BOOK OF REVELATION SAYS THAT CHRISTIANITY WILL DEPART REAL CHRISTIANITY AND PRETEND TO BE THE REAL THING

The Bible says that most of the Church will leave the faith and create a fake Church.

Mark 6 the story of Jesus calming the waters while the apostles fear drowning has a deeper meaning and it has a relationship to the story of the Exodus from Egypt. There is the wind, the middle of the sea and so on. Like the Exodus tale the apostles are like the Egyptians. The Egyptians had hearts hardened against God. The disciples had not understood the power of Jesus from the miracle of the loaves and fishes so "their hearts were hardened." This indicates a tendency to apostasy.  We do not know if the apostles really stayed true to what Jesus told them but the New Testament is clear that apostasy would be the norm.

The Book of Revelation is clearest on this.

The only verse in Revelation that seems to say different is "The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever" (11:15). The answer is that Revelation is thinking ahead at this point. Later on it discusses the false religion of Babylon which fools people with its magic and promises Babylon will perish and be replaced by the reign of God. The meaning is that there is no kingdom until after that. So the verse does not say the kingdom is in the world now but say it is absent. Read the verse in context. You will see it refers to a time following when two prophets will be slain in Jerusalem by the beast.

Revelation 1:7 says ALL the tribes of the earth will grieve when Jesus returns. Obviously he is not too welcome! Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 24:3, 30. Revelation speaks of Jesus having seven stars which it explains are the seven churches. These stars are in his right hand meaning these Churches despite the scathing criticism he has for them are precious to him. Jerusalem and Rome are excluded from the list of Churches as if they were already considered apostate and given over to Satan. Revelation uses the number seven to signify completeness and perfection. All scholars agree with this.
 
Some think that the seven churches is just a device that means whole Church though only seven places where the Church was were mentioned. But that is stretching the symbolism too far. If that was all the book meant then why name the Churches? Why did Jesus tell the author to send a different letter to each Church? Some believers will say that the author choosing some centres and not others proves nothing. The author selected those centres and did it in such a way as to make up seven centres. Each centre had a letter to promote. His selection proves that these places were thought to have the correct Christian doctrine and to be part of the true Church. Far from thinking that Peter who reigned over the Church in Jerusalem was a pope, far from thinking that Peter went to Rome to rule the whole Church as pope, Revelation indicates that the Church in Jerusalem and Rome was apostate.
 
Two prophets are described as being two witnesses in Revelation 11. This is following the law of Moses that every testimony depends on two witnesses which is clearly a hint that Christianity at that time is apostate when that was all that was available. The witnesses are slain in Jerusalem which Revelation says is "figuratively known as Sodom" and "where their Lord was crucified" in the same chapter. Revelation says they have the power to strike the earth with any torment or plague they wish. They destroy their enemies by doing miracles. But after they have given their message from God, the beast of the abyss will come and kill them. Their bodies will lie in Jerusalem and be viewed by every tribe on earth for three days and a half. They are refused burial. The implication is that they and their message were hated by the whole world so nobody would bury them. Then the prophets rise from the dead at the end of the three and a half days in the sight of their enemies and ascend to heaven on a cloud. It is plainly said the whole earth rejoiced and exchanged gifts in celebration of their death for the prophets TORTURED everybody on earth (Revelation 11:10). The hatred roused against them shows that attempts to say they harassed rather than tortured are dubious. Some translations try to soften the fact that the prophets were very cruel and vicious. The Christian God is essentially vindictive. The way the God of the book of Revelation gives the prophets the power to do whatever harmful miracles they want is a clear statement that the book of Revelation regards hatred for the sake of God as a good thing!! God is described as having begun to reign after the prophets give their message and die and go to Heaven (11:17). This implies that apostasy was rife. He barely had a Church when the prophets lived.
 
None of this has happened yet so the Christian has to hold it is still to come.

It is interesting how Revelation gives us a pile of hard to decipher symbolism and then tells us that Sodom is a metaphor for Jerusalem! It is as if it wants us to be sure it is being condemned!

Revelation shows that only two people will belong to God or speak for God during the time of darkness and apostasy. So the prophets have to teach not the pope. The prophecy exposes the Catholic lie that the papacy will never pass away until the end of the world and will never lead the Church into apostasy.
 
