Tags
deception, discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, fellowship, Fellowship with God, other religions, salvation, T.A. Sparks, the cross
Just reading yesterday’s daily devotional by T. Austin Sparks, the introducing Bible verse somehow hit me. It says,
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” (Rev 18:4 KJV)
I read the related article (partly, at least) and then went back to a chapter before which deals with “The Cross and Deception”. Even yesterday I had a talk with one woman who is still church bound, a fact that turns out to be a burden for her at times, and another woman who seems to love Jesus, too, yet who is still seeking for a place or a group where she feels spiritually at home. The only thing I can do for these two women is to pray that God gives them a hideaway where they cannot only rest before Him, but together with fellow believers IN Him also since it is so important that we “[b]ear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal 6:2 KJV). On our own, it is so much harder to keep walking uprightly before God, isn’t it? So, here is TAS with his apposite deliberations on the dangers of a mere outward religious life.
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 civilised forms of that brought into the realm of Christendom are only the same thing developed. It does not say that Christendom’s more intelligent, civilised, 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.
I have asked people if they have been born again, and they have said “It is not necessary; I have been confirmed.” Such may be an extreme case, and I do not take it up for criticism but by way of illustration. You may take on religion because you have got a religious temperament and that does not mean that you are saved. The devil may be holding you just as firmly, tightly, in the grip of an unsaved state by your religion as he does the worldly by his pleasures. He does not mind how he holds you. By the most aesthetic religious activities, self-denials and such like, so long as he can keep you from the main thing. Now one could pursue that for a long time, there is so much more, but it is merely indicated. It is the deception that we are getting at. There is a vast difference, beloved, between vital union with God in Jesus Christ and religious formalism, and as we said at the outset, there is a very great need for a ministry by which deception, even amongst religious people, shall be shattered and broken and the fact of an essential, vital union with God by new birth shall be brought home to religious people. Along that line the enemy is destroying the whole testimony of the Church by packing it full of active, energetic, unconverted people. That is where he is sapping the strength of the Testimony of God.
https://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002158.html
“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 statment included.”
Anna Waldherr said:
A very perceptive post, Susanne. All one need do is scan the internet to find proof. There are thousands upon thousands of religious websites. These range from major religions like Buddhism and Hinduism all the way to New Age variations and outright cults (some of which misappropriate Christian terminology). Even those websites that purport to be Christian may offer distorted theology. We must pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance and not fall prey to a religion of works, by whatever name.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
With love,
Anna ❤
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Anna, thank you for your encouraging words and for sharing your poignant perceptions, too. The internet is a pool of sharks, isn’t it… 🌊🦈🦈🦈🌊
Yes, we urgently need His guidance and wisdom so that we can sort out what might deceive us, be that words or works.
With love,
Susanne ❤
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Judi said:
LIKE 🙂
Hello Susanne!
Well – That is one message that can “stir the pot” and I find TAS is very good at hitting the nail on the proverbial head 🙂 in this (and many other) areas.
The enemy has so many wiles that cause people to think they are serving God and so many experiences that, to the religious, confirm that. Just the amount of lost things found by praying to St Anthony is one example (I think that you mentioned in another post that someone suggested that to you and you were not in agreement to such a thing!?)
I have seen that lost things do appear in amazing ways and so thought the saint actually did that! One example was in my own experience of losing a wallet and certain other things over the years (that was many years ago when I was still in that religion and – BTW- I do not ask “saints” to find my lost stuff anymore). And my Mom’s patron saint – St. Teresa of the Little Flower – always provided a rose when we prayed a novena to her. I could give many examples of other “answers to prayers prayed to saints”. In my case I had been born again quite some time before I was aware of the deception! And the apparitions and prophecies of the Virgin we don’t even want to go there do we!
It is the mercy of God to be able to see!
I added the quote from the article because there truly is a great need for such a ministry to root out deception especially from the religious.
I am not so sure, however, that if Elijah could have the showdown on Mt Carmel with so little to show for it, and if Paul could find so many leave him near the end of his life, and if even Jesus in Rev could say so much to the churches about overcoming due to most being in questionable condition – what would such a ministry look like???
Quote: “There is a vast difference, beloved, between vital union with God in Jesus Christ and religious formalism, and as we said at the outset, there is a very great need for a ministry by which deception, even amongst religious people, shall be shattered and broken and the fact of an essential, vital union with God by new birth shall be brought home to religious people.” (end quote)
Just a few thoughts…I am always glad to see a post from you, Susanne, as I believe that you have been stirred by the Spirit to deliver it…
Oh and the pix are excellent and really support the narrative from TAS…
Love, blessings and hugs dear sister!
