The Lord Jesus Christ has perfect integrity, perfect faithfulness. We who have served Him for many years understand perfectly well that His faithfulness is beyond question. What He is, what He claims to be, what He says He will do, what He does, are all one. He is the personification of Faithfulness. He is the personification of Truth.

According to the parable of the sower, if the Seed, the Word of God, is to bear lasting fruit, it must be sown in an honest and good heart, that is, a heart characterized by faithfulness and truth. If a person does not have integrity it is unlikely he will persevere in the Christian walk.

You know, somehow Evangelical Christianity is not up to speed in this area. So much of our preaching and teaching is lacking in an emphasis on integrity. The impression is given that if we take "the four steps of salvation," if we make a profession of faith in Christ, our obligation to God has been fulfilled. It isn't often one hears preaching about old-fashioned, down-home integrity and honesty.

Then too, there is much politicking, covetousness, dishonesty, self-aggrandizement, currying favor, nepotism that take place in the Christian ministry. Not much is said about such lack of integrity. It seems to be taken for granted as an inherent part of denominational life.

But none of these attitudes and actions is faithful and true. They are hatched and grow in unfaithfulness and lies. Christ has no part of them. When He appears He will drive them from His churches without mercy regardless of the importance or prestige of the persons involved.

We are being conformed to the image of Christ. It is to this conformation we have been called from the foundation of the world. Such transformation requires total faithfulness, total truth in our personality and behavior. Nothing less than perfect integrity will be accepted by Jesus in each and every member of His Church, His Body, the new Jerusalem. All the show-business-mannerisms and expensive apparel of the "successful" minister will be cast out in that day.

We Americans used to put great stock in integrity, in faithfulness and truth. Little by little our values are being eroded. Let us pray that God will reverse this terrible slide downward to the faithless, lying ways of Satan.

Marriage, for example, used to be considered a holy, binding contract. Now it is a legal convenience that can be abandoned whenever desired.

Public-school teachers could be counted on to faithfully teach the children the values and attitudes esteemed by the parents, as well as the skills and facts necessary for productive citizenship.

Now the public-school teachers in some instances conceal what they are teaching. They are playing around with occult powers as well as instilling in their young charges abominable moral behavior and disrespect for authority. They fight the idea of the private school dedicated to the mastery of skills, and yet they themselves are floundering in a goal-less, cost-inefficient swamp of new ideologies and experimental approaches to learning. By resisting voucher plans for the support of private schools they are acting as dogs in a manger, not accomplishing the job themselves and preventing others who could and would make a success of educating the young of America.

To be continued.