Who Are the Freemasons?

What Freemasonry Is and Why It Matters

So, this evening we're going to be looking at the subject of Freemasonry or the Freemasons. So, how many of you know a Freemason? Well, you don't have to raise your hand. Okay, a lot. There might be a Freemason watching this, you know, it gets put online and who knows who's going to watch.

And, let me just say this, if somebody is a Freemason, you know, I don't have an axe to grind. I'm not against anybody, but what we want to do with any of the things that we talk about is test all things and hold fast.

That what is good. So, whether it's a religion, a social club, some movement in the culture, we just want to see what people are saying, what they believe and compare it over and against the word of God.

So, that's what we're going to be doing here. So, Freemasonry is defined this way and people say, well, why are you even covering this? This isn't a religion. Well, yes and no. And you're going to see why I say that in a moment.

But Freemasonry is defined this way. It refers to fraternal organizations that trace their origins to local guilds of stonemasons that from the end of the 13th century regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients.

And you say, that's really boring. Well, that's kind of where it came from. Like it's in the name, like the stonemasons, right? That's how it started. But modern Freemasonry broadly consists of two main recognition groups.

Regular Freemasonry insists that a volume of scripture be open in a working lodge. So, there are people who read the Bible in Freemason lodges and I also understand there are some other scriptures that may get read.

They say that every member, every Freemason must profess belief in a supreme being. They didn't say the God of the Bible, but a supreme being and that no woman can be admitted and that the discussion of religion and politics must not take place within the lodge.

Okay, now whether or not that actually happens, they hold to those rules is another story because there is continental Freemasonry. This is the second type which consists of the jurisdictions that have removed some or all of those restrictions.

So I think what I would take away from this is not every lodge is the same. So there's different types of Freemasonry around the world. So that statement kind of jumps out at me, no talking about politics and religion.

And right there, some people would say, see, it's not a religion because they're not even allowed to talk about religion. Well, okay, but we're going to see in a moment that they do have beliefs or guidelines at least about God and how people relate to God.

And really, what is a religion? We talked about this with secularism. What is a religion? A religion is basically a system of beliefs alongside of it. There's a code of conduct. So whether you call it a religion or not, it really doesn't matter if you have a set of beliefs in a code of conduct, it's not really all that different.

So here's why I think Freemasonry may be considered a religion, at least to some degree. They do make sure that every member believes in the Supreme Being, right? And the leader of the lodge is actually called, do you know what they call the leader?

Grand Puba. Grand Puba, no. Yeah, Worshipful Master. And they have deacons. So and they have scripture reading in the lodge. So we're going to see a video where you see the inside of a lodge and it kind of looks like a church.

So you'll have to excuse me if I'm not totally sold on the idea that there's no religious elements to it. So, but some people say it's not a religion, but it's interesting that their lodge, what is it?

The lodge is a meeting house. And what is a church? A church, a synagogue, a mosque. It's a meeting house. So yeah, the president of a Freemason lodge is called Worshipful Master. They have a senior deacon, they have a junior deacon, and they also have a chaplain.

So it sounds religious. I'll continue with the definition. The basic local organizational unit of Freemasonry is the lodge. These private lodges are usually supervised at the regional level by a Grand Lodge.

There is no international worldwide Grand Lodge that supervises all of Freemasonry or so they say. Each Grand Lodge is independent, and they do not necessarily recognize each other as being legitimate.

I mean, that's sort of like churches, right? You have one church that doesn't recognize this church as being legitimate. So the degrees of Freemasonry retain three grades or three levels of membership.

There is the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft, and you've probably heard of this and seen the license plate of what? The Master Mason. Who's seen the license plate? You get behind somebody and they got the compass, they have the symbol on the license plate, it'll say Master Mason.

So the candidate of these three degrees is progressively taught the meaning and symbols of Freemasonry and trusted with grips, signs, and words to signify to other members that he has been initiated. So this is known as sort of the secret handshake.

So somebody, you know, they shake their hands and they put their fingers out or something. Actually Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, within the temple rituals of the Mormon temple, there's actually a lot of Freemasonry secret handshakes.

It's debated whether or not Joseph Smith was actually a Freemason or he just found out about some of that stuff and incorporated it into Mormonism, but you know, that's just something. An interesting side note.

