real careless, and so did not dare to ask at home; what then was John to do? There was a little shop where nuts, and tops, and cakes, and balls were sold by old Mrs. Dearson. Sometimes I had seen boys and girls trusted by the old lady. I argued with myself that Christmas was coming, and that somebody or other would be sure to give me a penny then. I would, therefore, go into debt for a slate pencil, and be sure to pay at Christmas. I did not feel easy about it, but still I screwed my courage up and went into the shop. As I had never owed anything before, and my credit was good, the pencil was handed over by the kind dame, and I was in debt. It did not please me much, and I felt as if I had done wrong, but I little knew how soon I should smart for it. How my father heard of this little stroke of business I never knew, but some little bird or other whistled it to him, and he was very soon down upon me in earnest. God bless him for it; he was a sensible man, and none of your children spoilers. He did not intend to bring up his children to speculate, and play at what big men call financing, and therefore he knocked my getting into debt on the head at once. He gave me a very powerful lecture upon getting into debt, and how like it was to stealing; upon the way in which people were ruined by it; how a boy who would owe a little, might one day owe much, and get into prison, and bring his family into disgrace. It was a lecture, indeed. Then I was marched off to the shop like a deserter marched into barracks, crying bitterly as I went, and feeling dreadfully ashamed, because I thought everybody knew I was in debt. The money was paid amid many solemn warnings, and the poor debtor was set free, like a bird let out of a cage. How sweet it felt to be out of debt! How did my little heart vow and declare that nothing should ever tempt me into debt again! It was a fine lesson, and I have never forgotten it. If all boys were inoculated with the same doctrine when they were young, it would be as good as a fortune to them, and save them loads of trouble in after life. God bless my father, say I, and send such fathers to save us from being eaten up with villainy.

The People Support the Government....

Watching the news lately has been something like watching a three ring circus side show of madness. Just when you think you've seen the greatest feats of financial insanity by our government officials they go and do more of the same or something even worse.

While doing a little studying of American history I came across this little piece of history from the late 1800s that I had never heard before.

In the late 1880s Texas was undergoing one of the worst droughts of its history and the crops in that area had been pretty much destroyed. In response Congress passed drought relief legislation to to give the farmers of the area seed for the next crop but amazingly Grover Cleveland, the President at that time, vetoed it.

How could the President of the United States do such a "cold", "cruel" and "heartless" thing? Here's his answer in his own words:

"I return without my approval House bill No. 10203, entitled "An act to enable the Commissioner of Agriculture to make a special distribution of seeds in the drought-stricken counties of Texas, and making an appropriation therefor."

It is represented that a long-continued and extensive drought has existed in certain portions of the State of Texas, resulting in a failure of crops and consequent distress and destitution......

....And yet I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose.

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people...............

.....The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.

It is within my personal knowledge that individual aid has to some extent already been extended to the sufferers mentioned in this bill. The failure of the proposed appropriation of $10,000 additional to meet their remaining wants will not necessarily result in continued distress if the emergency is fully made known to the people of the country......."

Did you catch that? The President of the United States of America said that it was not the Governments job to take money from some people and give it to others even if it was for a "good" purpose. He stated that this would be unconstitutional, encourage a welfare mentality and destroy our national character. Cleveland put the burden of helping the American people back on the American were it belonged and the American people gave far more than the Government had planned on.

But now that our national character seems to be as bankrupt as our national government can you imagine the outrage that would ensue if one of our present day government officials showed such wisdom? Can you imagine the fits that would be thrown by those of the welfare mentality of our day if the government refused to step in and hand out money to everybody who got in line?

Cleveland was exactly right; the handing out of money by the government would indeed create a "maternal" dependence on government by the people, but I doubt that he could have ever imagined how far it would go here in America. This is exactly what we are seeing in the news all the time; Catrina's victims demanding government help and money and being filled with rage when it doesn't come on time, irresponsible businessmen lined up to get their hand out from Uncle Sam, company Presidents spending $20,000 to fly private jets to Washington to beg for their share of our grandchildrens tax money. Where will the insanity end?

This is what happens when fallen man governs in his own wisdom without reference to the Word of the God who created Government.

Advice on Debt from SNL

Some Biblical advice on debt from Saturday Night Live

George Muller on debt

"December 1, 1842. For the last several months, money and supplies have continued to flow in without interruption as they were needed. There was no excess or lack. But nothing came in today except five shillings for needlework. We only had enough to supply our absolute need—milk. We were unable to purchase the usual quantity of bread.

