Freemasonry (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on

the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for

even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for

you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial.

Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and

glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Avendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry.

My name's Mike Avendroth, and today, actually, this is taped probably two weeks before you'll hear this, but it is

pouring outside, freezing cold.

I can tell I'm getting older because when the weather changes, I don't feel so great.

So anyway, I sound like I'm underwater.

I probably am.

Bethlehem Bible Church Women's Conference 2011, Donna Shannon that is at Bethlehem

Bible Church in Central Massachusetts from the 20th to the 21st of May this year,

2011, Friday night, and then Saturday morning.

Donna Shannon, her husband, Bill, is an elder at Grace Community Church serving with MacArthur,

and she's going to talk about controlling our thoughts, biblical femininity, taking our cue from the word and

not the world.

So husbands, if you are listening, why don't you tell your wife that you'll be glad to babysit the kids and have her

come out to the conference, the Bethlehem Bible Church Women's Conference this year, and then,

actually, the 22nd, which is Sunday.

Phil Johnson will be here preaching May 22nd.

That'll be Sunday school, Sunday morning, and Sunday night, so everyone is welcome to come out for that as

well.

Well, the other day I was talking to Zach Eckert on a Tuesday, and he was talking about this Buddhist lady was

upset because Jesus is the only way, and then we got a phone call, and someone called the church and was upset

that we would not include Buddhists when it comes to salvation.

And so the question is, can Buddhists go to heaven?

Yes, if they renounce their Buddhism.

Can Hindus go to heaven?

Yes, if they renounce their Hinduism.

Can Catholics go to heaven?

Yes, if Catholics renounce their Catholicism.

Can Baptists go to heaven?

Yes, uh, do I dare say it?

Listen, here's the scoop.

If you can get to heaven on your own, then why send Jesus as some example of love?

Oh, he was that, but he was much more than that.

He was the substitutionary lamb.

He was the vicarious sacrifice.

He died in our place on our behalf, and Jesus says that he is the way, the truth, the life, with a

definite article.

And if you don't believe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, who was the substitutionary lamb raised from the dead,

if your response is not repentance, confession, belief, and following, then you aren't

going to heaven.

And that doesn't, I don't care if you're a Buddhist, or I don't care if you're a mad and you call in.

You cannot put the hermeneutic of Rob Bell's God is love over everyone, and therefore everyone

makes it, because that is not going to be true.

You will see in the Bible a selective group.

You will see a definite group.

You will see that Yom Kippur, it was for the sins of these 12 tribes of Israel, not for the

Canaanites, not for the people in Sri Lanka.

Then you see Christ, his substitutionary atonement.

It's the same kind of thing.

And we're told to go out and tell people about this great God who saves, because everyone is

under the condemnation of God because of what they've seen with their eyes, natural revelation, and their own conscience.

And so I just find it quite fascinating that people here, even locally, could listen to a Christian

radio show and somehow think that Jesus isn't the only way.

But see, this is very offensive, and this is the offense of the cross.

And the cross is offensive because of many reasons, but one is every other way leads to

perdition, and Jesus is the only God.

He is the eternal Son of God.

He is Yahweh.

And so I'm not bugged, but I do find it odd that people today still

think that somehow Christians would be inclusive with their gospel.

And maybe that's because of the emergent church.

Maybe that's because of people like Rob Bell.

But Christianity has always taught, evangelical Christianity, orthodox Christianity, that there

is no such thing as a broad gospel.

We are to tell it broadly, but it is a particular gospel for a

particular group of people that will repent and believe.

And so if you don't believe in the gospel today, or you think everybody's going to heaven, you need the gospel.

Well, let's say something a little lighter.

I had this come across my desk, No Compromise Radio.

Proverbs 23, seven says, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.

A teenage boy heard that verse in Sunday school and got very worried when his teacher explained that the verse teaches that you

become what you think about.

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.

The boy was afraid he was going to become a little girl.

All right, well, maybe that's not as funny as I thought.

All right, today we're going to talk about many things.

No, just one thing.

Today, masons, free masonry.

I got a request to do a show on free masonry, so I guess I should do it.

I didn't know a lot about masonry in Los Angeles when I lived there.

A little bit, you'd have to study some for seminary.

And then I moved here to Central Massachusetts in 1997.

It was April 4th.

I've been here 14 years now, longest five decades of my life.

And just a joke, I love the people here.

And I actually like it that this is not a place where everybody says they're born again.

They just will tell you, hey, I'm not born again.

I'm a Catholic man.

So when I got here and started seeing Masonic rings on the

members of Bethlehem Bible Church's fingers, Masonic lapel pins,

there were many masons when I got here.