Some interesting facts about the Masons. They helped build Washington, D .C. Who knew that? All right. So they helped build D .C., the Freemasons of Virginia and Maryland. They conducted ritual ceremonies for the first foundation marker stone of Washington, D .C., as well as the cornerstones of the White House and the Capitol building.

And I could just tell you and you might think, oh, I don't know. That's not true. But if you go and look at Google Maps and you get an overhead view of Washington, D .C., the streets are laid out in the pattern of an upside-down pentagram.

So you know, a five-pointed star upside down. That's how the streets of D .C. are laid out. So that is a common symbol within Freemasonry, the upside-down pentagram. Now I think this is a big problem for some people because most, when they see an upside-down pentagram, they associate it with what?

Satanism. Right. Now I'm assuming that the Masons would say, no, no, no, that's not what it means. It goes back to ancient times and back then it didn't mean that. And in fairness, the Nazis used the swastika.

And the swastika was an ancient symbol in Hinduism. So we can't just believe everything we hear on the internet. So maybe there's something to that. Maybe it's not. But yeah, they did lay out the streets intentionally as an upside-down pentagram.

So that's Washington, D .C. There have been 14 Freemasons who have served as presidents of the United States. The first was who? I think most people are aware of that. George Washington was a Freemason.

So there's been 14 presidents. The first was Washington. The most recent was Gerald Ford. So due to misconceptions about Freemasonry's tradition of not discussing its rituals with non-members, there's a lot of secrecy up until the age of the internet.

Most people had no idea what was going on. Now it's kind of out there. But due to the secrecy, the Freemasons have become associated with many conspiracy theories. So some of you are probably familiar with them.

I'm not going to get into any of that. I want to be as fair as I can. So I'm not going to go and, hey, I read this or I heard this, and I'm just going to repeat stuff that... Honestly, if some of these things were true because they talk about the Freemasons and the Illuminati and how they are secretly pulling the strings and controlling world domination and all...

Listen, if that was true, if it wasn't, I would never know that. You could never know that. So we're just not going to get into any of that stuff. But why am I doing this? Because 1 Thessalonians 5 .21 says, test all things, hold fast that which is good.

So this is a group that has millions and millions of members. Like I said, we all know somebody who's a Freemason. It's good to know where they're coming from. What's going on with this organization? Is it something to be worried about?

Is it smart? Is it not? Let's test some of the things that we do know, not the conspiracy stuff, but let's test what we do know over and against the scripture. Can we agree to do that? We should be able to do that with anything.

Just test everything against the scripture. Okay. Any questions or comments so far? Okay. So now I'm going to read through something I pulled off the website, gotquestions .org. This is a pretty good website, very reliable.

So they have this article that I'm going to kind of use for an outline to test what the Freemasons say versus the Bible. What do Freemasons believe? And I should put it this way. What is Freemasonry say?

Because each Freemason may believe totally different things. You can't lump them all together. It's like saying what do, oh, that guy attends a church. What does he believe? Well, he might believe something completely different from some guy at some other church.

So not all Freemasons would have the same belief system, but here's what Masonry puts out there. Freemasonry, Eastern Star, and other similar secret organizations. This is from the article. They seem to be harmless fellowship gatherings.

Many of them appear to promote belief in God. However, Freemasonry, also called The Craft, does not have belief in one true God. Rather, they say each man must act with courage, fidelity, and devotion to his God.

So if you're a Mason, you have to believe in something, a higher power, some sort of deity, and you just need to have devotion towards your God, whoever that might be. Now, would we take that approach as a church?

Hey, come on in. You can be a member of Morse Corner Church. As long as you're faithful to your God, whoever you determine him or her or it to be, that's fine. Would a church take that approach? No. That would be polytheism, henotheism, just an acceptance of plurality of God.

So obviously, they would be in conflict with a Bible-believing church in that regard. So Freemasonry teaches the existence of a supreme being, whoever that may be, whether it be the God of Islam, Hinduism, or any other religion will do.

It sort of reminds me of Alcoholics Anonymous. You have to say you believe and affirm a higher power, and that higher power can pretty much be anything, but you have to say there's something out there.

Okay, back to the article. They say the unbiblical beliefs of Masonry are partially hidden by a supposed compatibility with the Christian faith. The following is a comparison of what the Bible says with what Freemasonry teaches.

So before we start comparing this with the Bible, just an anecdotal type of thing. I've only known two Freemasons. One of them said he was a Christian. The other one didn't. The one who said he was a Christian said that Jesus was a very good man, maybe an enlightened man, but he wasn't God.

