Witnessing for the God of True Prophecy

THIS world is filled with false gods, gods worshiped by misguided and deceived men. Although some of these gods are eventually seen to be no gods at all, such as Emperor Hirohito of Japan and Stalin of Russia, the great majority of these false gods, including the 330,000,000 gods of India, continue to be worshiped by men.

No lasting benefit can result from worshiping a false god. Those who do so are only deceiving themselves and in the end will come to disappointment. When it comes to worship we do not want to be governed by sentiment but by reason, even as we are governed by reason in handling our secular concerns.

But how can men distinguish the true God from all the false gods? The prophet Isaiah tells us that the true God can be distinguished by his being able to foretell events accurately: “Let the nations all be collected together at one place, and let national groups be gathered together. Who is there among them that can tell this? Or can they cause us to hear even the first things? Let them furnish their witnesses, that they may be declared righteous, or let them hear and say, ‘It is the truth!’”—Isa. 43:9.

The fact is that all these hundreds of millions of false gods cannot produce a single witness to testify to their being truly gods with the ability to prophesy accurately. How favored our lot, then, that we know and worship the one true God, who cannot lie or deny himself, and that he should say to us: “Do not be in dread, you people, and do not become stupefied. Have I not from that time on caused you individually to hear and told it out? And you are my witnesses. Does there exist a God besides me? No, there is no Rock. I have recognized none.”—Isa. 44:8.a

Among the many prophecies by which Jehovah God has proved himself to be the God of true prophecy is that which foretold the Babylonian captivity of his people, ancient and modern. Long before his ancient people went into exile in Babylon, Jehovah foretold, not only that they would return from that exile, but also that one named Cyrus would be His servant for bringing about this restoration. And some 2,500 years later that prophecy had another fulfillment as Jehovah’s modern witnesses, the remnant of spiritual Israel, went into exile spiritually during World War I, to emerge in 1919, ready to Continue the witness work.—Isa. 44:26-28; Rev. 11:2-12.

Our witnessing for the God of true prophecy makes us Jehovah’s witnesses, and that is what all true Christians must be. Did not Jesus become known as “the Faithful Witness,” and “the faithful and true witness”? And did he not declare that he came to the earth for the express purpose of witnessing to the truth and that he made his Father’s name known to his disciples? Surely!—Rev. 1:5; 3:14; John 17:6, 26; 18:37.

As Jehovah’s witnesses we have the responsibility to make known to others our God, the God of true prophecy. Many are our opportunities for witnessing. Are we making good use of them all? By our very actions we can witness, as when a servant of Jehovah refuses unscriptural kinds of secular employment, or a youthful minister shuns extracurricular activities at school because he puts spiritual interests first, having fixed his hope on the prophetic promises of Jehovah God.—1 Cor. 15:33; Jas. 1:27; Rev. 18:4.

Then, of course, there is the witnessing by word of mouth to Jehovah’s name and kingdom, doing so from house to house and making return calls on interested ones.

And what about our opportunities to do incidental witnessing, explaining to others the prophecies in the Bible? Are we always as alert to make or seize opportunities to engage in this as we might be? For example, this past summer a publisher from East Germany attending the assembly in West Berlin told of hearing a woman at a moving-picture house complain about the behavior of children today, attributing it to the lack of belief in God. This publisher approached that woman and asked her if she believed in God. The woman replied that she did, and in the conversation that followed arrangements were made to call on her. As a result, the publisher is conducting a very promising Bible study in the home of this woman.

So let us not neglect any of our opportunities to be witnesses for the God of true prophecy, especially during the month of November, when we will be offering the new Bible-study aid “Things in Which It Is Impossible for God to Lie,” right in line with our theme for the month!

[Footnotes]