Dear reader, did you know that religion is responsible for more deaths than all the wars throughout history? Most religions claim that they are the way to God. My question is, the way to what God?

Dear reader, we never find where Mohammed claimed to be God. Muslims see him as the last and most perfect prophet. The Muslims believe that the prophet Mohammed was a messenger of God, which would place him following the line of Adam, Abraham, Moses, and, yes, Jesus.

Buddha was not God, but a mere mortal man like Mohammed, and both Mohammed and Buddha were known to be great thinkers. Like Plato, they sought something new that was not shared by others. Both men claimed to have had visions that helped found their religions.

Let’s look closely at Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon Church. In the Journal of Discourses Volume 2, page 40, the statement is made that God was once a mortal man. Joseph Smith taught that Lucifer and Jesus were spirit brothers who approached God with their plans of salvation and that there were many gods present, which he called the Council of Gods. Lucifer wanted to make the people worship God, but Jesus planned to show the people how to worship God.

Lucifer’s plan was rejected, and Jesus’ plan was accepted. He also taught that Lucifer became Satan when he rebelled and was cast out of heaven with a third of the spirits. The Book of Mormon teaches that God was once man, and as God is, one day, man can become like him, having spirit children with a planet of their own, teaching that the spirits were the spirit children born to God the Father and his wives.

(Doctrines of Salvation Volume 1, J.F. Smith page 61). (Articles of Faith by James Talmage, page 430) (Journal of Discourses-Volume 1, page 345 and Volume 2, page 210) teaches that Jesus had many wives, possibly the two sisters of Lazarus and Mary Magdalene.

Joseph Smith taught that there is only one God and that he is unchanging, so the Mormon Church has shifted in its beliefs since Joseph Smith. A search of the life of Joseph Smith reveals that his family was deeply involved in the occult, and in 1826, he was arrested for the occult practice called Glass looking.

Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were both Masons, which helps us understand why Masonic symbols are on the walls of Mormon temples. Joseph Smith jumped from a 1st degree Mason to a sublime-degree Mason in one day. He was later martyred and found carrying Jupiter's occult talisman.

(A Comprehensive History of the Church by B.H. Roberts Volume 1, pages 26 & 27)
(History of the Church by Joseph Smith Volume 4, 551 & 552)

Joseph Smith's engagement in occult practices is not questionable; it is a documented fact. In the early years of the history of the United States, it was widespread for state and local governments to make things illegal in secular law that God condemned in Scripture.

In the early 1800s, Joseph Smith was charged in a civil court in New York with engaging in the occult practice called "glass-looking," which was another way of saying that someone employed a device like a peep stone or a seer stone. Historical court documents testify that Joseph Smith was convicted of this offense and paid a fine. Joseph Smith's father also testified that his son engaged in fortune-telling.

In the fall of 1838, during the Missouri Persecutions, Joseph Smith’s father became ill and, despite that illness, managed to complete the forced exodus from Missouri to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he died on the 14th of September 1840, as a martyr for the cause. Joseph Smith, like his father for whom he was named, would also die as a martyr at the age of 38 on June 27th, 1844, when he was assassinated in the Carthage Jail in Carthage, Illinois, by an angry mob.

The Shriners had helped my dad as a young boy when he was poorly burnt in a field sage fire, and this touched my dad's heart to get involved with the Masons. My father became a mason at a young age and is buried with their emblems on his headstone. Near the end of his life, I ordered him a book by David W. Daniels entitled “Should a Christian be a Mason?”

The book was advertised through gospel tracts called Chic Publications or Chic Tracts, which are cartoons. Sometime later, my dad approached me and said the book's author knew what he was discussing. Before, my dad said that only a mason knew what happened in their lodges.

The book speaks of freemasonry with its secret handshakes and rituals, asking to be brought to the light (Satan) through its pagan worship, which is also a mixture of these false religions. Their pagan god can be seen in their symbols, and they mask themselves in their religion as Shriners by reaching out through their hospitals to help crippled children who need extensive care. However, they are still involved in their pagan worship and secret handshakes.

Let the facts speak loudly. Albert Pike, a leading mason, was chosen to become the top Mason in America as Sovereign Grand Commander of Scottish Rite Freemasonry and rewrote the 33-degree rituals still used today. He authored Morals and Dogma, the authoritative book published by the Masonic Lodge, which the Lodge’s leaders often quoted.

In Morals and Dogma, the satanic nature of the Lodge is meticulously laid out. Albert Pike asserts that the Lodge’s rituals are based strictly on Judaism’s occultic Kabbalah. He urges Masons to “seek after light” and touts Lucifer as the Angel of Light to be followed and obeyed by Freemasons everywhere.

This article was not written to profile any one religion or to bring discomfort and shame to anyone involved in Freemasonry, for I have friends who still believe in its practices. I have been told that those in the lower ranks do not know what those in the higher ranks know, and it is a fact that they teach their members to live moral lives before their family, church, and community.

Religion is man reaching to some God that must be appeased to gain their favor. Still, Christianity is not a religion but an ongoing personal relationship with God, who reaches hands of mercy to fallen man. Christianity is the only religion that makes provision for a murderer to be forgiven, removing the stain of guilt from their heart and a way for fallen men to be redeemed.

When I minister in other countries, I do not criticize their beliefs, gods, or leaders. I realize that God allowed them to be born for a purpose, and if I look at them in any way other than the way God sees them, then I may have been the very one he would use to help them discover their purpose. I do not go into their countries to tear down or look down on them but use the open door of opportunity to lift my God up, and he said if he is lifted up, he will draw all men unto him.