Adelaide North Chapter
Of
FGBMFI
Fear to Freedom Darkness to Light
By Ian Norman
I would rather have my throat cut from ear to ear, my tongue plucked out by the roots, and be buried up to my neck in sand a cable length from the sea shore, where the tide rises and falls, than divulge the secrets given to me.
That has to be a very sick and gruesome oath for anyone to make and yet every man who joins the ranks of freemasonry makes that oath. I was one of those, but that comes later in my story.
As a young man I was raised in the Roman Catholic faith by my very caring mother who was a devout catholic. My father, who had spent 5 years as a prisoner of war, helped my mother raise me in the Catholic faith but as for himself said that when he died then that was all there was. At aged 18 my girlfriend (now my wife ) told me that her parents would never accept me because I was a catholic, this shocked and hurt me, when I pressured her for an answer she eventually told me that her father was a freemason and that "Catholics didn't win too much favour with them" due to there inability to keep secrets in the confessional. Until this point I had not even heard about freemasonry, let alone known what it was. The secrecy intrigued me and I sought to find out more as the years passed. I had no idea that there were other trials to befall me before then, or how I would see the awesome power of God take me from fear to freedom and from darkness to light.
In December 1974 my father in law aged 58 died, we had become good friends and the loss had a great impact on my life. At that point in our lives we didn't even know a church minister to conduct the funeral service and so we had to rely on the funeral directors and a stranger. I was troubled by the fear of death I even imagined my father in-law at the foot of the bed saying it was my turn to die next and although I started going to a catholic church I did not find any comfort. My health seemed to be a constant source of concern to me and by now I was a very regular visitor to the doctors. I started to experience strange feelings and when ever the pressure of work increased so my anxieties increased. I had almost every sort of medical test imaginable and was suspected of having various types of problems including thyroid malfunction. It might sound a crazy state of affairs but the less things doctors and specialist found wrong with me the more my health seemed to suffer. Fear had become a very real part of my life.
Satan doesn't give up when it comes to trying to lead us astray. Gods word says "he" (Satan) prowls like a roaring lion seeking who he might destroy.
By now I was starting to find problems going to work, I would start to drive to work and only get a couple of kilometres when I would experience a frightening strange experience of `unwell ness' and have to turn the car around and go back home, a very scared person. These turns would start to become more common and lead to a very difficult time in my marriage due to my shortness of patience. Around about this time we had started going to the Anglican church as our eldest two daughters were attending a children's church there on Fridays. Going to church was a bit of a help but still things seemed to be going down hill fast and the doctors waiting room was now becoming like a second home.
After many more specialist I asked my doctor if I should seek some special help such as a second psychiatrist only this time with hypnosis. He recommended a friend of his who was a Christian and well respected in the psychiatric field. I saw this doctor and immediately gave in to the fears I had been trying so hard to hide and run away from. He said that I could not go to work for a few days and would have to see him every few days whilst also taking massive doses of a drug to calm me down. I had really crashed this time for sure. I was a chronic agoraphobic. ( an explanation of agoraphobia crowds panic attacks heights noise etc).
I could no longer drive the car I was so scared I wouldn't even go across the road outside my own house, I would even leave the psychiatrist rooms and by the time Sandra had driven me almost the 10 minutes journey home I would demand that she stop at the telephone box on the corner to telephone the psychiatrist as I thought I was having a heart attack. I tell you I was running scared.
The few days off of work grew into a week, then 2 then 3 I was constantly phoning work asking for more time, but each call was getting harder, and then my job started to be in jeopardy. I had made some surface progress and pleaded with the psychiatrist to let me return to work, he agreed. How was I to get there, well I was driving again but not on my own for far, shops were a nightmare and there was no way you would get me on a bus as I had already been avoiding them and would do so for almost 10 years!.
