Webster defines integrity as “the quality or state of being of sound moral principle, uprightness, honesty, and sincerity” (Webster’s New College Dictionary). This moral wholeness so completely affects a person of integrity that every aspect of their life is guided by honest behavior. Let’s look at some men who did not possess this most needful quality.
The guards who were assigned to watch the tomb where Jesus’ body was placed had quite a story to tell on that momentous first day of the week. The peace of that early morning was suddenly and loudly disrupted by an earthquake: rumblings and shaking of the ground. An angel of the Lord appeared and rolled the stone away from the door of the tomb. And he sat upon it himself as a watchman over the holy place. The guards observed all of this but could do nothing because of their fearful shaking (v 4). They had been eye witnesses to arguably the most awesome and significant event in history!
Like well-trained soldiers, they reported to their superiors all that had transpired. But the marvelous happenings they saw on their morning watch died with them. Their lips never spoke again of the glorious sights which their eyes had seen. They sold out for “a large sum of money” and lied about what they had witnessed. They were not men of integrity.
Are you a person of integrity? What do you do with the “many infallible proofs” (Acts 1:3) that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact resurrected from the dead? What do you do with the insurmountable evidence that the Bible is the book from God and is pure truth through and through? Do you turn your back and sell out for your current lifestyle? Is your family religion more important to you than finding the faith which was held by first century Christians? If these or other things cause you to reject the Word of God, you are numbered with a certain group of soldiers who chose not to speak of the glorious events they witnessed early one morning some two thousand years ago.
However, if you do believe the Bible witness about Jesus’ resurrection, do you share this or keep it to yourself? Hmmm?
><> Jeff
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