Christendom Deluded

Daily Devotional for June 16, 2025

Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in My Name, claiming I am the Christ, and will deceive many. (Matthew 24:4,5 NIV)

A word about the religious, for the same thing holds good here adapted by the Deceiver to the realm in which he is working, the type of people with whom he is dealing, the religious. Yes, religiously deceived, to put it in another way, deceived by their very religiousness, and that is a strong and a mighty delusion. There is power in that delusion that seems so often to defy every kind of attempt to deal with it. Deceived by religiousness. What more can be expected than the recognition of the fact of God and the giving to God of reverence, acknowledgment, and recognition: of taking active interest in things which relate to God, attending religious services, and being very busy in religious activities and interests, and finding your chief interest in religious things and the religious realm? What more can be expected? What is the matter with that?

Be patient, bear with me if I say with very great emphasis: that may be one colossal delusion. So often that very thing obscures one fundamental thing, a true and living relationship with God. “Ye must be born again,” and religion very often obscures that issue. Oh, religion is no argument for salvation. Religion can be found in the darkest places of the earth. Universally there is religion; depraved and very low in many places, but universally there is the consciousness of standing in relationship to some supreme object of worship, demanding worship; and then men's minds or imaginations get to work to give some kind of expression to that consciousness, of that supreme object of worship, and the imagination produces that sometimes out of a tree, a stone, or in the heavenly bodies; somehow it is expressed, but it is the thing that is there, behind all the forms of expression which is universal. All the highly civilized forms of that brought into the realm of Christendom are only the same thing developed. It does not say that Christendom’s more intelligent, civilized, educated interpretation of God, even though it gets its ideas from the Bible, is salvation. It may be a mighty delusion and very often is.

Bible Verses: Matthew 24:4 Matthew 24:5

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Open Windows messages have been selected and compiled by Austin-Sparks.Net from the works of T. Austin-Sparks. In some cases they appear in abridged form. The introductory verse and its associated Bible version have been selected by the editor and did not always appear within the original message. In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given and not sold for profit, and that his messages be reproduced word for word, we ask if you choose to share these messages with others, to please respect his wishes and offer them freely - free of any changes, free of any charge (except necessary distribution costs) and with this statement included.

Editor's Note

Through the years of our publishing books and articles on Austin-Sparks.Net, we have talked of wanting to compile a series of excerpts similar to Watchman Nee's "A Table in the Wilderness," published by Mr Sparks' son-in-law, Angus Kinnear. We felt that not only would shorter daily excerpts be easy to digest, but they might also inspire readers to read a complete message or book that they may not have read before. This project began in January 2010 when we began to send out daily messages to the Daily Open Windows email list. These continue to be sent daily in email form from Austin-Sparks.Net.

As many of you will be aware, Mr Sparks was from Scotland. He, therefore, used British spelling in his writings; however, many transcripts of his spoken messages have since been published using American English. The website reflects a mixture of both British and American spelling, but for the sake of consistency, all excerpts in this book conform to American spelling and punctuation.

Due to these daily messages being excerpts, they are abbreviated and some have had unnecessary words removed, such as "here this evening...." Also, some daily messages are a compilation of several excerpts from one original message. This is usually indicated with a pause in the text: .... and a reference to the complete source document is always provided. You will also notice that different versions of the Bible have been selected for verses that precede each daily message. Sometimes these Scripture references appeared within the context of the original message, but mostly these have been chosen by the editor with, we trust, the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

As you look through these "open windows" we pray that you will not only look out and see Christ, but you will also hear Him and open the door of your heart so that He can "eat with you daily" (Rev. 3:20). Our desire is that these messages will not simply be "inspiring," as daily devotional messages often set out to achieve, but also challenge you; lifting your vision, opening your eyes, revealing Truth, bringing Life and Light, and enabling you to let go of misconceptions. Light is not always welcome when it first shines into the darkness that our eyes are accustomed to. However, Light is absolutely necessary in order to see. And so we pray that through these messages your eyes will be opened (Eph. 1:18) and we will together "see one thing – how superior is Jesus Christ to all else!"

Austin-Sparks.Net
Wellington, NZ

Open Windows by T. Austin-Sparks

This devotional contains short daily portions from a selection of Mr. Austin-Sparks' messages. In his own words, “Perhaps this is just like a window opened into heaven. If you get the right window you can see quite a lot. You can see great things and you can see far things. But the best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through it you are seeing one thing - how superior is Jesus Christ to all else, and how superior is the dispensation into which we have come, and how superior are all the resources at our disposal to all that ever was before!”

Theodore Austin-Sparks (1888–1971), often known as "Mr. Sparks" or "TAS", was a British Christian evangelist and author.

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