No I would get a workmate to pick me up after all that was the safest thing to do. No worries thought I , then Monday morning came, Peter my colleague was at least 10 minutes early, how could he !! didn't he know I had to psyche myself up. Fear cut through me like a knife, it was no good I just couldn't go out that door. I pleaded with my wife please let me stay home, "perhaps I am not ready after all I'll go tomorrow" I pleaded. By know tears were in my eyes and I was petrified. Sandra showed enough courage for both of us, tough love, with toast for breakfast in my hand and ignoring my pleas and tears she physically pushed me through that open door, waved good by and closed it, what a lady, I thanked God for blessing me with her (see update)
That was some ride to work let me tell you, I tried to look normal as I attempted to eat my toast while my stomach felt like it was in my throat, its not any easy thing to do. It was 12 months of getting rides to and from work whilst visiting the psychiatrist on a regular basis. By now I was at a level where he said that he could do nothing more for me and he would refer me back to my GP for further assessment.
I started to have more involvement with the church and had bought my first bible. I started to read all sorts of books about the holy spirit and even began to think maybe some of this stuff was true ?, after all you never know do you !!. I started to think I must be on to something when I overheard the vicar talking with a cupped hand to a friend about this weird lady in the church who did her house work while talking to God in a strange language. By now I had found out about the Anglican charismatic movement who held healing services once a month in the cathedral of all places. A friend took us along to a meeting and soon we were regular attendees. I saw a man in a wheel chair prayed for and he removed his own glasses for the first time in 12 months maybe there was hope for me yet. After each service we would go for a walk in Rundle Mall it wasn't easy yet I knew God must be doing something as it was progress. It wasn't the kind of miracle healing I had hoped for but then I didn't understand just how wise God was. The scriptures say " seek and yea shall find ask and it will be given unto you" the more I sought the more I found out about God I was even filed with the Holy Spirit and prayed in tongues. What I hadn't realised was that Satan was just waiting for the opportunity to keep me from being effective for God and that trap wasn't too far off.
It was now 1981, I had seen the psychiatrist again and spent almost a year under another doctor whose speciality was hypnosis and relaxation techniques but they couldn't cure me and said so. They were able to suggest that there might be a slight chemical imbalance in the brain and with some specific medication, brought about a marked improvement in my physical well being and yet, the fear lingered on. The scriptures tell us to seek wise council and not to lean unto our own understanding, I should have paid more attention to these words of wisdom. The flesh or brain is not wise council, as Joyce Meyer the evangelist said "if the flesh was so good we wouldn't have to keep putting deodorant on it to keep it smelling sweet" ??. The somewhat dormant desire to know the secrets of freemasonry once again became rekindled . I thought that I could achieve MY success in the world by being part of the RIGHT club never realising that I was putting a wall between myself and God.
It wasn't hard for me to find someone who was willing to nominate me for membership of the Masonic organization after all there were two who were members of my own church !. A meeting was arranged at my house and after an interview the forms were completed with all the referees provided. Checking of my standing in the community etc. was made and a secret ballot held. I was accepted having not been given the black ball in the ballot and so I was summoned to attend Epworth lodge No159 to be initiated into freemasonry in the first degree as an apprentice mason. That night I was lead blindfolded and suitably attired into a lodge room for the first time by a complete stranger, where I was to make that blood curdling oath.
God had began my healing with medicine but I was not wise enough to seek his counsel, I used my improved health to go my own way thinking that I was walking with him while all the time Satan was deceiving me with the subtlest of lies. God's word says that "he" (Satan ) is the father of all lies and the truth is not in him, and I fell for his lies in a big way.
Ian Norman
I continued for the next five years to be an active freemason becoming a master mason and destined for the top. I was happy with the explanation that it was not a secret society but a society with secrets. How could the organization be wrong after all we had several church ministers in high ranking positions and one of the Anglican churches most senior clergy had been the Grand Master of the Grand lodge of South Australia. We were also able to boast of world renowned members like Prince Philip, Sir Winston Churchill, King George iv, most past American presidents and even Brigham Young co-founder of the Mormons and many, many, more famous people, I can assure you that when Satan is onto a winner he sticks to it. So there I was on the path of bondage that would keep me from growing in Christ and all the while thinking that I was doing the right thing. God's word say's that "he is faithful and true" I thank God for his faithfulness to me and my family. At this time I was still in bondage to sickness and would not at anytime leave home without a bottle containing some tranquillisers in my pocket just in case, and if I did forget them then I would go right back home immediately and get them.
