Gold Link and Chain Degree
LECTURE
Why do you wear that emblem?
What emblem?
That gold link and chain?
Because I have been raised to great dignity.”
Where are you from?
A land of Dura.
Where are you going?
To the camp.
What to do there?
Contend against the enemies of the living God.
How do you intend to get there?
By the benefit of a password.
Have you that password?
I have.
Will you give it to me?
I will, if you begin.
Me-ne Me-ne Te-kel U-phar-sin.
Why do you take Me-ne Me-ne Te-kel U-phar-sin for your password?
Because I have been weighted in the balances and found wanting.
Friend I perceive you to be a Knight of the Gold Link and Chain.
I am so taken and accepted as such.
How did you prepare to become a Knight of the Gold Link and Chain?
I was highly elevated, raised to great dignity, clothed in scarlet with a chain of gold around my neck.”
Have you a number?
I have.
What is your number?
One hundred and twenty and three.
Why do you take one hundred and twenty and three for your number?
Because it pleased Darius the king to sit over his kingdom one hundred and twenty princes and three presidents of whom Daniel was the first.
Jack Harris
Have you the great and grand password of the Knights of the Gold Link and Chain?
I have.
Will you give it to me?
I did not so obtain it neither will I give it but finding you to be a brother I will word it or divide it with you.
Word it and begin.
No begin you.
The-Son-of-God!
Why do you take The-Son-of-God for you great and grand password?
Because when Sha-drach, Me-shach and A-bed-ne-go were cast into the burning fiery furnace there appeared in their midst a fourth form like unto the Son of God.
ADDRESS
The emblems worn for this degree are the hour glass the balances and the gold chain, representing time, justice and sovereignty and have their interpretation in the first password of this degree namely Me-ne Me-ne Te-kel U-phar-sin. Me-ne Me-ne (I have numbered thy days and finished them). Te-kel (Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting). U-phar-sin (The kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians). The lesson we learn from this degree is one of temperance, by the mystic letters written by the fingers of a man’s hand that princely company in that magnificent hall decorated and enriched with the plunder of many a conquered nation were seized with superstitious dread. Wise men and magicians failed to interpret their meaning but when Daniel with boldness read out the writing it brought them face to face with their guilty folly, pride and sacrilege, riotousness and drunkenness. Profanity and defiance of the divine law had earned for them a swift retribution surrounded by the sacred vessels from the Temple which they had profaned they stood before the portals of judgment to hear the proclamation of their doom the awful penalty, eternal death.
Lodges Examined by the Bible by John R. Rice
All the Black Degrees
The Royal Black Institution consists of eleven degrees, as follows: –
(1) Royal Black degree – exposed and biblically examined
(2) Royal Scarlet Degree – exposed and biblically examined
(3) Royal Mark degree – exposed and biblically examined
(4) Apron and Royal Blue degree – exposed and biblically examined
(5) Royal White degree – exposed and biblically examined
(6) Royal Green degree – exposed and biblically examined
(7) Gold Crown degree – exposed and biblically examined
(8) Gold Star and Garter degree – exposed and biblically examined
(9) Crimson Arrow degreee – exposed and biblically examined
(10) Gold Link and Chain degree – exposed and biblically examined
(11) Red Cross degree – exposed and biblically examined
The Institution also possesses a final retrospective degree, which is essentially an overview of the 11 degrees that the candidate has traversed.
Red Cross Grand Charge – exposed
Other Info
Purchase direct: Inside the Royal Black Institution
Testimonies from former leading Royal Blackmen Rev. Canon Brian T. Blacoe (former Deputy Grand Chaplain of the Royal Black Institution), Malcolm McClughan (former Royal Black Lecturer) and David Carson (Chairman of the United Protestant Council).
A book for Blackmen to seriously consider by Cecil Andrew of Take Heed Ministries.
The “Protestant” Knight of Malta exposed
The solid and unrelenting opposition of GOLI to the RAP and the RBI
The history of the Royal Black Institution
The history of the Black degrees
For more information, please William Schnoebelen’s enlightening book Masonry Beyond the Light