than Judah did, if its religious systems follow the practices of Babylonish worship.

But Jesus Christ gave encouraging direction to honest individuals among the nations by his words: “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3) Taking in the true knowledge of Jehovah God and his Son and associating with those who worship God with spirit and truth will not develop confusion or the superstitious fear of purgatory or hellfire. Neither will it promote wrong sexual appetite or the desire to do violence to property or to our fellowman. It will prevent us from going down the degraded road to destruction that the nations are traveling. It will make us clean and bring us peace and the favor of God, with an assurance of life in his new order of righteousness.—John 4:23, 24.

Be Honest in Everything

THOSE who want to please God take to heart the Christian standard of honesty. They realize that “the devious person is a detestable thing to Jehovah, but His intimacy is with the upright ones.”—Prov. 3:32.

At first glance, honesty may appear to be no problem to many. They may feel that they do not deliberately scheme and practice dishonest things such as lying, cheating or stealing. However, there is more to it than that. A person may feel he is living up to high Christian standards of honesty, but at the same time may be engaged in activities that are really not honest at all. Hence, it would be well for each one to reexamine his position in this matter, in the light of what follows, to determine whether his thinking and acting need adjusting to harmonize with Christian honesty.

HONESTY TOWARD GOVERNMENTS

Some kinds of dishonesty are more obvious, such as outright stealing or lying. But others are more subtle and must be guarded against even more carefully.

One such area for caution is in regard to the relationship a Christian has with civil authorities. He must honestly render the government its dues, even though that same government may not be honest with him. Jesus Christ said to “pay back, therefore, Caesar’s things to Caesar.” (Matt. 22:21) Does the government assess its citizenry with various taxes? Then the Christian should not cheat the civil authority out of these taxes. For example, he should not falsify his income tax by claiming more deductions than he is entitled to, or by saying he has contributed to a charitable organization when he has not, or by inflating the volume of such contributions beyond what he has actually donated.

One might try to justify cheating on taxes by saying the government takes too much anyway, but this is not the Christian’s right. Caesar violates none of God’s