A visitor to this web site wrote:

Please can you help me? Can a Christian be a freemason? One of my Christian friends on the net has told me he is a 32 degree Mason and I am so surprised. Does he need help? If so how do I help him. Thank you. God bless you, Keith.

I answered:

We find Christians doing and being a lot of things! They may be genuine Christians - that is they may have been born again by confessing Jesus as their Lord and receiving Him into their lives as their Saviour - but their actions and lifestyles can be running completely contrariwise to the counsel God gives us in the Bible.

Wilful disobedience can be a reason Christians are off-track. However, I find commonly it is through plain ignorance that Christians are doing things that are contrary to the counsel of God's word.

This ignorance may be because they are young Christians or because they are Christians who are not being pastored by Bible believing, Spirit-filled men or women. Sometimes, Christians are deluded by teaching that is not soundly expounding the word of truth. Or sometimes, seducing spirits may have them deceived out of a knowledge of the truth! (Galatians 3:1; 2 Timothy 2:15; 1 Timothy 4:1)

For whatever reason your Christian friend has a serious problem. Membership of the Freemasons is not compatible with being a Christian. Membership of the Freemasons requires sworn allegiance to the doctrine and the brotherhood of the Freemasons. Freemasonry is like a church, an ekklesia. However, it is very clearly not the church of Jesus Christ!

Our word "church" is translated from the Greek word "ekklesia". The Greek scholar Spiros Zodhiates tells us, "Ekklesia was a common term for a congregation of the ekkletoi, those called out or assembled in the public affairs of a free state, the body of free citizens called together by a herald."

A Christian needs to have his allegiances wholly and solely towards Jesus Christ, His Word and His Church. There are many verses in God's word to support this. Two you might like to look up are Matthew 6:24 and Matthew 6:33.

Paul gets right to the heart of this matter when he exhorts,

"As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ."

Colossians 2:6-8 - NKJV

So your Christian friend does need help! However, simply telling him he's wrong is probably not the best approach. I suggest first of all you discover whether he's actually been saved through the rebirth. Ask your friend to tell you about his salvation. Ask him when he was saved and how it happened. Try to draw him out so he tells you his testimony of how he got saved.

If your friend hasn't got a salvation testimony to tell, or can't tell you when and how he received Jesus, he's almost certainly not saved. You'll then know what you need to pray for and minister into his life for - his salvation! The experience of salvation through Jesus is usually more than enough to propel a believer out of something like Freemasonry and into the true church of Jesus Christ!

If your friend has got a salvation testimony to tell and can tell you when and how he received Jesus then you have some even more serious praying to do. By prayer you're going to have to see to him coming to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:1-4.

Of course, you're going to want to minister the truth into his life but the work of opening his heart and mind to it has got to be done by the Holy Spirit. You will need to pray for this work in his life even more than you work at ministering the truth into his life. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)

Paul gives us a wonderful example of praying and ministering in his epistles. Paul ministered the truth in his occasional letters and he prayed continually and persevering for those he was writing to so they would be open to that truth. In most of his epistles to churches he writes of how he prays for them. We can copy his example of how to pray for people so our friends, relatives and acquaintances can come, not only to salvation, but also to the knowledge of the truth.

In his letter to the Ephesians Paul tells us he prays,

"That God may give the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him."

Ephesians 1:17 - NKJV

In his letter to the Colossians he tells us he prays,

"That you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him."

Colossians 1:9-10 - NKJV

You will need to pray for your friend as Paul prayed for his friends. While you do this, gently probe (in a conversational way) his Christian experience. Then, based on the responses you get, look to the Holy Spirit to show you how and what scriptures you can lovingly minister to him.

May the Lord bless you and lead you! You'll find great encouragement with the following scripture passage,

"Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins."

James 5:19-20 - NKJV