He was just a man, and he was a sinner just like everybody else. So this man was a Freemason. He did identify as a Christian. He did have a church that he considered to be his church, but obviously his beliefs about Jesus were not in line with actual Christianity.

The other Freemason I knew, he was more pantheistic. He believed in reincarnation. So God is all in all type of the thing. So take that for what it's worth. From what I hear, and I've heard this from multiple sources because this may not be as common up here in the North, but down South, it's reported that Freemasons, it's very common to find Freemasons in Southern Baptist churches, and they're oftentimes officers, if not deacons or higher up.

So from what I understand, that's actually a pretty common thing for Freemasons to be part of churches, at least in the South. Okay. So I want to play this video. I think it's about three minutes long and it kind of gives an overview of their origin and some of the things that we talked about, but this should help us to understand what's going on.

You don't hear much about them now, but for centuries, fraternal societies were as much a part of the fabric of daily life for many adults as driving kids to soccer practice and scheduling play dates are today.

TV, and later the COVID -19 pandemic, greatly impacted the importance of societies such as the Odd Fellows, the Elks, and the Lions Club. Yet for the longest time, one's fraternal society was a source of friendship, social capital, and the basis for one's charitable work.

And probably the most famous, or infamous, of those orders is the mysterious group known as the Freemasons. But what do Freemasons actually believe? On the surface, the Freemasons appear to be a group of usually old men who meet at the lodge to play cards and enjoy a tall, cold one.

But for centuries, both church officials and the general public were concerned about the Masons. That's because the organization has always been shrouded in secrecy, with rumors of pagan rituals, quasi-polytheistic beliefs, and, to hear some tell it, a tendency to secretly pull the strings of government, finance, and world domination.

Even Sherlock Holmes thought so.

The handshake and the ring, Watson, are archaic rituals preserved by the 33rd degree members of the secret order of Freemasons.

That or they really are just a bunch of men enjoying each other's company and doing good charitable work and riding in parades, which is the version of the story they tell. So what's the truth? According to the straight dope, the group that eventually came to be known as the Freemasons likely began as a trade guild.

At the time, the secrecy that governed the society's existence was likely at least partially due to the need to keep outsiders from learning valuable trade skills, masonry specifically. But there was also a religious aspect as well.

The Freemasons allowed anyone to join as long as they believed in God, regardless of their specific religious beliefs, and that was way too inclusive for the Catholic Church. This was centuries ago, of course.

Around the 17th century, the focus of the group broadened from actual stonemasonry into a society of wealthy, educated gentlemen discussing the latest trends in philosophy, like a book club for morality.

It was also the time when the society became entwined with deistic beliefs, an idea that the grand architect of the universe was just that, a godlike being that created the world but has no further influence in its existence.

The inclusivity and secularism of the Freemasons put them at odds with all sorts of conservative establishments, especially the Catholic Church, and for a while, Freemasonry was outright banned. As a result, the Masons were traditionally anti-monarchy and pro-republic and constitutional government, which explains why founding fathers such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were a part of the shadowy club.

These days, Masons are still required to profess belief in a higher power, either the grand architect of the universe or, for the individual Mason, the god of their own religion. In order to join the group or stay in it.

However, the Straight Dope also notes that when a Mason achieves the highest rank, the tea is spilled about what the group secretly purports to believe. That god is actually a being they call Yabeling, who is an amalgam of the Hebrew god, a Canaanite god, and an Egyptian one.

So you heard the last thing that he said, that once you get in, then they sort of reveal what they really believe that the god of Freemasonry is known as Yabeling. Now, listen, again, I'm sure there are probably Freemason lodges that do not teach this or hold to this, but apparently this is a, I've heard this before.

This is a common thing within Freemasonry. It's an amalgamation of at least three different gods. So you see here, uh, yaw or jaw is who, yeah. So in Psalm 68 verse four, if you have a King James version of the Bible, one of the names for the Lord is jaw.

So in the King James version of the Bible, God is called jaw. Some of you might be familiar with the Ross DeFarians who knows, you know, there's the reggae singer, Bob Marley and Ross DeFarians believe in God as jaw.

Well, there actually is a verse that calls Jehovah or the Lord jaw. Now in the new King James version, it's a yaw because J and Y depending at what point in history there was no J sound, so, or there was no Y sound.

