The Catholic Church is built up as a religious hierarchy with the pope as the head. Under him are the cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops, and the priests. The cardinals are considered as the pope’s cabinet members for his government. The Catholic Church is a strong and powerful hierarchical organization.
Revelation 17 refers to the Roman Catholic Church as “the great harlot” and also refers to her as “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and the abominations of the earth” (vv. 1, 5). The Catholic Church is likened to a harlot who has adopted many heathen practices. Wherever the Catholic Church goes, it picks up the heathen practices of the local people. This is for the purpose of bringing these people into Catholicism.
Revelation 17:6 reveals that the Catholic Church martyrs the saints and the witnesses of Jesus. History tells us that the Catholic Church, the Roman Church, has killed more saints than the Roman Empire did.
Eventually, the Catholic Church will be hated, made desolate, and burned by Antichrist and his ten kings at the beginning of the great tribulation. According to Revelation 17:16, Antichrist and his ten kings will make the Roman Church “desolate and naked,” meaning that they will destroy her, rob her of her riches, and expose her; they will “eat her flesh,” meaning that they will kill her members; and they will “burn her utterly with fire,” meaning that they will annihilate her altogether.
In Revelation 14:8 an angel declares, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the fury of her fornication!” This is the fall of religious Babylon. Religious Babylon is depicted in Revelation 17, and material Babylon is shown in Revelation 18. Religious Babylon will fall first at the beginning of the great tribulation, and material Babylon, the city of Rome, will fall at the end of the great tribulation.
To overcome such a heretical religion is by keeping the faith in Christ’s divine and human person and all His works in His incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, descension, and second appearing (2 Tim. 4:7c; Rev. 2:26). The way to overcome the Catholic heretical religion is by our faith in two things: the person of Christ and the work of Christ. We have to believe in Christ’s person and in Christ’s redemptive work according to the New Testament teaching from the first page to the last page. This is why we have to study the New Testament. We say a strong “amen” to the New Testament teaching that Jesus is both God, the complete God, and man, the perfect man. He was incarnated, He lived on earth as a human being for thirty-three and a half years, He died a vicarious, all-inclusive death, He resurrected, He ascended, and He descended. He is now in the heavens, and He will appear in His second coming. Because we have studied all these things with all their significances, such a deceiving church can never deceive us. We have a clear view concerning the teaching of the New Testament, the teaching of the apostles. This is the right way for us to keep our Christian faith.
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