Or a person may be pressured by nationalism to compromise his allegiance and service to God. In some lands, he may even be offered a way to escape certain penalties by taking a course that walks the border line, one that, with specious argument, he can justify in his own mind. It appears less uncomfortable to take than the outright, straightforward way that God directs.

Such a situation confronted three young Hebrew men in Babylon. When they were commanded by the king to bow to the golden image, they answered: “O Nebuchadnezzar, we are under no necessity in this regard to say back a word to you. If it is to be, our God whom we are serving is able to rescue us. Out of the burning fiery furnace and out of your hand, O king, he will rescue us. But if not, let it become known to you, O king, that your gods are not the ones we are serving, and the image of gold that you have set up we will not worship.”​—Dan. 3:16-18.

Notice that these men did not try to rationalize that there was some way they could obey the king’s command and still continue to carry on service to God. They did not argue or maneuver, or hope that the king would give them some other duty in connection with the project that would seem to be less directly connected with the ceremony. These faithful men wanted it clear that they did not support the king’s project in any way.

Neither did these three Hebrews have to hold a consultation or ask someone else so as, possibly, to talk themselves into some kind of compromise. They unhesitatingly showed the completeness and firmness of their dedication when they began their answer to Nebuchadnezzar with the statement “we are under no necessity in this regard to say back a word to you.”

The servant of God knows that love is the basic quality that binds God’s congregation together. (Col. 3:14) Christians who have ‘beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears’ do not lift up sword against one another nor learn war anymore. Therefore they refuse to participate in anything that would be contrary to that love, and they maintain their neutrality as to strife and warring factions of the world.​—Isa. 2:4.

Jehovah’s allowing the individual to take whatever course he chooses is actually part of the test of integrity. The person has his freedom of will. If he takes a course violating his Christian neutrality, he is denying God as his Master, and he is walking out on God and his congregation. He is certainly not leading a dedicated life. The congregation is not the one that publicly disfellowshiped him. He takes himself out, dissociates himself. He was once saved from this “crooked generation,” but now he prefers to go back with it, doing as it does.