Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 and Freemasonry's Master Mason Degree

Rev Wayne

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The other comments about judgment and condemnation remain in force.
With the difference, of course, that in regard to the passage which was at hand, judgment apparently is considered by the NIV to be the preferred reading--since they had apparently had it to begin with, changed it, and had no qualms about going back to it in their efforts to follow the best texts.
 
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O.F.F.

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Wayne said:
I am willing to concede divine revelation, by whatever means that may be explained, as the means by which other religions came by SOME truths; more specifically, the one in question and/or any others which are essentially the same but seem to predate our own.

It's about time; for you rarely concede to any arguments that refute your claims. So I commend you; even though you should have know this from your seminary-training regarding General Revelation I spoke of earlier; which is the "divine revelation" you are referring to above.

Wayne said:
You seem to be suggesting that a truth of God found in the Bible becomes a contextual issue when found somewhere else, and can be dismissed and declared as false merely for its appearing in the texts of another sacred book.

Earlier you said, and I agreed:

Wayne said:
You know as well as I do, divine inspiration and divine truth are not synonymous.

Yet you seem to be suggesting that a 'truth of God,' 'divine truth' and 'divine revelation' ARE all synonymous; but they aren't. Both divine truth and divine revelation come from God, hence they are both truths of God. However, as explained earlier, divine revelation comes in two forms: General Revelation and Special (Specific) Revelation.

Special Revelation and Divine Truth ARE synonymous, because they are strictly referring to Divine Inspiration. Therefore, you really need to stop referring to any written material found in other religions as divine truth, because you know as well as I do, it's NOT inspired.

By the same token, if you do not consider the writings of false religions to be sacred to you, then you ought to stop calling them "sacred." But after posting that nonsense about comparative religions in order to make the claim that there is no such thing as a 'false religion' then maybe you do believe the writings of other religions are sacred. Anyway, I digress; so let me continue.

The 'principle' of the Ethic of Reciprocity (or Golden Rule) appears in pre-Christian & post-Christian texts of other religions as a result of General Revelation period; and NOT as a result of Special or Specific Revelation. Therefore, it is still a "truth of God" but again, IT IS NOT DIVINE TRUTH, it's Divine Revelation instilled by God in the human conscience.

Now regarding the matter of the quote from Mishkat-el-Masabih, you said:

Wayne said:
In order to place it before you in the manner intended--that being, not quoted from any Bible version nor from the sacred writings of any other religion--what was posted was extemporaneous, as already noted.

First of all, this is the FIRST time you ever stated that you quoted this "extemporaneously." Secondly, while as a Masonic pastor I can believe you probably do quite a bit of study comparing religions. However, I find it incredibly unbelievable that anyone studying comparative religions can suddenly, at the spur-of-the-moment, coincidently quote in writing WORD-FOR-WORD a direct passage from Mishkat-el-Masabih. Either you are one astonishing student of comparative religions, a liar or you were possessed by an Islamic demon at the time you did it. There is no other way you could have done such a thing from the top of your head.

Wayne said:
And in case you hadn't noticed, when I HAVE cited or made reference during this discussion, it has been to the EGYPTIAN version of it, primarily because, PREDATING the Judaeo-Christian context of it in our Bible, no counter-claim can be made that the source could be considered derivative.

Oh really Masonic pastor? Would you care to share with us the EGYPTIAN source from which you "extemporaneously" quoted from? Because when I google "EGYPTIAN version(s) of the golden rule" I find no more than the following from several sources, but I will only cite two; neither of which are the EXACT words you quoted, which were the EXACT words found in Mishkat-el-Masabih. So how do you explain that?

Ancient Egyptian

“Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do.”
The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, 109 – 110 Translated by R.B. Parkinson. The original dates to 1970 to 1640 BCE and may be the earliest version ever written.