The New American Bible Catholic Edition surmises that the two prophets were Peter and Paul. But it was never claimed that their bodies were displayed anywhere let alone in Jerusalem or that they rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven. Also, they were not the only prophets. And Paul did not die in Jerusalem but Rome. Peter was more low-key than Paul so why would Peter be singled out for mention? And how could Christians be expected to believe that there were only two real apostles or prophets then? What about the others? What about the author of Revelation the contemporary of Peter and Paul who claimed to be a prophet?
 
Revelation 6:14 speaks of the heavens rolling up like a scroll and vanishing and all the islands and mountains being moved around. This happened as a result of Jesus the Lamb opening the sixth seal causing the sun to become black and the moon to look like blood. We read that all the kings of earth hid as a result. It says all those who had power and authority did the same - meaning those who had religious power as well. That would include the pope. Revelation uses much symbolism. The heavens and the mountains are Old Testament images representing godless religious powers (Isaiah 34:4 and Nahum 1:5). If we read Isaiah 34:4, 5 which inspires the symbolism we read how the heavens are scrolled up and then when God's sword has drunk its fill in the Heavens it will descend in judgement. So the heavens are scrolled up - this must be the heavens where God dwells meaning there is no way in there anymore and the word of God is not taught and only apostasy is taught. In Revelation, the sun becoming black refers to the word of God being covered up so that there is no religious light in the world.
 
Revelation speaks of a world superpower headquartered by Rome that does magic and bewitches the world with charm and beauty called the Whore of Babylon. No hint is given that the whore is a commercial operation or a political one though it is involved in selling and buying and politics. It is a religious organisation because whore is what the Bible calls a group of Christians who depart the faith and became fake Christians. Strictly speaking the Bible calls the Whore the Harlot not the Whore but Whore of Babylon is a popular term. Harlot means temple prostitute who sells her body for religious reasons. The harlot is a religion. Revelation says its prophecies will start coming true soon and the harlot will rule before Jesus returns. Since the Bible is clear that we must be ready all the time for Jesus coming back and expect him any time we have to assume the Roman Church is the harlot or at least all false religions are the harlot and Rome is using occult power to empower them in her struggle against God. But it is more natural that when Revelation refers to the harlot who works from Rome and her harlot daughters that the harlot in Rome is one religion.
 
Roman Catholicism refers to herself as her and she and mother Church. Pagan Rome never used the feminine symbolism. Roman Catholicism is the harlot.
 
Pagan Rome forced itself on the kings of the ancient world. Catholic Rome presented herself to the kings and the kings came to her. This matches the statement of Revelation that the harlot prostituted herself with the kings of the world. The kings were her clients.
 
The Catholic teaching that Jesus is fully in all the wafer makes it fully plain that people can believe that Jesus' penis is in their mouths when they receive communion. The Eucharist can be described as being Jesus' penis. This is religious style sex abuse. Pagan Rome never used temple prostitutes or perverse erotic rites. No wonder Revelation uses the sexual and religious connotations of a harlot to describe Catholic Rome.

The whore works with the great beast her god who forces the whole world to worship a false god and kills anybody that doesn't. The number of the beast is 666. This is usually thought to refer to the Roman Emperor Nero. Let's suppose that. If it is Nero then it is not Nero as he was back then. Nero committed suicide by cutting his own throat but we read that the beast has this wound healed so this is resurrected Nero we have. This is a Nero with tremendous occult powers (Revelation 13:14). For a Christian, it predicts the return of Nero and his becoming pope. Satan had a throne and gave it to this resurrected Nero (Revelation 13:2). This throne must be in Rome meaning the papal throne. Revelation 14:12 says the saints are sustained and comforted in Heaven by the thought that the worshippers of the beast will suffer great torment in a pool of sulphur. The book indicates that it is a duty to hate the whore and the beast. Revelation 18:6 quotes a voice from Heaven commanding that the whore be paid back double for all the evil she ever did.
 
