Question:
What is your stand regarding secret fraternal organizations? Please give reasons both from a spiritual and worldly standpoint.
Answer:
From a worldly viewpoint wholly, there may be benefit in some of the secret organizations, but from the true Christian standpoint, there can be none, for the reason that in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to 1 Corinthians 12, are found all the gifts and blessings that are necessary for His children. As expressed in the last verses of Ephesians 1, that church is “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” Why should Christians turn from God’s great reservoir, which He has placed on this earth and which is connected with the great Living Fountain, to the corrupted pools of this world?
Secondly, Jesus said, “I spake openly to the world; … and in secret have I said nothing.” John 18:20. He had no blessing, truth, or secrets, but what He was willing that the whole world should share and benefit from. He told His disciples to tell in the light and from the house tops the things they had learned in private. Matt. 10:27. They were not held for money or compensation of any kind. The mysteries of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ were always to those who would submit themselves to Him. Not so with the fraternal organizations; they endeavor to hold the very best things they may possess, many of which are utterly worthless even to the members alone.
Thirdly, the warning to the church of Christ is, “As we have opportunity, let us work that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith.” Gal. 6:10. Fraternal organizations carry out that in part; they have regard for their household, but wherever tests come, all those without must suffer. Then, too, there are the oaths, the extrajudicial oaths, and vows that men are called to take upon themselves regarding that which they know nothing about but which are, in many cases, to be revealed afterward. That is utterly out of harmony with the Gospel. From a worldly standpoint, it is questionable indeed, honeycombed as society now is with fraternal organizations, whether there is as much benefit in a fraternal organization as there is in carefully saved and properly invested money.
Fourthly, that there are sincere believers in Christ who are Freemasons and members of secret orders we would not for a moment deny; but it seems that they have an erroneous idea of true benevolence as exercised in these secret orders, and they also have a shallow conception of the breadth, scope, work, and spirit which ought to be in and actuate the church of Christ. Turning from the church of Christ, from true union with Christ to any lodge or organization, is like turning from the mountain’s cool, flowing, life-giving waters to the brackish waters stored in the broken cisterns of men.