Humanity Healing Network

Ancient Egypt

An early example of the Golden Rule that reflects the Ancient Egyptian concept of Maat appears in the story of The Eloquent Peasant which is dated to the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040–1650 BCE): "Now this is the command: Do to the doer to cause that he do."[sup]7[/sup] An example from a Late Period (c. 664 BC – 323 BCE) papyrus: "That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another." [sup]10[/sup]

[sup]7[/sup]"The Culture of Ancient Egypt", John Albert Wilson, p. 121, University of Chicago Press, 1956, ISBN 0-226-90152-1

[sup]10[/sup]"A Late Period Hieratic Wisdom Text: P. Brooklyn 47.218.135", Richard Jasnow, p. 95, University of Chicago Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0-918986-85-6

The Golden Rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But I am not finished with you yet:

Wayne said:
For the record, I never heard of any Mishkat ..., and as I pointed out, it is not germane to this discussion anyway, not being a VSL in any Lodge, nor appearing on any list of accepted VSL's in any lodge anywhere that you could name.

Nor does any Egyptian VSL appear in any lodge I am aware of either; yet you somehow believe it is germane to this discussion. :doh: Moreover, you just affirmed my suspicion that you are either lying or were demon possessed when you quoted it. If you really "never heard of any Mishkat" then how could you mysteriously quote it verbatim (at least the first part of it) at the spur-of-the-moment, extemporaneously?

Wayne said:
I also find it to be irrelevant, since it's pure coincidence.

You really want us to believe you were able to recite, in writing, 12 words precisely as they appear in a book you NEVER heard of? UnbelievaBULL!!! What you "extemporaneously" wrote was "Do unto all men as you would they should do unto you." People in the US today don't even talk like that. Heck, it sounds like Yoda from Star Wars. But you somehow quoted Mishkat-el-Masabih WORD FOR WORD by accident. :confused: Yeah right... Try selling that to a 9 year old kid because, that's the only age group that just might be willing to buy that crap!

Wayne said:
Where'd you find that thing anyway?

It was easy Masonic pastor; like I said at the time, I had enough spiritual discernment to notice it wasn't a direct quote from the Bible, so I knew right then you were trying to deceive me. I simply copied and pasted it—in quotation marks—into google so that I could find the EXACT phrase. And when I did, I found that most of the sources listed it from Mishkat-el-Masabih.

Wayne said:
With all those variations, one can only wonder how many hit-and-miss efforts you had to make before you got the "right" one...

No what's most interesting is, with all those variations, one can only wonder how on earth YOU could come up with the precise phrase "extemporaneously" from one of them, from a source YOU NEVER heard of!!!

lol.gif


Skip was right; we should not give much credence to your arguments. You have shown yourself to be "unserious in both analysis and commentary." And, after this last reply from you, we must add dishonesty to this list; although we know this isn't the first time you've shown that one.

Nevertheless, since you are a dad, I bid you Happy Father's Day!
 
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Rev Wayne

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Would you care to share with us the EGYPTIAN source from which you "extemporaneously" quoted from?

I haven't quoted from ANY Egyptian source "extemporaneously," and from only one otherwise, but that was several pages ago. Nor have I quoted from the Islamic source you keep yammering about. All you're doing is another one of your ad hominem games of trying to spin SOMETHING, ANYTHING, because you have no REAL arguments to present. And you guys have been doing it since you arrived on this thread. First Alex, posting bizarre and meaningless lists like this one, and without any explanation why:

Kamatu
Cemab4y
Praisehymm
Dark Night
Glockenspeil
christainmason Jim
ghendricks63

Next it was you, interjecting "divine inspiration" into it and accusing me of trying to assert it, when the fact is, I had not even ONCE even MENTIONED the term.

When that went nowhere, it was Alex again, this time bringing in totally unrelated discussions from other threads, attempting a spin job similar to all the ones you have engaged in from the start on this thread.

The see-saw then went back to you, more yammering about the "divine inspiration" thing that YOU introduced and tried to attribute to me.

Back to Alex, who tried to spin the Egyptian angle he had introduced and then de-contexted, into an accusation of "looking to Egyptian text for truth," a moronic comment that had nothing to do with anything I had stated to that point, having reference only to things he had tried to distort.

Back to you, and THIS time, was the first one where you finally abandoned trying to attribute the "divine inspiration" thing to me, because this time you found a false angle you thought you could tweak, to create an even greater facade than the one you had been busily constructing since your arrival.