And actually, before I became a pastor and accepted the call to pastor Bethlehem Bible

Church, at the time Bethlehem Baptist Church, I asked this question of each elder.

I think there were five elders at the time.

Are you a Mason?

And so I asked potential elders that even now, are you a Mason?

Because I would like to know.

Well, why would I like to know?

Just for personal information?

No, I'd like to know because if there are Masons in the local church, well, there's all kinds of

people in the local church.

So they don't, that doesn't really bother me, although I'll try to talk them out of it as you'll see today or listen to today.

But if you're in leadership, then I've got a major problem.

So today I will start off with a quote from Alan Roberts in the craft and its symbols.

You have entered a new world.

Symbolically and spiritually, you have been reborn.

This started the moment you were prepared to become a free Mason, end quote.

And so today you are going to enter a new world here on No Compromise Radio.

Symbolically and spiritually, you have been reborn.

Can you imagine that statement?

And so here's what we do.

We live in a society today that I guess you can't critique anything.

You can't say this is what the Bible says and does this match up to what the Bible says without somehow

becoming unloving.

Well, I think it's the exact opposite.

If you're especially in leadership and you don't tell people the truth and you don't help them

see truth and error and where the dividing line is, then you are unloving because the Bible says, if you love me, you will

keep my commandments.

Love wants what's best for the other people.

That's hard to say, isn't it?

Love wants what is best for the other person.

And so love doesn't say, well, you know, that's so unloving you can't talk about it.

No, love says you need to know this.

And so this may be just more interesting than anything else because I don't know how many Freemasons are out there,

but I remember coming to Bethlehem Bible Church thinking, there are a bunch of Freemasons here in New England.

And with the resurgence of symbols and inner workings and

behind the scenes kind of deals, Gnostic type of

influences, the movie, National Treasure and National Treasure Two, even using the man who was

the narrator in the movie for the pitch for the Freemasons, there are a lot of Freemasons around.

And I thought it'd make a good no compromise show because I don't know how you could be a

Mason and call yourself a Christian.

That is a biblical definition of a Christian because we've got mainline people, Methodist churches, Episcopalian churches, all kinds of

people, Greek Orthodox churches, they call themselves Christians.

And there may in fact be some Christians in those denominations, but they're not Christians because of what the

denomination teaches because the denominations

are apostates at the highest levels.

And so it will work its way down.

So it's again, it's a fallacy to say, well, there's no Christians in the Roman Catholic Church.

I think there are, but not because of Rome.

If you're a good Catholic, you're not going to heaven because you believe what the church teaches you.

If you're a bad Catholic, that is believing what Jesus said about being born again and denying that it could somehow make

you born again by having water sprinkled on your head when you were five days old or 10 days old or eight days old.

And so today we want to talk about Masons.

There are approximately 34 ,000 lodges across the world where

people will join to be involved in Masonic activities.

And the Britannica Encyclopedia says that Freemasonry is the largest worldwide

secret society.

And so we're going to look at this esoteric truth kind of society with all its

symbols and ceremonies and altered states of consciousness and its mysticism and

its occultic enlightenment because I don't want you to be a Mason.

And I don't want you to think to yourself, oh, you know, it's just like the Moose Lodge.

It's just like the Elks Club.

It's just like the Rotary.

It's just like the VFW.

No, it's not like a Rotary Club.

It is an occultic lodge.

And let's say you know a Mason or let's say you are a Mason and you say, well, yeah, but you don't know because you don't understand.

I do know the gospel and I do know enough from people who have defected from Masonic

things and I can read Masonic books to know that this does not line up with Scripture.

It does not have the same source of authority.

That is the Bible alone.

And it has a wrong view of Jesus and a wrong view of salvation and a wrong view of man.

Besides that, maybe it's pretty good.

Now, anything that they do well and they give money to certain children's hospitals, I'm glad for all that.

That's not what I'm talking about today.

You know, Hitler was nice to his dog.

So that doesn't mean anything.

And there are many other examples of people who do good things, humanly speaking,

some kind of philanthropy, but they aren't teaching the right doctrine.

And so this organization is deistic.

They do believe that there is one God and people who are in it have to swear an oath to this

God.

Sadly, this is not the triune God, the only God.

It's not the Father, Son, and the Spirit, three persons in the Godhead.

It's a different God.

And so you can call God creator.

You can say we believe in one God, but if you have a false oath and a false God,

it is idolatry.

There's no other word for it.

It is idolatry.

You can claim, as Masons do, that the background of Masons go back to Solomon's

temple.

Some have even said it goes back to the Tower of Babel, or some even said back to Adam.

But most say 1717, four craft lodges meeting in London, and off they go.

Add in a pinch of mystery cults, add in a dash of stone Masons from

the Middle Ages, and a little bit of Christian ease, and off you go.