At the end of 1985 Sandra and I felt that God was calling us to leave the Anglican church where I had held the position of priests warden and lay minister. We didn't know where God wanted us to go to but began to search. At the beginning of 1986 some very dear friends invited us to an evening service at T.T.G. Baptist church, we knew almost immediately that this was where God was calling us and prayed for confirmation. We visited the church again and then invited the pastor to visit us, it almost came to an end before it began. The pastor was very nice and helpful and we were in agreement about everything until at the end of his visit I said "by the way I am an active freemason that's not a problem is it?" well the way he almost fell off of his seat and choked on his biscuit I sort of got the message that it just might be. He was very gracious and said that it was a matter that we would have to discuss very soon .
We left the Anglican church and started to attend T.T.G.Baptist. Things began to happen very quickly, firstly our eldest daughter made a commitment while on the church youth camp, this really confused my theology when she telephoned home in tears to tell me that she was a Christian, you see I thought that she already was having been baptised as a baby, I asked her if there was someone there not crying that I could talk to??. Well I came to accept her commitment but then she wanted to get baptised which I told her was quite out of the question as she had been "done" as a child. She went behind my back so to speak and began regularly praying with her mentor for God to change my mind. A couple of months passed and then one evening I asked a friend of hers what he thought of her desire to be baptised ? he said that it was really a believers baptism those words struck home and so I agreed to her request. God was now working flat out in our lives because I felt called to say that if baptism was right for her then it was right for me which pleased Sandra who was waiting for the chance to be baptised. I was still fighting a running battle with the pastor and others over the rights and wrongs of freemasonry. On the 22nd June 1986 my family and I were all baptised together, I even invited some friends from the lodge to attend which they did.
In September I was made Junior Deacon of the lodge, I still could not see the truth that was staring me in the face. Later that month we had 3 visiting pastors at the church who were from the Uniting church, one was a lady and one of the males was a very close friend of our friends, after the evening service we were invited back to our friends for supper along with the three visitors. During the evening discussion the subject turned to healing, I don't know why but I spoke of my problems and the bottle of pills, one of the visitors responded when I said that I had not been able to go anywhere without my bottle of pills. He said that I could be healed right there if I wanted, I said that I did want to when he then asked again did I want to be healed ? I said yes with conviction in my heart. I knelt on the floor and they began to pray and lay hands on me, for the first time in my life I was rested in the spirit, it was a beautiful feeling. When I was able to get up from the floor I took the bottle of pills from my pocket and gave them to my friends who put them up on the cupboard as a trophy.
That night I had a dream, I was walking between the stands of a football stadium filled with hundreds of people, they were on my left and right all trying to reach out and touch me but they were fenced in with barbed wire. God was saying to me that I was healed and they could not touch me no matter how hard they tried. I telephoned the visiting pastors with the good news and they confirmed my interpretation of the dream. On the 26th September I went to my doctors and I quote from his notes " Involved in healing ministry in T.T.G Baptist church and has been prayed over". Praise be to God. The next entry in the doctors record is dated 25th February 1987 "coping quite well" The next entry was September 1987 for the renewal of my bus drivers license. This was a real miracle for someone who visited the doctor on a weekly basis or more.
During an evening church service in October 1986 God spoke to me very powerfully through a vision. He showed me packing up all of my Masonic regalia in its entirety and returning it to the lodge. After the service I spoke to the pastor and we went into a back room where I broke down in tears and renounced and repented of my association with Freemasonry. The next day I telephoned the lodge secretary and told him that I was resigning from the lodge as it had been revealed to me by God that it was not acceptable or compatible with my faith. I then wrote a letter which unequivocally renounced my membership and any rights pertaining to it which I hand delivered with all my Masonic possessions.
One of the many problems with freemasonry is its very desire to see men living in harmony, to achieve this its rules state that the discussion of religion or politics is forbidden within the confines of a lodge, now this may sound a good principle but what it really means is that all religions are embraced as equal including Hindu etc. and more importantly for the Christian the act of leaving Jesus at the door. In the bible Jesus says that "whoever acknowledges me before men I will also acknowledge him before my father in heaven but whoever disowns me before men I also will disown him before my father in heaven". I had made some very close friends in freemasonry and found it very hard to walk away and not look back, for two weeks I couldn't discuss the subject without coming close to tears. The scriptures say that "he who puts his hand to the plough but looks back is not worthy for the kingdom of heaven".