Uh, so it's either jaws and Jehovah or yaw is in yaw way, but anyways, that's, that's the God of the Bible jaw bail. We've all heard of bail, right? The false deity of the Canaanites and I really wasn't able to find too much on the last one on, but the claim is that they believe in God and it's just, you know, let's take this, let's take this, let's take this deity and just kind of lump them all together.

So their God would be javelin. Okay. So there are at least some Freemasons who believe this, this is their deity and that's, that's his name. So if that is the case, if somebody does believe in this deity, I mean that, that's a, that's a huge problem.

Uh, as far as biblical Christianity goes, cause this is not the God of the Bible. Matter of fact, that's what the Israelites did. They took the worship of Jehovah and they incorporated bail worship and, and, and an Asherah pole and they were just worshiping a whole bunch of gods.

Remember Solomon brought in idols into the temple and for a while the Jews, they were just worshiping kind of whoever and just, uh, just kind of a mixture of all sorts of deities. So this goes against the first commandment, right?

God told Moses, you shall have no other gods before me. So this is really what it boils down to as far as Freemasonry. If a, if a Bible believe in Christian, if a born again Christian wanted to join the Freemasons, this would be like my first response is, well, did they believe in the one true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

And if the answer is no, then the, the Bible says we are to practice separation with the world. I do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. So when you are joining an organization and committing your loyalty to them and taking a pledge, um, if that, if that's what they believe in a plurality of, that's, that's a huge problem.

Right? So do you understand why, why that's an issue? Okay. And that's why the Catholic church or one of the reasons why the Catholic church banned their members from Freemasonry and I mean, evangelical churches, some have taken that stance as well.

Okay. We're going to take what the Masons have stated, at least what some Masons have stated, and we're going to compare it to what the scripture says. So what do they say about salvation from sin? Now there's no, uh, Freemason doctrinal statement, but you can find Masons who have been on the record, um, giving what, what they believe.

So the Bible's view as far as salvation from sin is that Jesus became the sinner sacrifice before God when he shed his blood on the cross, right? Romans five, verse eight says that God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

What is Freemasonry believe? Basically they believe, uh, the very process of joining a lodge requires apprentices to ignore the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior. Freemasons focus on good works in the pursuit of personal self improvement.

So by returning to the lodge, witnessing the degrees and becoming an active part of the Masonic community, a man, according to them, can build himself into a better man. Now most people in the world don't see a problem with that.

Yeah. You do these things and you reform yourself, you improve yourself. But do we believe that you can improve yourself? Well, not before God. You have to be born again and then God, the Holy Spirit sanctifies us.

So it almost sounds like a, a works based type of, uh, religion if you want to call it that. All right. The view of the Bible, the Bible's view about itself. What does the Bible say about itself? Yeah, it's inspired.

Second Timothy three 16, all scriptures given by inspiration of God and this profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Uh, first Thessalonians two 13 says for this reason, we also thank God without ceasing because when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.

So the Bible is clear about itself. It is the word of God. Okay. Do Freemasons believe that the Bible is the word of God? Well, I don't doubt you would find individual Freemasons who would say that, but then again, you would find Mormons who would say that, but at the same time they believe the Bible's corrupted.

So Freemasonry, uh, the Bible is only one of seven commonly used volumes of sacred law, which they deem as equally important. Uh, the holy book of any religion may be used provided that it teaches and it's adherence.

Uh, it teaches its adherence to believe in the supreme being. They say the Bible is an important book, but only as far as those members who claim to be Christians are concerned, the Bible is not considered to be the exclusive word of God or God's soul revelation of himself.

I think this is the, this, when you boil it all down, this is the issue, whether it's the Masons or anybody else, the word exclusivity, right? If I say the scripture is the word of God, see all sorts of people can get on board with that.

The Catholic church can get on board. Yes. The scripture is the word of God, but they have other authorities, right? The Catholic church has the Pope, uh, the Mormons have the writings of Joseph Smith.

The Freemasons have other books that they view as equal to scripture. So whether it's, uh, their authority or whether it's saying that Jesus is the only way to God, that's the type of thing they would reject, which again, when you boil it down, that that's the, that's the main problem or anything, anything else so far.

Okay. The doctrine of God. So the, the Bible's view of God is that what there's three different gods and they're all made up of, no, there's only one God. So to worship other gods, according to Exodus 20 verse three says, you shall have no other gods before me.

