In God We Trust

The national motto of the most powerful nation on earth reads “In God We Trust”. Out of the ashes of terrible civil war, the nation longed for some sense of hope and security and the motto first appeared on the United States’ coin in 1864. Nearly a century later in 1956, President Eisenhower approved this motto into a law passed by the US Congress to provide a calming assurance from the looming danger of communism and a new kind of imperialism hiding behind the shadow of cold war. The congress insert reads: “In these days when imperialistic and materialistic communism seeks to attack and destroy freedom, it is proper to remind all of us of this self-evident truth that as long as this country trusts in God, it will prevail”. The wisdom and the commitment to recognize human limitations in the affairs of a nation by the historical leaders of the United States has stood the test of time, and today the nation reaps the reward of their faithfulness. God said to Moses in the second commandment that he will punish the children for the sins of their father until the fourth generation but he will show love and kindness to a thousand generations of the righteous. Psalms 33:12 says “blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh”. In spite of the carnality and heathenism that we see coming out of the United States of America, this nation still has a divine hedge built around it because God is ever faithful to his promises made in covenant with his faithful servants. The carnal children of the US still benefit from the faithfulness of their forefathers because their forefathers chose to trust God, individually and nationally, and left behind a blessing for a thousand generations.
The same story can be repeated for many of the European states whose forefathers trusted God and the children still reap the blessings of peace, prosperity and freedom which the world is in great need of. China and many of the Islamic nations are now wealthy and prosperous but with great cost to peace and human freedom. God created man with free will but in these nations the free will of man has to be regulated by manmade rules. Man has become the master in these nations even though there is plenty of prosperity. Japan and South Korea have enjoyed peace, prosperity and freedom; thanks to their association with a nation that carries God’s blessing. It is the American money, manpower and prayers that have made what these two nations have become. The rest of the nations in the world has a long way in recognizing Yahweh as their God and thus deprive their citizens of the blessings of peace, prosperity and liberty. They have lived in misery for thousands of years and will continue to do so until they recognize the Lordship of Yahweh.
Now, as a citizen of a nation like Nepal, what hope do I have? What blessings can I expect from my forefathers who broke the very first and second commandments of God and worshiped the creation instead of the creator? The first book of the Bible is named Genesis, which means “beginnings” and in the very beginning of this book, Satan is represented by a snake that deceived the first man. The Bible also tells us that Satan fell from heaven because he refused to worship God; he wanted to be God and wished the angelic beings to worship him. He wanted to set up his throne higher than God’s. But God cast him down and replaced him by the creation of man. But we see him in Genesis chapter three as a snake and today there is no household in Nepal (except Christians and Muslims) on whose doorpost they do not post a picture of five, seven or sometimes nine snakes entangled together. Every year on Nag-panchami (Day of the snake god), the Hindu households will replace these pictures with the worshiping ceremony of the snake god. The snake posters will be posted on the top horizontal post of the door frame so that when a person goes out of the house, the head has to be a bit bent down to worship the snake and the same thing when one enters the house (traditionally, the doors in a Nepali house are slightly shorter than the average height of a person so that one has to bend the head to enter in and out of the house and therefore, the best place to put the snake god). In a devout Hindu home, every door in the house must have one of these snake posters. This tells us that what the Bible symbolizes as evil, Nepal worships as its main god. In Egypt, the blood of the lamb that symbolized Jesus Christ was put on the doorpost for the deliverance, but today Nepal replaces the blood of the lamb with the symbol of Satan itself. What blessings will we hope for?
On the national level, there is no hope now for Nepal. Unless the rulers and the general population turn to God and repent from the generations of violating the very commandments of God; our nation has no hope of prosperity, peace and freedom. The atheistic Maoists might be able to bring economic prosperity (that is because in my assumption, God prefers an atheists than an idolater), but this economic prosperity might come with a high price of peace and human freedom. In their pursuit of absolute power, they will not be hesitant to kill any number of people and once they have the power, there will be no liberty left for the common man. But because poverty is such a terrible task master, the general public might be happy to live under the political tyranny than the tyranny of poverty. So, there is no hope of a national blessing for Nepal.
