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In the mid-1980's I was holding a meeting at a large church in Lexington, Kentucky, when I received a phone call at my motel from one of the church members. The caller identified himself as one of our radio listeners. He said he had heard a broadcast of mine about Masonry, and he wanted to talk with me about it. He asked if he could come to my room for a visit, and I agreed.
When he arrived, he shared with me an incident that had happened at his church. One of the assistant pastors had been teaching a course on the cults. One Sunday morning as he concluded his lesson, he announced, "Next week we will conclude our study of the cults by taking a look at the Masons."
My visitor said he was dumbfounded by this announcement. "I immediately protested," he said. "I told him I was a Mason, and I did not consider the organization to be cultic in nature."
"Well," the teacher responded, "I really don't know that much about it. I'm just presenting the material in my teacher's manual."
After discussing the matter back and forth for a few minutes, the teacher made an offer: "I'll tell you what," he said, "next week I'll present my material and then I will give you half the class time to present your rebuttal."
My visitor said he accepted the offer and went to work immediately studying Masonry.
I asked what he meant by "studying Masonry."
He replied that although he had been a Mason many years, he knew almost nothing about the fundamental beliefs of the organization.
When I asked how that could be, he explained that he had simply bought each of his Masonic degrees without doing any study.
"What happened next?" I asked.
He said he started his research by reading the Kentucky Masonic handbook. "When I got to page 95, I put the book down, repented before God for ever becoming a Mason, took a hammer and beat my Masonic ring to a pulp, and then sent a letter of resignation to my lodge."
"Wow!" I replied. "What in the world was on page 95?"
At that point, he handed me the handbook and told me I could keep it. I immediately turned to page 95 and found the following paragraph:1
"Masonry makes no profession of Christianity... but looks forward to the time when the labor of our ancient brethren shall be symbolized by the erection of a spiritual temple... in which there shall be but one altar and one worship; one common altar of Masonry on which the Veda [Hinduism], Shastras [Buddhism], Sade [Astrology], Zend-Avesta [Zoroastrianism], Koran [Islam], and Holy Bible shall lie untouched by sacrilegious hands, and at whose shrine the Hindoo (sic), the Persian, the Assyrian, the Chaldean, the Egyptian, the Chinese, the Mohammedan, the Jew, and the Christian may kneel and with one united voice celebrate the praises of the Supreme Architect of the Universe."
Notice how this paragraph equates the Bible with the pagan scriptures and then asserts it is possible to obtain salvation through any religion. In short, this paragraph refutes the Gospel which maintains that "there is salvation in no other name under heaven except the name of Jesus" (Acts 4:12).
How could any Christian give his allegiance to an organization whose beliefs make a mockery of the Gospel? And yet, thousands of professing Christians, even many pastors and elders, have done so by becoming Masons.
Endnotes1. Henry Pirtle, Kentucky Monitor (Louisville, KY: The Standard Printing Co., 1921), page 95.
