The most powerful nation on earth has a motto that reads “In God We Trust”. Out of the ashes of the civil war, this nation
longed for some sense of hope and stability.
Though the civil war was fought in and around the issue of slavery but
the overriding issue was that of economy.
End of slavery meant, end of workforce for the landlords and plantation
owners. In a time like that, this
comforting motto first appeared on the coin (money) of the United States in
1864 indicating where the nation’s hope should be anchored. 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 at that time 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”. Such a timely wisdom
of the leadership at that time to recognize the human limitations in governing
the affairs of a nation has stood the test of time. Today this nation reaps the reward of its
leaders’ faithfulness and commitment to the faith once handed to them by their
forefathers.
God said to Moses in the second commandment that he will
punish the children for the sins of their fathers until the fourth generation
but he will show love and kindness to the children of the righteous for a
thousand generations (Ex. 20:1-6). Psalms
33:12 says “blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh”. In spite of the
carnality and heathenism coming out 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 children. The carnal
children of the US still benefit from the faithfulness of their forefathers
because their forefathers chose to trust God and left behind a blessing for a
thousand generations.
As a citizen of a nation like Nepal that has rebelled against
God, what hope do I have? What blessings
can I claim from my forefathers who broke the very first and second
commandments of God by worshipping the creation instead of the creator? Not
only that, the first book of the Bible is called ‘Genesis’, which means ‘beginnings’. In the beginning of this book, Satan is
represented by a snake that deceived the first man. Bible also tells that Satan fell from heaven
because he refused to worship God; he wanted to be like God and demanded the
angelic beings to worship him. But God
cast him down and replaced him by creating man. Thus, we see him in the book of 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 a snake.
Every year on Nag-panchami (Day of the snake
god), the old snake pictures are replaced with the new ones. These snake posters are pasted on the top horizontal
bar of the door frame so that when a person goes out of the house, the head has
to be 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. Therefore, the best place to put the picture
of a snake god.
Bible symbolizes snake as evil. When God wanted to deliver the people of
Israel from their Egyptian bondage; the blood of the lamb (symbolizes the blood
of Jesus Christ) was put on the doorpost for deliverance from bondage to
freedom. Today, every household in Nepal
replaces the blood of the lamb with the symbol of a snake. What blessings can we hope from a snake? The communist government might be able to
bring economic prosperity (assuming it does) but this economic prosperity might
come with a high price of peace and freedom. In their pursuit of power, the communists will
not hesitate to kill any number of people and once they have the power, there
will be no liberty left for the common man.
Religious freedom and free expression of thought in social media have
already come under attack from this government.
However, 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 had transcended the national, political, religious and ethnic boundaries to bless any person who puts one’s faith in him. Anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior becomes free from the curses that came from violating God’s commandments. Those who are in Christ Jesus become new creation of God (2Cor.5:17). They are born again and their past is wiped away. They are free to create a new genealogy of blessing for their posterity. “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law…in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to us” (Gal. 3:13-14). It is God’s will for us to be saved from our sin, healed in our bodies and be blessed in our material life (3John 2).
The question we have to ask is; have we seen these blessings
(spiritual, physical and material) come to us in the last 60+ years of
Christian history in Nepal? The obvious
answer is ‘yes’. But if we look
carefully, we see that Nepali church is very good at preaching about salvation
from sin and healing from diseases but very poor at teaching about our material
blessings.
Christian population comes from the very lower end of social
ladder and they have tremendous needs. But
unfortunately, they have not been told by their spiritual leaders how God wants
them to come out of poverty; that God can meet their material needs. Such a lack of teaching may have been due to
two possible reasons; one, pastors are afraid to be labeled as prosperity
preachers. Two, they have no experience
of God meeting their own needs and thus lack conviction in telling their people
that God can indeed meet their material needs.
Missionaries were prohibited to preach the gospel in Nepal. But they could hire the local citizens for
that. Because of such a combination, the
pioneering native pastors did not have to worry for their material needs;
missionaries and mission agencies from outside of Nepal became their source of
supply. Pleasing the missionaries and
producing colorful mission reports replaced the needed trust in God for their
material needs. Even today Nepali
Christian leadership has misled the believers from trusting God for their
material blessings by demonstrating that without outside financial help, Nepali
church cannot exist. But, like the motto
of the US, if the pioneering leadership had inspired believers to put their trust
in God; not only for salvation and healing, but also for material blessings,
situation would have been very different.
Therefore, Nepali believers need to learn to trust God for
everything (salvation, healing and prosperity) and carve a new course for their
own life and for the life of their posterity.
The God who is able to save them and heal them is also able to meet
their material and financial needs. The
spiritual leadership needs to inspire the believers to expect God to lift them out
of poverty just as he has lifted them out of sinfulness and sickness. Thus, Christians individually can be free from
the national curse coming from violating God’s commandments because “In God
They Trust”.
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