A quote in the Constitution of 1723.

Forget the quote.

In the Constitution of 1723, the non -working Masons held that the Masons were required to believe, quote, that religion

to which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves, end quote.

And so here we have this organization for men.

If you're an atheist, you need not apply.

If you're a woman, you need not apply.

If you're a child, you need not apply.

If you are physically deformed, you need not apply because you won't be able to get in.

I found some old Masons from the past, 14 presidents from George Washington

through Teddy Roosevelt.

You have other very important men like Paul Revere and Ben Franklin.

All kinds of senators, all kinds of federal judges, all kinds of Supreme Court justices

were Masons.

There are, you know, some of these men did good things.

Again, that isn't my point.

My point is more theological.

So my name is Mike Avendroth.

We're on No Compromise Radio.

And we're talking a little bit about Masons today.

And I have a problem when God has called these things as the Masons call Him.

Call God, call it because it's not the real God.

Grand architect of the universe, father of the universe, grand warden,

supreme being, or the closest one they have that's right is almighty God.

Besides that one, they might as well just call Him the big guy, the man upstairs, or any other

guttural kind of trashy name that's not biblical.

And we don't need to call God the father of the universe and grand warden.

Why?

Well, He never calls Himself that.

And this is just new terminology for a new religion.

Mackie is one of their prolific writers.

And he said, from all this, we can see that the altar in Freemasonry is not merely a convenient article

of furniture intended like a table to hold a Bible.

It is a sacred utensil of religion intended like the altars of the ancient temples for religious uses

and thus identifying Freemasonry by its necessary existence in our lodges as a

religious institution.

Its presence should also lead the contemplative Freemason to view the ceremonies in which it is employed with

solemn reverence as being part of a really religious worship, end quote.

Mackie, page 56.

It's interesting because most Freemasons will say it's not religious.

What we do is not some religion, but Mackie says it is.

Listen to what he says on page 847.

On the contrary, we contend without any sort of hesitation that Freemasonry is, in every sense of the word, except one, and

that it's least philosophical and eminently religious institution, that it is indebted

solely to the religious element it contains for its origin as well as its continued existence.

So you can say all you want that it has nothing to do with religion, but I think it has

everything to do with religion.

Mackie said on page 847, there is nothing in Freemasonry repugnant to the

faith of a Christian.

Well, once you start talking about the fatherhood of God, which they do, and the brotherhood of man, which they do, that's

just old liberal lingo that God is the father of everyone.

And we know that's not true because he's only the father of those that he's sent the son to go

redeem.

God is the father to his children alone.

Satan is the father of everyone who's not a born -again Christian.

Remember Jesus in John chapter 8 talked to those men about their father, Satan.

And so we deny that the Bible teaches the fatherhood of God for everyone because it does not, but

Masons teach that.

They also teach the brotherhood of man.

And so that's liberal jingo for universalism is basically

what that is.

And when you have an organization, a religious organization, or if you want to even call it a club and say, we're going to talk about God a

lot, there's an altar, we have special oaths and a special Bible type of things,

but you can be a Jew, a Muslim, a Christian, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu, and you don't have to sacrifice what you believe,

then shouldn't any thinking person say, that's pretty dumb.

You know, you can't be a postmodern and be a consistent postmodern because

truth separates itself from things that it's opposite to.

That is to say, propositional truth divides.

It's this antithetical thinking when it comes to truth.

Logic, this is true, therefore it means everything opposite to that is untrue.

Here's what Mackey says, be assured that God is equally present with pious Hindu in the temple, the Jew in the synagogue, the

Mohammedan in the mosque, and the Christian in the church.

That does not sound like the exclusive Jesus who says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except by or through me.

That's a far cry from, let's not talk about the Trinity and Masonic lodges, and let's not talk about the deity

of Christ.

Now you can look at some of the things in Freemasonry online.

Let me read you what happens when you talk to the

Mason.

He'd never tell you this, but the Mason to the degree of Master Mason, the worshipful master delivers the

following charge to the assembled brothers.

Now you tell me if this sounds biblical or not.

And now my brethren, let's see to it.

And so regulate our lives by the plumb line of justice, ever squaring our actions by the square of virtue, that

when the grand warden of heaven may call for us, we may be found ready.

Let us cultivate assiduously the noble tenants of our profession, brotherly love, relief,

and truth.

And from the square, learn morality, and from the level, equality.

From the plumb, rectitude of life.

Let us imitate in all his various perfections, him who, when assailed by the murderous

band of rebellious craftsmen, maintained his integrity even in death, and sealed his pledge

with his own blood.

Talking about Hiram Abiff here there.