Paul says of idolatry in first Corinthians 10, 14 Paul says, therefore flee from idolatry. This here with yoblin and bail, and that would definitely be a considered idolatry. So Freemasonry, uh, all members must believe in a deity, different religions acknowledge the same God, but they call him by different names.

So this is their belief. Have you met someone who would say, you know, all the different churches and different religions, Jews and Muslims and, and Christians and boot, you're all worshiping the same God.

You just don't, you just don't even realize it. Have you heard this? Is that true? Well, I mean, let's say the majority of people you would talk to who would believe in a gut, that's probably not just a popular opinion.

That might be the majority opinion. I don't know. It doesn't matter if it's the majority or not, it doesn't make it right. But they would say, yeah, Muslims, Christians, Jew, you're all worshiping the same God wrong.

We worship who they see. The whole reason we're going through all of this is so that if you're ever in one of these positions or in one of these conversations, you'll have the answer. So if somebody says, well, we're all, we all worship the same God, what would you say?

We don't hear, here's, here's how I'd respond. I'd say, well, I worship Jesus. Do you worship Jesus? And that's going to eliminate, well, it's going to eliminate Jews. It's going to eliminate a Muslim.

So it eliminates Hindus and all, and all the rest. So just saying that kind of cuts out two thirds of the religious people on earth. Um, but that's what they believe that there are many different names for the one God.

And then of course, Buddhism and Hinduism, they don't even really believe in a personal God anyway. So that they're not even monotheistic. So freemasons believe in many paths to God, Manly Hall, who is a 33rd degree Mason.

He wrote this, uh, the true Mason is not creed bound. He realizes with the divine illumination of his lodge, that a Mason, uh, his religion must be universal, okay? Notice he says his religion must be universal Christ, Buddha, or Muhammad.

The name means little for, he recognizes only the light, not the light bearer. Okay. To me, that's, that's, that says it all. So that, that is from the book, the lost keys of Freemasonry page on number 65.

Let me, let me repeat that again. It's kind of chilling to me. It sends a chill down my spine, Christ, Buddha, or Muhammad. The name means little for he recognizes only the light, not the light bearer.

Let me just shorten that Christ. The name means little, okay? The doctrine of Jesus and the Trinity. So the Bible's view is that Jesus is God in human form. Matthew one, 18 through 24 calls him Emmanuel, which being translated means God with us.

Uh, John chapter one, verse one, you know, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. So clearly the scripture teaches that Jesus is God.

Uh, Matthew 28 verse 19 talks about father, son, and Holy spirit. So father, son, and Holy ghost. So the scripture teaches we should pray in Jesus name and proclaim him above others. And there's a list of verses.

So what does Freemasonry say as opposed to that? They say there is no exclusivity in Jesus Christ or the triune God who is father, son, and Holy spirit. Here's the thing. If somebody believes in God, but their God is not a Trinity or their God is not the Trinity, that's a different God.

So the God of the Jehovah's witnesses is not a Trinity. They have a different God, God of Islam, not a Trinity, different God. So that, that is one of those things that will again, uh, separate us from, from everybody else.

Freemasonry says there is no exclusivity within masonry. Jesus is equated to persons in pagan religions. The Hindus call him Krishna, the Egyptians, Horace, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So they just say, you know, all the different religions have their, have their own version of Christ.

So each culture has their own idea of who God is now. Is that true? Yeah, that is true. Each culture has their own version of God. But again, we believe that there's only, only one, all right, on the subject of human nature in sin.

Uh, the Bible's view is that all human beings are born with what, right? The sinful nature. Now this is another one of those things that will separate Bible believing Christians from everybody else. Cause most people believe that mankind is basically good.

All human beings are born with the sin nature and therefore need a savior. Romans three 23 for all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. Ephesians two one says the man is dead and trespasses and sin.

So because of the fall human, uh, humanity, we have no ability, uh, to save ourselves. We have no capacity for, uh, improving ourselves to where we through our own good works can make ourselves right in the eyes of God.

First John one eight through 10 says if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. I think a lot of freemasons would probably say, you know, admit that they're a sinner, right? A lot of people, they might not use the word sin.

You know, we all, we all have flaws. Yeah. But what do you do about that is the question we already saw they through the lodge and the rights and rituals of masonry, you can kind of improve yourself, make yourself a, a better man.

So meet masonry through symbols and emblems. Masons teach that man is not simple, but in a process of self improvement as deputy grandmaster are w Donald Gardner Hicks jr said, that's a long name. Uh, the lesson we teach is that the rough Ashlar, which is a rough cut stone, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right.

