Why a Fearful World?

IS THIS world fearful! People are in fear of the criminal elements, from the teen-age gangs to the powerful underworld criminal syndicates such as the Mafia; they are in fear of cancer and other ills; they are fearful of depression and unemployment, of losing loved ones, of the population explosion, of atomic fallout and of nuclear war.

In particular are the heads of the various nations in fear of one another, fearful lest there be another world war. Striking proof of this fear was recently given by the United Nations bulletin Disarmament and Its Economic and Social Consequences. It showed that the nations of the world are presently spending $120,000 million annually on arms, this representing an outlay of between 8 and 9 percent of all the world’s output of goods and services, or two-thirds of the entire national income of all undeveloped countries. Additionally, the number of men in the armed services throughout the world is 20,000,000, and the number engaged in the production of military goods is 30,000,000, making a total of 50,000,000 men taken from peaceful pursuits because of fear.

Why all these fear-inspiring conditions? Because of lack of love and trust between nations and peoples, because of conflicting ideologies, because of human selfishness, weakness and imperfection. And, in particular, because of the influence of Satan the Devil, whose rage is great because he knows his time is short. (Rev. 12:12) That is why Jesus’ words are being fulfilled: “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth anguish of nations, not knowing the way out because of the roaring of the sea and its agitation, while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth.”—Luke 21:25, 26.

But not all persons are gripped by these fears. It is those who do not understand the reason for the world distress, those who ‘do not know the way out,’ those who see no solution to the problems that are faint out of fear. Others, who have applied themselves to a study of the Word of God, the Bible, and who exercise faith in it, although they live in the midst of the same world, are not filled with such fear. In the pages of the Bible they have found the truths that make it possible to face the problems of life with success and to look to the future with confidence.