When we go through a time of testing and growth we should realise that Satan does not just sit back and say oh well I lost that one, far from it, in July 1996 I received a telephone call from a leader of the lodge inviting me to their 50th anniversary meeting, I said how could that be possible as it was ten years! since my resignation and I had renounced all association etc.. I went to see this person with the intention of confronting him with the truth he didn't want to know the truth then anymore than he had ten years before, but he did disclose the fact that despite my very explicit written resignation they had chosen not to cross my name from their books but put me in a special group so that I could go back if I should ever desire to do so!! NO Satan doesn't give up when it comes to trying to lead us astray. Gods word says "he" (Satan) prowls like a roaring lion seeking who he might destroy.
From that time on I have sought to walk only with Gods guidance in my life. God is faithful and true if we will only listen to his voice and not lean unto our own understanding. Jesus said "I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the Father except through me".
UPDATE ---- DEATH STRIKES
Ian became Vice President of Adelaide North Chapter FGBMFI and also an Elder and administrator of Festival City Community church @ Salisbury South, Adelaide. Ian and Sandra had been married 32 years and had 3 children, 2 son-in-laws and 4 grandchildren.
After an enjoyable holiday in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia in 1999 (where even in the outback Ian was able to minister to a young man struggling with his faith and as well was being pressured by family to join the Freemasons. This young man was able to rebuild his faith and grow with his family while turning his back on Freemasonry; Praise God). When Sandra went to her doctors to seek help with a balance problem. The diagnosis was not good, Sandra was told she had a brain tumour of substantial proportions.
During the next 12 months Sandra and Ian supported very much by family and friends endured with Sandra the agonies of hospitalisation and various treatments including chemotherapy and radiotherapy. After getting over the initial shock of the news Sandra grew stronger in her faith and as well as one on one witnessing Sandra also spoke at different meetings to encourage others. In March 2000 Ian and Sandra enjoyed a 20 day holiday touring New Zealand by coach. As the year progressed the treatment grew harder to take. in September after completing her final chemotherapy injection, Sandra contracted pneumonia. Within 3 days Sandra slipped quickly into eternal rest and went to be with her Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (34 years and 1 week after their wedding). Sandra's funeral was a celebration of faith and was attended by some 300 people.
LIFE AFTER BEREAVEMENT
Ian spent some time after Sandra's death wondering what it was all about, he never blamed God for taking her but none the less was somewhat confused. Ian continued in his role as an Elder of Festival City Community Church. On August the 4th 2001 Ian went out to dinner with a lady he had meet via the internet. Her name was Christine Woodhouse, a divorcee with 2 grown children and 3 grandchildren. On the way out to their first dinner together it came to light that Christine had a brother who was a Baptist Pastor and surprise surprise Ian had been in the same bible college class as Terry in 1986 and now had an occasional game of golf together (what a small world). Ian and Christine became so attracted to each other that a day didn't go by that they either meet or spoke on the telephone. On October 18th 2001 they became engaged and on January the 12th 2002 they were married by 2 pastors one of whom was brother Terry. It was a very exciting and emotional time for the couple and for their families and friends.
The family has grown by 1 more grandchild to Ian's youngest daughter just before Ian and Christine dated. Ian and Christine both attend Festival City Community church, where Ian is still and elder. The church is in a process of merger and will become Playford Baptist from July 1st 2003 and Ian will still remain and elder. Ian and Christine are enjoying their new life as a married couple as well as their 5 children and 8 grandchildren.
For those who are going through struggles in their life let me say that it isn't always easy and sometimes we experience events that leave us very confused as to what God's plan is (or even if he has one!). All I can say to encourage you is that God is always faithful and as a poet once wrote; we only see the back of the tapestry in work yet God the weaver can see the beauty of the finished cloth he works so hard to make. Ian can be contacted through this site anytime.
Ian Norman
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