Someone may ask, "Why don't you buy the bread on credit? What does it matter whether you pay immediately for it or at the end of the month? Since the Orphan Houses are the work of the Lord, can't you trust Him to supply you with money to pay the bills from the butcher, baker, and grocer? After all, the things you purchase are needed so that the work may continue."

My reply is this: If this work is the work of God, then He is surely able and willing to provide for it. He will not necessarily provide at the time we think that there is need. But when there is real need, He will not fail us. We may and should trust in the Lord to supply us with what we require at present, so that there may be no reason to go into debt.

I could buy a considerable amount of goods on credit, but the nest time we were in need, I would turn to further credit instead of turning to the Lord. Faith, which is maintained and strengthened only by exercise, would become weaker and weaker. At last, I would probably find myself deeply in debt with no prospect of getting out of it. Faith rests on the written Word of God, but there is no promise that He will pay our debts. The Word says, "Owe no man any thing" (Romans 13:8). The promise is given to His children, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5). "He that believeth on him shall not be con­founded" (1 Peter 2:6). We have no scriptural grounds to go into debt.

Our goal is to show the world and the Church that even in these last evil days, God is ready to' help, comfort, and answer the prayers of those who trust in Him. We need not go to our fellowmen or to the ways of the world. God is both able and willing to supply us with all we need in His service.

Through the printed accounts of this ministry, many have been converted. We consider it our precious privilege to continue to wait upon the! Lord only instead of buying goods on credit or borrowing money from kind friends. As God gives us grace we will look to Him only, although from meal to meal we have to depend on Him. God is now in the tenth year of feeding these orphans, and He has never allowed them to go hungry. He will care for them in the future also.

I am deeply aware of my own helplessness and dependence on the Lord. Through the grace of God my soul is in peace, although day after day we have to wait on the Lord for our daily bread."

Taken from the autobiography of George Muller

My first and last debt

my first and last debt
C.H. Spurgeon

"When I was a very small boy, in pinafores, and went to a woman's school, it so happened that I wanted a stick of slate pencil, and had no money to buy it with. I was afraid of being scolded for losing my pencils so often, for I was a real careless little fellow, and so did not dare to ask at home; what then was I to do? There was a little shop in the place, where nuts, and tops, and cakes, and balls were sold by old Mrs. Pearson, and sometimes I had seen boys and girls get trusted by the old lady. I argued with myself that Christmas was coming, and that somebody or other would be sure to give me a penny then, and perhaps even a whole silver sixpence. I would, therefore, go into debt for a stick of slate pencil, and be sure to pay at Christmas. I did not feel easy about it, but still I screwed my courage up, and went into the shop. One farthing was the amount, and as I had never owed anything before, and my credit was good, the pencil was handed over by the kind dame, and I was in debt. It did not please me much, and I felt as if I had done wrong, but I little knew how soon I should smart for it.

How my father came to hear of this little stroke of business, I never knew, but some little bird or other whistled it to him, and he was very soon down upon me in right earnest. God bless him for it; he was a sensible man, and none of your children-spoilers; he did not intend to bring up his children to speculate, and play at what big rogues call financing, and therefore he knocked my getting into debt on the head at once, and no mistake. He gave me a very powerful lecture upon getting into debt, and how like it was to stealing, and upon the way in which people were ruined by it, and how a boy who would owe a farthing, might one day owe a hundred pounds, and get into prison, and bring his family into disgrace. It was a lecture, indeed; I think I can hear it now, and can feel my ears tingling at the recollection of it. Then I was marched off to the shop, like a deserter marched into barracks, crying bitterly all down the street, and feeling dreadfully ashamed, because I thought everybody knew I was in debt. The farthing was paid amid many solemn warnings, and the poor debtor was set free, like a bird let out of a cage. How sweet it felt to be out of debt! How did my little heart vow and declare that nothing should ever tempt me into debt again! It was a fine lesson, and I have never forgotten it. If all boys were inoculated with the same doctrine when they were young, it would be as good as a fortune to them, and save them waggon-loads of trouble in after life. God bless my father, say I, and send a breed of such fathers into old England to save her from being eaten up with villainy, for what with companies, and schemes, and paper-money, the nation is getting to be as rotten as touch­wood! Ever since that early sickening, I have hated debt as Luther hated the Pope."

From
Charles Haddon Spurgeon Autobiography: The Early Years 1834-1860 Volume 1 By Charles Spurgeon / Banner Of Truth