How Can You Have a Bright Outlook?
TO HAVE a bright outlook for the future, people need a solidly based hope. The only one who can give such a hope is man’s Creator, Jehovah God, and he has done so by means of his Word, the Bible. The Christian apostle Paul wrote: “All the things that were written aforetime were written for our instruction, that through our endurance and through the comfort from the Scriptures we might have hope.”—Rom. 15:4.
Persons who reject the guidance of God’s Word and look to other sources to furnish them with a dependable hope for the future are bound to come to disappointment. This is what the prophecy of Isaiah pointed out to unfaithful Israelites who, contrary to God’s law, were looking to spirit mediums, fortune-tellers and even the dead for insight regarding the future.
Isaiah 8:19-22 implies that these unfaithful Israelites would encourage the faithful ones to do the same, but it then shows just what would be experienced by those who rejected the source of true guidance and hope, Jehovah. We read: “In case they should say to you people: ‘Apply to the spiritistic mediums or to those having a spirit of prediction who are chirping and making utterances in low tones,’ is it not to its God that any people should apply? Should there be application to dead persons in behalf of living persons? To the law and to the attestation! Surely they will keep saying what is according to this statement that will have no light of dawn. And each one will certainly pass through the land hard pressed and hungry; and it must occur that because he is hungry and has made himself feel indignant, he will actually call down evil upon his king and upon his God and will certainly peer upward. And to the earth he will look, and, lo! distress and darkness, obscurity, hard times and gloominess with no brightness.”
For those who encouraged others to consult spirit mediums, fortune-tellers and the dead, there would be “no light of dawn.” Upon experiencing calamity, they would have nothing to brighten their outlook. The calamity that would result in the dismal outlook described in Isaiah’s prophecy was doubtless the foretold Assyrian invasion. Survivors would be “hard pressed,” that is, afflicted. Since a campaign of conquest would be accompanied by the desolation of cultivated fields, orchards and vineyards, the survivors would face hunger. In their hungry state, the faithless Israelites who had escaped death and captivity would be disturbed, “indignant” or angry. They would not consider the calamity as a just retribution for unfaithfulness. Instead, they would curse the king and the Most High, blaming them for their suffering. When such persons would look heavenward, they would see no sign of brightness to stir within them hope for better times ahead. When they looked at things on earth, everything would appear gloomy to them. Having rejected God’s ‘law and attestation,’ they would not be able to see even the slightest indication of a bright prospect for the future.
Similarly, in these days, many persons are frightened by what they see taking place on earth—increasing lawlessness, pollution of air, land and water, and general unrest among peoples and nations. Although affected by these conditions, true Christians do not have a gloomy outlook. Why not? They know from God’s Word that the present world situation is fulfilling prophecy and portends approaching deliverance through God’s kingdom by Jesus Christ. Therefore, they do what Jesus Christ encouraged: “As these things start to occur, raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up, because your deliverance is getting near.” (Luke 21:28) Do you share this confidence because of having accepted the Bible’s message as the “word of God”?—1 Thess. 2:13.