As anyone can see, it's been nothing but spin-spin-spin from BOTH of you. And interspersed in the middle of it all, were attempts by Skippy to create even more ad hominem false accusations, only his I mostly ignored, having my hands full at the time with the "I'm-going-to-derail-the-thread-with-ad-hominem-attacks-because-I-have-nothing-of-any-substance-to-add" twins.

I think it's probably eminently clear to everyone here, that you guys have nothing of any import to add, and are deliberately taking threads off-topic while trying to create imaginary accusations. For a while it was a tag-team effort, but that has mostly turned into the usual Mike-isms, as the other evil twin has kinda vanished. But nothing has changed, the ad hominem false accusations continue.

You really want us to believe you were able to recite 12 words precisely as they appear in a book you NEVER heard of?

No. That's what YOU wish readers to believe. I stated what I stated extemporaneously. I can't help what YOU happened to match it up to. Your source is not familiar to me. But your attempted character assassination most certainly is.

I had enough spiritual discernment to notice it wasn't a direct quote from the Bible

Bullpuppies. If that were true, then why did you not also have the spiritual discernment to "notice" the other three I posted which were "not direct quotes from the Bible?" Was it your "spiritual discernment's" day off when you read the others?

And the amazing thing is, anybody can do what you're doing. For instance, let's go back and take another of the ones I posted extemporaneously, and see what happens with it. From post #42:

"Always treat others as you would like them to treat you."

This was one of my extemporaneous versions of this truth. The first few pulls on this one had some very close similarities but no exact match. But, still on the first page, I came upon one with a title of "Treat others as you would like them to treat you." So naturally I investigated. There, under the title, I found what was listed as a Scripture reference:

"So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the Law and the prophets." Mt 7: 12

Problem is, I was having trouble finding a version on any Bible version website that matches it. But one thing was for sure, it was a DIRECT hit, and match that pulled up. Since I have consistently been leaving off the "therefore" or "thus" which commonly appears on this truth as it appears in context in Matthew 7, then to be consistent with that, the "so" is in like manner to be dropped. Likewise, since I have consistently dealt only with the central truth itself, and not the latter part of Matt. 7:12 that also appears with it, then again, we drop the ending, and VOILA!

This is a direct match. Of what version (or external source, if it be such), I at first did not know. I found nothing on the site to indicate a preferred version, or any statement of any version cited as their chosen version for the site, and I found nothing at biblegateway or at biblios, the two online Bible sources I most often use, to match it.

Then I came across a hit at biblestudytools.com, "The Complete Jewish Bible." Once again, here I was, matching up with a source I'd never even heard of. I had to read the accompanying material on the site that explains what it is and how it came to be. But there's no doubt, your parlor game stands exposed for the false accusation it truly is--since it is now apparent exactly how easy a game it is to play--all you need are several versions of the Golden Rule, stated extemporaneously in your own words, and a web browser.

The count now stands at two. Care to locate and do searches on the other extemporaneous versions of the statement? Might be fun--especially if we get hits again, showing even further evidence of how easy it is to match SOMETHING when you post enough English variations.

It's one you can do, too, readers. Just re-state this truth in words that still capture its meaning, enter it into your browser, and see how many you can find!

Very easy to see what's going on here. Alex came here, dead set on ad hominem derailment. You came and joined him, and a tag-team of deliberate attempts at ad hominem attacks resulted. Why this began is uncertain, but apparently it had to do with the greatly abundant number of sources I cited showing Masonry stating that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is the God affirmed in Masonry. Antimason tactics in the past have always been, try to bury such material that refutes their claims, by a flurry of sudden activity. Also, true to form, as noticed in many past instances, when Alex shows up, Mike is not far behind. But the real clincher? The rolling on the floor smiley face, that you never pull out until trying to ridicule, which is one of the surest signs of this false approach. Since the patterns fit the same patterns seen here before, and since this game is ad hominem just as always, this instance was just one more in the continuing string of them.

If you have anything genuine to post, or if you want some actual discussion, please do come on back, and let's do so. But any further continuation of this brand of sophistry from you will simply be ignored.