Judi
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Oh my, Judi, as I just wanted to reply to Michael, I found your comment quite accidentally in my trash folder, hidden beside a real spam! Thank God, I checked it without deleting the comments automatically!! 😛
You have a good memory, Judi. Yes, one of my closer relatives prays to saints regularly, St. Anthony included. This saint, seemingly, helps her whenever she needs it. 🙄 I have given up on finding out whether it is God’s grace that helps her or else. I just pray for her.
Many years ago, as I tried different esoteric “magical” prayers myself, they worked out somehow as well. I tried a lot of stuff, Catholic included, and God seemed to have been patient with me. It has been a steep learning curve, for sure. Actually, in hindsight I am thankful to God for His help regardless of my former ignorance at that time as I did not know better.
I do not know what TAS had in mind as he wrote about this ministry against religious deception. As for me, if I only look back on these many blog posts Michael and I wrote about deception in the past, I sometimes wonder, was it for (almost) nothing that we followed His leading as there was so little feedback from people who knew what we were talking about? 🙄
Judi, it was very encouraging for me to read that you liked to see another post from me. I wish I could write more, but you know, I can merely write as He leads. The pics, ha! 😉 … only the second is mine. I took in in the ‘Germanic National Museum’ in Nürnberg last year. The first and the third were taken by our daughter Sarah in a Bavarian RC church, the Cathedral of Augsburg, last weekend. 🙂
Much love and blessings to you, my sister! ❤ ❤ ❤
Susanne
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Judi said:
Hi Susanne
Well to find myself in the trash right next to spam is so hard on my flesh! Ya know, I had a nun in second grade make me stand in the trash can as punishment for throwing paper so I can handle it LOL!
I hope this thought following encourages you…
Quote from your comment:
“As for me, if I only look back on these many blog posts Michael and I wrote about deception in the past, I sometimes wonder, was it for (almost) nothing that we followed His leading as there was so little feedback from people who knew what we were talking about? 🙄(end quote)
This was being said on your part regarding the question I had of what would a ministry to free people from deception, esp the religious, look like?
I think that the Lord has us write (like on a blog) something that may be is just for one person. For that one, the Lord will have us share His mind. There may be no prompting for that “one” to even reply OR even that they will “get it” but YOU have been faithful to present what you sensed that the Lord wanted to say. Then again, maybe someone will find your blog one day and read a specific word that you post. The message, having been inspired by the Spirit is eternal in nature and so NOT necessarily only for the time that you wrote it (prophecy is that way) and so will answer a question or warn the one that finds the message later on.
(Their comment may end in the trash too, lol, and so you may never see it)
I do know that it is hard not to see more responses but I don’t think that the Lord counts how many respond but more importantly that He counts our faithfulness to deliver His thought when He says to 🙂
Abraham did not see much happening either yet in the word it says, “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (Gen 15:6 ESV)
He believed God. Most important too is that he was called a friend of God.
May we also find ourselves faith-ful believers and friends of God.
Love you! XO Judi
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Thank you, Judi.
Well, if it is a comfort to you, Michael’s replies almost always end in my trash folder first and Ken Dawson’s comment today was in my spam folder. It seems to be a WordPress problem so I decided to check both the trash and the spam folder before I delete their content.
It is not so much the number of comments that are published on here I was thinking about since I still delete some instead of moderating them, it is more about ppl getting the message IN MY TIME, you know. 😉 I am not patient by nature and therefore it would be encouraging for me to see that there are more ppl around who are on a similar spiritual wave length, for example. Over the last four and a half years there were some, a handful, maybe a few more who dropped by and found the message they needed, and then disappeared into nirvana again. Sometimes I tried to keep in touch, however, it was not God’s will. And in a few cases I saw these believers going into the wrong direction afterwards. Soooo…. again, I pray and hope that God is in control. He is not so quickly hurried by our misconceptions and errors as I tend to be. 😛
You are right that at times there might be only one person who finds what they were looking for. And that is an encouragement for me, of course!! 🙂 But I need to admit that I see way more people reading my blogs than responding on here. Sometimes I see people who once commented, still read my blogs, but never comment again. And then I begin to wonder…. 🙄 Not that I see everyone who drops by here (it depends on the computer system), yet there are devices like the “stat counter” that help me see that people sometimes browse my whole blog, even spend days and hours on here…. but then they are gone. Sometimes they keep coming back, though. But they never comment! That makes me very curious, dear Judi! Indeed, I would love to hear their stories. 🙂
So, enough with giving away internal details! 😀
Love,
Susanne XO
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Michael said:
Susanne, recently I watched a religious man and his wife interact in a way that manifested what you and TA Sparks were talking about. This man, an ex-pastor who knows the scriptures, was overbearing, proud, arrogant, self-assertive and demonstrated all the “qualities” of men in power without the cross of Christ working in their lives. His poor wife was browbeat with his constant “better than thou” put-downs that he cast upon her both privately and in public. On the other hand she has been kind, loving, giving, humble and a joy to be around. He treats her like his own private slave and it is sad to watch yet, she demonstrates a servant’s heart.
