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I. ITS NATURE AND OUR POWER TO PAY IT.

1. When a footpad starts to relieve a traveller of his purse he says to himself, "The world owes me a living, and a living I must have." Many a one cherishes the same feeling. A scholar murmurs, as he gazes upon his unsold volume, "The world owes me fame and a hearing!" The woman of fashion declares, "The world owes me a position!" As the politician clamours for votes he insists, "The world owes me a place!" The ancients exercised themselves much in the attempt to answer the question, What is man? One said, It is the animal which laughs. Another said, It is the animal who cooks his food. A truer answer is, It is the animal who never is appreciated. There lives not the man who is restful under the estimate he receives. And if that great burden bearer — the world — should attempt to pay all the bills for undervaluation presented to it from day to day, it would be hopelessly bankrupt in a single generation.

2. Now precisely here the gospel meets our race. When Jesus hears the cry, "The world owes me," He answers, "Well, I will pay you all it owes; I will pour out upon you such a wealth of resource that the balance due shall be reversed; then you will in turn owe the world." Here is a man who has been wont to say, "The world owes me a competence, for it is the duty of the strong to take care of the weak." To him Christ says in the gospel, "I admit that principle. You shall have all you need. 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God,' etc. Concern yourself no more about money. If you implicitly trust Me, I will see that the treasure never falls. Remember steadfastly your own principle. You owe the world a living. I have furnished you with vast resources. You are to spread the kingdom which crowns you." Just so of everything else. If one demands happiness, influence, position, the gospel bestows it beyond any measurement. All that it ever says the world owes, is so copiously transcended that the obligation rushes across the ledger into a new balance. And now it is the Christian man who is in debt, and that upon his own showing; for he is strong, and the strong are to care for the weak.

II. THE PARTIES WHO HOLD OUR OBLIGATIONS. The apostle specifies the ranks and the races he owes. He meant, simply, he owed everybody. As he says elsewhere, he was to "do good to all men." And all Christianity is embodied in Paul. "Owe no man anything, but to love one another." Love is the fulfilling of the law, and ye are the children of God!

III. THE PURPOSE of all which has been said is this —

1. There is a lesson of deepest importance here to all young Christians. Life is certain to be moulded by the ideal one has of it, and the principles which he makes to underlie it at the start. A child of opulent parents who goes forth into life saying, "The world owes me honour, ease, flattery, and place," will make a very different man from the child of many prayers who enters the conflict saying, "I owe the world a work and a duty." So the gospel sets the Christian on the search, not how much he may claim in the wrestle of existence, but how much he may give.

2. There is something instructive in those instances when men have put forth all their energies to pay their debts. Sir Waiter Scott once tried to rest his half-delirious brain. But he had no time to be sick, as the outstanding obligations matured. "This is folly," said he to the startled servant, as he sprang up from the couch; "bring in the pens and paper!" There is no fertility of genius like the pressure of a great debt. Necessity is the mother of invention.

3. Note, also, the industry and thrift it promotes. That man pays most of his dues whose unfailing hammer rings earliest in the morning and latest at night. He lessens debt the most whose shuttle weaves the most yards in faithful toil. Diligence in business keeps the bailiff a stranger. Put this commonplace alongside of devout Christian life, and so learn the lesson. A child of God who really feels that he is a debtor to the whole world will surely find some shrewd way of his own to discharge the duly. Conclusion: Sometimes you notice a new church coming into being. Once a pastor was asked, "When will this building be completed?" He easily gave the time. "Will the congregation be in debt?" "Oh yes, awfully; sometimes it frightens me to think of it!" Then came the question, "Why did you begin when you had not the money?" Then the minister of God answered, "Oh, we have money enough; we shall have no such debt as that; but think how much a church like this is going to owe the community and the world! How they will look to us for man's love and God's grace!" Is our church debt paid? How much owest thou? Souls are looking to us for help. The true test of piety is a sense of debtorship to souls.

(C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

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KJV: I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.

WEB: I am debtor both to Greeks and to foreigners, both to the wise and to the foolish.