Do Masons Revere Solomon as God's Son?, page 1

I am appalled at the poor scholarship in this post. Solomon built the Temple according to God's specifications. This was not Solomon's god, but God who commanded Solomon to build the temple.

Check out II Sam. 7:1-13. In that story, God commands the prophet Nathan to tell King David that his son Solomon will build the Temple. David had wanted to, but God said no, Solomon shall build it.

You cite II Chron. 8:11-13 as evidence of Solomon making blood sacrifices to *his* god. This is simply incorrect. The text (in the King James Version) reads:

11 And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her: for he said, My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the ark of the LORD hath come.
12 Then Solomon offered burnt offerings unto the LORD on the altar of the LORD, which he had built before the porch,
13 Even after a certain rate every day, offering according to the commandment of Moses, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts, three times in the year, even in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles.

All of these activities are *commanded* by God, the same God Who created the earth, etc. This was not Solomon's god; this was the same God as in the New Testament.

You are correct that the number 666 is associated with the Temple. However, since God Almighty commanded Solomon to build the Temple, this number is not the Number of the Beast. It's just how many talents of gold were used in the construction of the Temple. So far, Solomon hasn't done anything wrong. He's simply built the Temple according to God's commands to do so. If "following Solomon's path" is wrong, then it is wrong to heed the commands of God. That doesn't mesh with Scripture, of course.

Now this whole issue of blood sacrifices is pure ignorance. Christianity's basis is a "blood sacrifice". Jesus had to give his life, Christians claim, in order to atone for the sins of the world. This was Jesus being the blood sacrifice, shedding his blood to spare the world from judgement. The claim made by Christians is that a blood sacrifice is needed when someone has sinned - and that everyone has sinned. Since there is no longer a Temple in which to perform the require sacrifices, Jesus was the sacrifice. Unless you accept Jesus, you're toast, because you can't atone for your sins without shedding blood.

This isn't quite accurate, however. True, the sin offering was customarily a calf. But if you couldn't afford to offer a calf, you could substitute two turtledoves, whatever those are. If you were too poor for that, you could substitute a meal offering. No blood was required, if you were too poor to offer an animal.

However, Christians still insist that a blood sacrifice was required. This is why they talk about the "precious blood of Jesus", how his blood washed away the sins of the world (for those who accept Jesus, of course).

To claim that Solomon was offering blood sacrifices contrary to God's will is simply not supported in Scripture. Blood sacrifices were required, but God - the same God Who created the world, caused the Flood, parted the Reed Sea, and performed all the other miracles in the Bible.

You quoted from I Chron. 22:9-10, which is GOD speaking to David. You kind of skipped the part that explains this. Let me help (this is David talking):

8 But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight.

See, God (that's the LORD, in case you missed it) didn't want His house to be built by David, because David had killed a lot of people. God isn't into killing people, despite what some folks claim. "Solomon" in Hebrew means "peaceful" - related to the word, "shalom".

So, building the Temple and conducting blood sacrifices in the Temple were not only permitted, they were direct commands from God Himself. Solomon did nothing wrong there.

Solomon did go astray later on, however. He strayed from the faith, allegedly because of his many wives from other cultures. Among others, he married Pharaoh's daughter. Her religion would have been based on the Egyptian pantheon, which was forbidden. Whatever the reason, Solomon began to worship other gods. But that was *after* the Temple was build.

The reason the Masons make a big deal about Solomon and the Temple, is that the Masons use a lot of symbolism about "building the Temple" in their beliefs. The "Temple" they build is not now a physical structure, but a spiritual one. Whether you like their ideas or not, they are firmly based on Scripture, at least insofar as the Temple itself goes.

As for "secret societies", you're wrong about that, too - unless you admit that you yourself follow the anti-Christ. Christianity was a secret society in its early days, when Christians were getting fed to lions and enduring other unpleasantness. Those who are participating in secret societies are often only trying to avoid being slaughtered or burned alive. In fact, the Masons were a secret society exactly because the Christians were inclined to burn them for heresy. If it's OK for Christians to form a secret society, then it's OK for the Masons to do it for the same reasons. It's got nothing to do with any mark of the beast. It has to do with a very human desire for self-preservation. Christians and Masons alike generally try to avoid martyrdom. It's not a sin.

So really, the Masons aren't any more secretive or sinister than the Christians. I am not aware of any atrocities committed by the Freemasons. I am certainly aware of atrocities committed by the Christians, from early times on through the 20th Century. Personally, I find Christians a whole lot scarier than Masons.