Jesus said to His disciples, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45, ESV2011)
A self-righteous, religious mind can be a terrible taskmaster and all too often these kinds of people rise up in Christianity’s religious systems and manifest everything but Christ who gave His life that we might be saved and follow His leading by the power of His Holy Spirit in all humility. To the arrogant Corinthian church Paul wrote,
“Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. (1Cor 4:8-10, ESV2011)
Does this sound familiar?
“Thank you Jesus for the working your the cross in my life. Except for the grace of God, there go I. Amen”
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Amen to your Scriptures and thoughts about it, Michael. 👍🏻
As for your example, I know that knowledge puffs up in my case just the same. If I have no love for other people, pride comes in as soon as I sense I have more knowledge in ANY area of life where they don’t have it. Whether it is biblical knowledge or spiritual experiences with God, yet even in everyday life. Whenever someone approaches me, not knowing what I know, my carnal mind judges them and pride knocks on my heart’s door. If I let pride in, love has no chance anymore. But if by the grace of God His love can be felt BEFORE someone approaches me, then there is no judgement whatsoever. Oh, if only Christ really lived in me – always! Amen. No longer I – that would be heaven for me and for others also, I believe.
PS
What spoke to me regarding humility were these rhymes from the Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 2, by John Bunyan. I took the quote from Fred Thoren’s blog, link below these verses.
“He that is down needs fear no fall; He that is low, no pride; He that is humble, ever shall Have God to be his guide. (Phil. 4:12, 13) I am content with what I have, Little be it, or much; And, Lord, contentment still I crave, Because Thou savest such. Fullness to such a burden is, That go on pilgrimage; Here little, and hereafter bliss, Is best from age to age. [176] (Heb. 13:5)”
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Michael said:
Another quote from Bunyan also speaks of our pilgrimage we are on,
“Then said Evangelist, pointing with his finger over a very wide field, Do you see yonder Wicket Gate? The man said, No. Then said the other, Do you see yonder Shining Light? He said, I think I do. Then said Evangelist, Keep that Light in your eye, and go directly thereto, so shalt thou see the Gate; at which thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do.”
It is when we quit knocking and quit seeking HIS light, but rather the light of mere men that we get in trouble.
“After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” (Rev 4:1, ESV2011)
John was bid to get his eyes off of the Laodicean closed-door system of religion which is so prevalent today and seek the door in the heavens that stands open to us with the invitation, “Come up here and I will show you things which must come to pass (in the true ecclesia of God as well as in our lives).” What a promise if we will just obey His voice and “let the dead bury the dead.”
Thanks for your encouragement, Susanne. ⭐
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Yes, that is a good JB quote, too, Michael.
You are very welcome as to the encouragement.
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Kenneth E Dawson said:
I LOVE WHAT JUDI SAID IN HER COMMENT—–IT IS BY THE MERCY OF GOD THAT WE SEE.
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
True, Ken.
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dimple said:
“The only thing I can do for these two women is to pray that God gives them a hideaway where they cannot only rest before Him, but together with fellow believers IN Him also since it is so important that we “[b]ear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal 6:2 KJV).”
“I pray and hope that God is in control.”
Dear Susanne,
Be encouraged that “the only” thing you can do is the most powerful thing to do for anyone who needs anything from God. (We all need something from Him!) And remember that we hope for that which we KNOW will be fulfilled in God’s time. He is in control. Always.
Blessings!
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Yes, Louise, I should know that prayer is most important. But often times I would rather DO something or SAY something instead of waiting on God’s timing. Old nature, impatient, you know… 😉
Blessings to you, too! 🕊❤🕊❤🕊
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Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said:
Just another thought, Louise.
I knew instinctively as I wrote, “I pray and hope that God is in control” that it could be easily misunderstood (sorry, this was inartfully expressed by me! 😕). Basically, I do not doubt He is in control. However, what concerned me in these cases where people are/were being led astray was the question, “Will God answer my prayers and draw these believers back toward Himself… or not?”
In the past I sometimes had the confirmation of God having heard such prayers by joy and peace that followed immediately. But sometimes I sense NOTHING. I pray again, nothing, and again…
As we know that many people will be led astray by false teachers, false Christs and false gospels, we cannot be sure that everyone will be in the Kingdom of God, eventually. Although all who have called on His name will be saved finally, the Kingdom of God is more than being saved, it is sharing Christ’s heritage. There are several parables through which Jesus made clear that there will be a difference in the end (The Faithful and The Wicked Servant, The Ten Virgins, The Talents etc.), demonstrated through The Final Judgment.
I did not want to appear that serious, dear Louise, yet I wanted to share what was in the back of my mind while writing. Thanks for listening! 🙂
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