Is that, does anyone know these terms? Anyways, they say the rough Ashlar is a rough cut stone. It represents ourselves rude and imperfect by nature, but that the perfect Ashlar, a stone with smooth sides and square edges is that state of perfection at which we hope to obtain by virtuous education, our own endeavors, and the blessing of God.

So that's salvation by faith plus works. And that's a, that's a grandmaster. Okay. So, uh, we're, we're getting these statements from, from Mason's themselves. Is that a question mark? Okay. Right. Well, uh, you know, I, I would assume he said, you know, the eternal architect of the universe that seems to be the, the accepted way for Mason's to refer to God, the eternal architect, which you know, uh, based on that terminology, you can see that they're saying he's the creator.

Uh, the, the problem though, is that they don't really think that he's involved with the creation, right? George Washington and some of the early, you know, the founding fathers, they were what did you pick up on the, on the video, they were deists.

So a deist is somebody who believes in God. He is the creator. He made all things, but he's sort of like a watchmaker. He makes the watch, he winds up the watch and puts it on the table and just walks away.

So that's how they view, uh, God and the creation that, yeah, he made everything, but he's kind of just abandoned us. So God is often distant universe somewhere doing something else and we're just left to ourselves.

That's the common view of God. And it doesn't really matter what you call him. So he's just the generic, uh, architect, grand architect of the universe, right? Any other questions or comments? But this stands in stark contrast to Christians.

We believe that God is personally involved. What did Jesus say that God, even the very hairs on your head are numbered. That makes all the difference in the world that God knows you, that God cares about you.

He cares about you so much that he sent his son to die for you, to save you, to go and prepare a place in heaven for you. That's, that's a personal God who cares the Christian God as opposed to the, the architect who builds and then just takes off like he doesn't care, right?

That, that's the deist God that you just, he isn't concerned with things under the sun. Now have you ever thought that you ever had that doubt in your mind? Does God really care about me? But we recognize that as doubt, right?

Cause we know better. But how do you know? Because the scripture says, because Jesus said, but if the Bible is equal with all these other writings, if the other writings say different, you know, I mean, who knows?

Salvation by Works Versus the Gospel

All right. So in conclusion, based on everything that I read, the books and the articles, here is my takeaway. If and when a Christian takes the oath of Freemasonry, he is swearing to the following doctrines that God has already pronounced false.

That salvation can be gained by man's good works. Number two, he's swearing to the following doctrines that Jesus is just one of many equally wise prophets. Number three, he approaches the lodge in spiritual darkness and ignorance.

So that's what they say. When you approach the lodge as a new member, you approach in spiritual darkness and ignorance. Is that true for a born again Christian? Now a born again Christian based on all this should not be joining the Freemasons.

Okay. You know, I, if that upsets somebody, I'm, you know, I love you enough to tell you that. Um, but if, let's say if a born again, Christian was sort of a hoodwinked into joint or whatever, their backslidden, they make a terrible decision to join the lodge.

They would have to profess that they approach the lodge in spiritual darkness when the Bible says that Christians are children of light. So to become a Freemason, I mean, it comes awfully close to renouncing your faith.

I don't see how you can really get around that. Number four, the great or grand architect of the universe represents all gods in all religions. All right, let's turn to second Corinthians chapter six and we'll close there.

So by swearing the Masonic oath and participating in the rituals of the lodge, Christians are at the very best being or becoming unequally yoked. As one author put it by his membership in a syncretistic organization, the Christian has severely compromised his witness.

See, if people, his friends, coworkers, neighbors know that he's a Christian and he's part of the Freemason, see enough people know these days to even the average person can recognize, Hey, wait a second.

I thought you're not supposed to do that. So again, at best you're unequally yoked and you are compromising your witness. And again, at worst, at worst, it could be a renunciation of the Christian faith.

So okay, based, based on what pastor, you know, you say that you're being unequally yoked. Who says so? Well, look at second Corinthians, uh, starting in verse second Corinthians six, starting in verse 14, the apostle Paul says, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness and what communion has light with darkness.

So any organization where you're swearing an oath, that's a serious thing. Verse 15 and what accord has Christ with Belial or you could say what accord has Christ with bail or yobbling for 16 and what agreement has the temple of God with idols for you are the temple of the living God.

As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate says the Lord and do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you.