Readers, you have my apologies for even indulging him in his game this far, and I hope we can pursue a more profitable course from this point forward.
 
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Skip Sampson

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Why this began is uncertain, but apparently it had to do with the greatly abundant number of sources I cited showing Masonry stating that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is the God affirmed in Masonry.
You proved nothing of the sort and have run away from questions about that claim.

I'll ask you again:
Now, consider this quote from the Michigan GL website:
The person who wants to join Freemasonry must be a man (it's a fraternity), sound in body and mind, who believes in God, is at least the minimum age required by Masonry in his state, and has a good reputation.
Is it your position that whenever the Michigan GL refers to "God," it is in fact referring to Jehovah, God of the Bible? And would that be also true in the other jurisdictions you quoted?
I'd guess you are running from this because you know you are incorrect in your conclusion. I'd also like to know by what authority you speak for 'Masonry,' but we can pursue that later. But now it's time for you to back up your claim or weasel out of it.

Antimason tactics in the past have always been, try to bury such material that refutes their claims, by a flurry of sudden activity.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black... Cordially, Skip.
 
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Rev Wayne

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Now, consider this quote from the Michigan GL website:
The person who wants to join Freemasonry must be a man (it's a fraternity), sound in body and mind, who believes in God, is at least the minimum age required by Masonry in his state, and has a good reputation.

How could I be "making claims" about things that were not even part of what I posted?

And how does one "run" from something that makes no point? You probably were doing your usual, and trying to interject something at a moment when a heavy exchange is taking place in point-by-point fashion. Usually if I'm in the middle of a conversation with another adult, I tend not to notice that there's a kid tugging at my shirt trying to tell me about the frog he thinks he caught. Naturally the kid should not be ignored, but his parents ought to teach him better manners.

You proved nothing of the sort

I DID post a whole slew of materials, monitorial at that, ALL of which declared Johovah, the God of the Bible, in speaking of Masonic matters concerning "God." Next time you might try actually reading them, don't know how you missed it. The fact is, they were ALL chosen for one specific feature of them: they all were Masonic monitorial comments that contained the name Jehovah in a context speaking of "God."

That you would try to deny it by citing something somewhere ELSE is not surprising. Apparently YOU were the one running--running over to the Michigan Grand Lodge website to find something to cite WITHOUT the name Jehovah in it, so you could come back and substitute it for something I actually cited, and say "See there?"

You really ought to stick with the frogs. Maybe you can convince someone it's really not a frog. But you won't be convincing if you run grab a snail and put it in the frog's place, since the snail oviously isn't a frog anyway and they don't need convincing.

Is it your position that whenever the Michigan GL refers to "God," it is in fact referring to Jehovah, God of the Bible?

No, it's my position that whenever ANY GL refers to "Jehovah," they have made a reference to the God of the Bible. It is, after all, the pronunciation of the four-letter Hebrew name for God as given to Moses; and is also, as far as I am aware, the singular use of the word. For instance, the American Heritage Dictionary has only this brief definition listed:

God, especially in Christian translations of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Not surprised you would try to obfuscate even that simple point, though.
 
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O.F.F.

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You proved nothing of the sort and have run away from questions about that claim.

I'll ask you again:

I'd guess you are running from this because you know you are incorrect in your conclusion. I'd also like to know by what authority you speak for 'Masonry,' but we can pursue that later. But now it's time for you to back up your claim or weasel out of it.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black... Cordially, Skip.

Great challenge Skip, and I am willing to cease call him out on his latest series of posts trying to suggest that divine truth is contained in the writings of false religions, and that false gods, and false religions don't even exist.

He's now
whine.gif
like a big baby, because he knows everything he's been confronted with proves his heresy. He is so "Masonic" in his thinking now, yet has the nerve to wonder why me or anyone else would refer to him as a Masonic pastor.

Wayne, I am going to let Skip deal with for awhile; assuming you will answer his latest post. So you can stop the whining
Smiley-Crying.gif
. At least until you express heresy, which I will continue to point out, every time you do!
 
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O.F.F.

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The time stamp on these posts are not accurate to my time zone, which is the same as Wayne's. According our time zone, his last post was stamped at 8:55 am on today, Sunday, June 19th.