Page 37 of The Book of Revelation for Dummies rejects the idea that the 666 is about Nero. The reasons it says this is because the book was designed for a non-Jewish audience so Revelation translating Nero Caesar's name into Hebrew to add the letters to come up with 666 doesn't seem plausible. But on page 218 we read that non-Jews did know the system. Also Revelation depends heavily on Old Testament prophecy and the Jewish scriptures. It uses Hebrew devices despite being written for non-Hebrews. Another problem is how you have to change the usual spelling of Caesar to get the 666.
 
7 in Revelation stands for perfection and so 6 stands for imperfection and fallen from God (page 218, The Book of Revelation for Dummies). The 6 is next to the 7. This suggests that the evil may not be very obvious and may even look good. That is why it is best described as imperfect than evil. Imperfection is less easy to spot than evil is. The best evil masquerades as imperfection if it cannot manage to masquerade as good. The 666 suggests imperfection or defiance of God three times over. If 6 stands for imperfection and hidden evil then the 666 man or men must stand for imperfection that is three times more subtle and clever. The papacy has certainly managed to look fairly good despite its evil. Revelation says that the beast kills all who refuse his name or the number of his name. The name suggests that we have here a spiritual leader who wants all to accept him and the number of his name being the 666 suggests he wants people to receive evil sacraments from him to become captive to the supernatural power of evil. This fits the pope and his insidious and superficially innocuous evil better than the Roman Emperor who was evil outright.
 
Incidentally Rome was always stronger and more advanced than Jerusalem as a city which is why Revelation 18:18 proves the falsity of Catholic claims that the whore is Jerusalem. There we read that the mourners of the destroyed whore were saying no other city could ever have compared with her. Jerusalem is thought to be meant when the book condemned a city as Sodom or Egypt but at the same time the city is referred to as the beloved city (Revelation 20:9.
 
The Book of Revelation predicts that when the Whore of Babylon controls religion on earth that God’s angel will proclaim the gospel by appearing to everybody on earth who will see him in Heaven (Revelation 14:6). God does not teach the gospel this way unless he has no friends on earth who would do it. Jesus said that those who don’t see his miraculous self and believe are more blessed than those who do (John 20:29).
 
Revelation says the whore is drunk on the blood of the saints. The Roman Catholic Church killed far more Christians than pagan Rome ever did. The author of Revelation says the whore killed some saints in his day and she will be around until the end of the world. This indicates that the whore was working on and through the Roman Empire before she developed the papacy and into her fully grown state. There can be no doubt that Catholicism is accused by the Book of Revelation of being the whore of Babylon for no organisation in Rome will ever have the power that she has.
 
Most Christians take Revelation 20 in a figurative sense. It says that an angel came down from Heaven and bound Satan for a thousand years so that during that time he would not be able to fool the nations. Then we read that those who had died for Jesus and had not received the mark of the beast on their foreheads and hands came to life and reigned with Jesus for one thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until after this time. Of those who rose first, Revelation says that the second death has no power over them but they shall be priests of God and of Christ. The second death is being thrown into the pool of burning sulphur (Revelation 21:8). After this reign Satan is released and deceives the world and gathers the nation for a world war. After that the last judgement takes place.
 
This chapter stands by itself.
 
Satan was bound but it never says when this binding took place except that it took place after the martyrs died. Those martyrs who refused to accept the mark of the beast reign with Jesus but we are not told where. It may mean in Heaven. But we read that no additions to their number were made in the thousand years. This implies that apostasy reigned on earth. God bound Satan up so that the apostasy is simply inexcusable and means that the religions of the world preferred to deceive themselves than to honour the truth. The dead that rose at the end of the thousand years are not said to be holy. In fact Satan gets released when they rise and he uses them in his world war.
 
The binding of Satan is traditionally and logically surmised to refer to the truth of God being issued throughout the world. There being no true Christians on earth while the martyrs reigned would indicate that the Churches were distorting and keeping people away from that truth and away from salvation.
 
The Mark of the Beast indicates some kind of religious ritual that prevents salvation and marks one as damned. The Roman Church claims to mark people's souls with its sacraments. Catholic baptism is supposed to mark the soul for all eternity.
 
The Church did kill people for refusing its baptism. Revelation indicates that rejecting the Mark of the Beast is of supreme importance for it singles this out.

CONCLUSION
 
The Bible says Christianity as it came from Christ has vanished from the earth.