But on the individual level, there is hope. There is hope because God in Jesus Christ transcends the national and collective boundaries and brings his blessings to every individual. Any Nepali who has accepted Jesus Christ as his or her personal savior from sin and satanic bondage has the power to break free from all generational curses. If anyone is in Christ Jesus, he or she becomes a new creation (2Cor.5:17) and Jesus has covenanted with such people a new covenant by his own blood (Luke 22:20). He has become the lamb that was slain and his blood on the doorpost of their hearts protects them from the angel of death and destruction. They are born again and all their past has been wiped away and now they are free to create a new genealogy for their posterity that will last for eternity in the blessings of God.
But this new beginning has to begin by trusting God just like Abraham trusted and he was declared a friend of God (Romans 4). Hebrews 11:6 says “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him”. David says in Psalms 40:4 “blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust”. This picture of blessedness is beautifully painted by Jeremiah in the context of a man who trusts in man. The one who trusts God is “like a tree planted by the water…does not fear…leaves are always green…has no worries…and never fails to bear fruit” (17:7-8). But “cursed is a man who trusts man…will be like a bush in a wastelands…will not see prosperity…dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives” (17:5-6). This is a very scary picture the prophet paints for the man whose trust rests on man. But the one who trusts God, he or she shall be free from lack, fear and worry and will live in the land of prosperity. This land of prosperity does not have to be some other nation or geographical location. In fact, regardless of a national boundary, one can enter into this blessedness on the basis of one’s trust in God, and therefore, Nepali followers of Jesus Christ do not have to bear the burden of generational curse from their forefathers. God in Jesus Christ is able to come to their aid and bless them spiritually, physically and materially.
But have we seen all these blessings (spiritual, physical and material) come to us in the last 50+ years of Christian history in Nepal? Yes and no. Yes, because, first, many Nepalese have come to the Lord and spiritually they have received eternal life. With the handful of Christians in 1960s, today some estimates claim that there are a million Christians in our nation. So, let’s say that all of these one million Christians have received the forgiveness of sin and eternal life; that is the greatest spiritual blessing we can ever imagine. The Nepali church is strong in preaching the message of salvation; Jesus Christ saves. Second, we also have received physically blessing of healing. The highest cause of the growth of the church in Nepal is physical healing. Even the cessationist Baptist and Presbyterian ministers in Nepal are still preaching that healing is possible when they pray (in their seminaries they teach that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased after the death of the apostles). So, the church in Nepal preaches that Jesus saves and Jesus heals, but the third aspect of the blessing, which is material, is the biggest issue now. Salvation is not possible apart from Jesus Christ and they trust him for that. Healing is also not possible apart from Jesus Christ and they trust him for that. But for the material blessings! Because, right from the early days, Christian leaders found out that man can meet their material needs and because of that, this faculty to trust God for material blessing never developed in their newly formed spiritual brain. Because the leaders did not have to worry for their material needs (their needs were met by outside donations), they did not know how to teach their members to trust God to meet their material needs.
The Christian population even today comes from the lower end of social stick and they have tremendous needs. They cannot send their children to school, they never have the luxury of seeing a doctor when they become sick, and they do not know what it is to have a vacation in life because if they do not work for the day, there would be no food in the evening. Life in this world to them becomes a burden from which they wish to be free and that’s why they trust the Lord Jesus for their eternal rest. But unfortunately, they have never been told that God has the ability to give them the glimpses of that blessed rest from the tyranny of poverty right here on earth if they could exhibit the same trust that they have for salvation and healing. Until today the Nepali Christian leaders have blinded the Nepali believers from trusting God for the material blessings by demonstrating that without the outside financial the Nepali church cannot exist. But, like the motto of the US, it is not the money that would give us the rest and peace and freedom in this world, but it is our trust that puts us in a higher plane of life where every need is met by the power of God. And therefore, Nepali believers need to learn to trust God to carve their new course for their own lives as well as for their posterity by placing their trust in God’s goodness and his ability to bless them and meet their needs. The God who is able to save them and heal them is able to meet their material and financial needs; and thus individual Christians can be free from the national curse that comes from breaking his commandments.