Pagan ideas of a fiery netherworld date back as far as Egypt's Nimrod. Way before Christ, in the 6^th century BC, Zoroaster taught the Persians of a Lord of Lies who lived in the dark reaches under the earth recording the deeds of men as debits and credits. After death, souls went to be judged, and if found evil, would be doomed to torment. To easily win pagan converts, the church adopted these theories and began relating Zoroastic meanings to symbolic verses. Apostle Paul predicted such distortions (apostasy) would occur (Acts 20:29-30).

If the true Church was always in the wilderness (not mainstream), persecuted by the Papacy throughout the 1260 years of the reign of the Man of Lawlessness (the Anti-Christ), then what about the Reformation Era’s famous Protestant churches? Weren’t they any good? Didn't they protest the Papacy's unbiblical heresies and come out of that system? Does the Bible have any prophecies on that particular time period in church history? If so, how were they fulfilled?

Scriptures state that Christ's kingdom that is to come on the Earth has a specific purpose. Christ and his proven followers will reign over the rest of the resurrected mankind for those thousand years and teach them righteousness. But one verse in Revelation (20:5) seems to contradict all the other Scriptures in claiming that the rest of mankind does not wake up during that time. What's the story there?

Just like Apostle Paul predicted, savage wolves arose from among Christianity's own, distorted biblical truths and fooled a majority of the believers. And the mass deception lasted through many centuries, through the 1260 year Anti-Christ reign of the Papacy, continued in many forms even among the Protestant Reformation churches and is still widely prevalent today.  That's why all mainstream denominations today have a variety of doctrines that go against the foundational beliefs of original Christianity. So what is a true biblical believer to do in these times?

Biblical prophecies forecast a "Man of Lawlessness", an Anti-Christ. Many interpret the prophecies and expect him to be a world leader who is to rise in the future. And then there are others who theorize that person as Emperor Nero and conclude that all those prophecies got fulfilled in 70 AD. If either of those theories are true - i.e. the Anti-Christ had a quick reign in 70 AD (or) he is supposed to rise only in the far far future - then that would make the majority of church history (2000-odd years) irrelevant. That doesn't make much sense. Is that what the Bible really says?