Thus, when desolation draws nigh and the cold winds of death come siding around us, and his

chilly dues already glistening on our foreheads, with joy we shall obey the summons of the grand warden of heaven,

and go from our labors on earth to everlasting refreshments in the paradise of God.

Then by benefit of the past, a pure and blameless life, with a firm reliance on divine providence,

we shall gain ready admission into that celestial lodge above where the supreme grand warden

forever resides, forever reigns.

When placed at his right hand, he will be pleased to pronounce us just and upright masons.

Then shall we be fitted as living stones into that spiritual temple.

Wow.

No compromise radio today.

We're talking about free masonry.

If you're a stone mason and you're a worker, that's not what I'm after, but I'm talking about the cult, the secretive cult of

free masonry.

Now, just a quick reading, if I read that to my kids, they would say, Daddy, that sounds like people have to be good to get to

heaven.

They have to earn salvation.

There's something there about going to the right hand of God.

I think probably that seat is already occupied.

Don't you think so?

And that seat of dignity and honor and authority and power.

I don't think we're going to make it there by a pure and blameless life with a

firm reliance on divine providence.

Well, what they're forgetting is the high priest, and you're going to need a priest because holy God, sinful man,

how are you going to approach this triune holy God?

The God that the angels blush with humility because although

perfect, still created, they bow down to this great God, Jesus

Christ, John chapter 12, Isaiah chapter six.

And so how do you approach this God without a mediator?

There's only one mediator, and that mediator was not only a Jew.

He was a complete man.

There's one mediator between man and God, the man, Christ Jesus.

And he is a mediator for Jews and for Gentiles and for men and for women and for slaves and for free.

And he is the mediator that will allow us to approach God because he has suffered in our place.

He has received our due penalty, and he has bore our sins on his body, on

the tree, and was raised from the dead.

And God sees us now in Christ's perfect righteousness because we have his righteousness

imputed to our account.

And Christ had our sin imputed to his account.

That's the only way you can approach God.

And when you get there, you're not going to be saying, I'd like to sit at the right hand of the father.

That is not going to happen.

Listen to the Masonic Funeral Service.

Masons, this is quoted in Ankerberg, page 81.

Masons believe sincerely that when life on earth comes to a close, the soul is translated from the imperfections of this mortal sphere

to that all -perfect, glorious, and celestial lodge above where God, the grand architect of the universe, presides.

With these truths and convictions, our brother was well acquainted.

Through perfection of character is not of this world, yet we are persuaded that our brother sought to live by these truths and principles of Masonry.

When our brother labored with us in Masonic attire, he wore a white apron, which he was taught is an

emblem of innocence and a badge of a Mason.

By it, he was constantly reminded of that purity of life and rectitude of conduct so necessary to

gaining admission into the celestial lodge above," end quote.

So that's what they teach at a funeral, quoted in Ankerberg's book.

So here's my question.

If you are held guilty of all the law of God by breaking one commandment,

what are you going to do, James 2, verse 10?

If you are cursed, if you don't fulfill all the works of the law of Galatians chapter three, just what are you going to

do?

Time on earth and time before God is not going to lessen your guilt.

Once you commit the crime, once you commit the sin, once you just obey God, you stand guilty and

time does not lessen the guilt.

You still remain guilty.

A billion years later in hell, if you've committed sin, you still will be guilty.

Guilt is guilt.

And so from the entrance into the degree of Master Mason and

the funeral service, both teach work salvation.

And does it make you surprised at all?

Every religion that's a false religion teaches that the way to get to heaven is by being

good.

Now it might be grace plus good works, quote unquote grace, like second Nephi with

Mormons.

It might be grace plus work, some kind of super irrigation Roman Catholic thing, but it

always muddles grace.

When you add works to it, Romans chapter 11, verse six, one part work, 12 billion parts grace

equals works because salvation is by grace alone.

Salvation is by God's goodness alone.

Salvation is by Christ's work alone.

The Father's plan alone.

The Spirit's initiating, redeeming, a regenerating power alone.

Yahweh's work alone.

And so I feel sorry for Masons because they are duped and maybe they want this.

Maybe they are brought into it when they're younger, but at the end of the day, they are responsible and they are

falling into what everyone else falls into unless you're believing what Jesus said.

And that is be good, do good, but there's no way you can do it.

The emblem of innocence that you need, the white apron is only the righteous works of Christ.

So Mike Abendroth today, we're talking about Masons a little bit.

I guess I'm gonna have to do a second part here.

And if you're a Mason, you ought to get out of Masonry.

And if you meet a Mason, I think you should preach the gospel of them, the free gospel of Christ grace alone, the exclusive

gospel, Jesus are no heaven, Jesus and heaven.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West

Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of

God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six.

We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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