It goes to show you that only a Masonic pastor would make it a priority and obsession to come here and defend Freemasonry; instead of going to Church or doing something relative to Christian ministry on a Sunday, like a Christian pastor would.
 
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Rev Wayne

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The time stamp on these posts are not accurate to my time zone, which is the same as Wayne's. According our time zone, his last post was stamped at 8:55 am on today, Sunday, June 19th.

It goes to show you that only a Masonic pastor would make it a priority and obsession to come here and defend Freemasonry; instead of going to Church or doing something relative to Christian ministry on a Sunday, like a Christian pastor would.

Poor Mike, always jumping on that time stamp thing every time it occurs, which is always rare. Looks like to me you would have learned better than to make this silly accusation, because on Sundays where there is nothing unusual going on, I NEVER show up posting anything. But you can be sure, when there ARE such things going on, I come here by direct INTENTION, just so you get to open mouth and insert foot again. Maybe YOU forgot this is Father's Day, but my church did not. There was a very special music and video presentation put on today, pictures old and new in a slide presentation, celebrating the fathers in the life of our church, so I got a break.

Not that I wasn't "doing something relative to Christian ministry," since I was here defending against Skip Sampson's attempts to suggest that "Jehovah" is not the God of the Bible--or WHATEVER he was trying to assert, since his confused post didn't exactly clarify anything.

And talk about "obsession!" Apparently you didn't notice that Skip was in here 2 and a half hours before I was. Musta been the first thing he did when he got up today, like everything else would just have to wait.

So it doesn't matter what time zone I'm in, it becomes clearer every day that you and Skip operate in some kind of warp zone.
 
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Skip Sampson

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Rev Wayne said:
Freemasonry clearly states that Jehovah is God, and that the name is derived from the four-letter "Tetragrammaton" given to Moses:
greatly abundant number of sources I cited showing Masonry stating that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is the God affirmed in Masonry.
No, it's my position that whenever ANY GL refers to "Jehovah," they have made a reference to the God of the Bible.
Seems to be some migration from your first quote to the last. So it's not that Freemasonry is stating that Jehovah is God, or that the God of the Bible is affirmed in Masonry, but that whenever Freemasonry uses Jehovah, it means the God of the Bible.


I guess we're indebted to Freemasonry for clearing that up. Who knew? Cordially, Skip.

P.S. - don't forget the question as to why you won't join the Scottish Rite. Sounded like you had specific reasons.
 
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Rev Wayne

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Seems to be some migration from your first quote to the last.

Don't know how you expected to show "migration" with snippets divorced from the context in which they appeared. Anybody can do smoke and mirrors in that fashion. I've seen people even try to do that with the Bible. The refutation of the tactic that someone once showed me, is a classic:

"Judas went out and hanged himself. . . . go thou and do likewise. . . . and that which thou doest, do quickly."

But if there is any "migration," it came from you. I was dealing with one context, and you began introducing something else. The one you referenced did not actually even contain the word "Jehovah" at all. What you were attempting with it appeared to me to be pretty lame.

Since you were attempting a spin job with what you introduced, and since it didn't work, it's just the same old tactic as always with you: come back from an even more obtuse angle, and try a different spin. The convoluted trail of your spins has led us through Jacob's Staircase, rectangular cubes, imaginary phone calls to Grand Lodges, Grand Secretaries who contact themselves for rulings, and imaginary contradictions of terms that do not contradict.

I think you've made it eminently clear you are not interested in anything but Skip's Fantasyland, and I doubt I'll be continuing any replies to you from this point. You, quite frankly, spend more time wasting time than anything else. Rather than continue to engage you in that fruitless endeavor, I think I'll just read your posts and smile.
 
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ALX25

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:)

At least I have an argument, unlike Alex the reneger.



Correction sir, at least you have a PINATA argument, I should serve cake and cofffe to skip and Mike...after the festive "three way wait your turn to bash his masonic argument"....

Here's an Idea : why don't you come up with something else so I can send out some invitations for the next mason pinata party....


Is next week good for you Wayne ?
 
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