The Great Apostasy of Christ's Church

So if Jesus Christ set up one church, why are there so many today? Where can we find the church that he set up? What happened to the church after the Bible stops recording the history of the church?

While Christ was on the earth he started his church. After he was crucified, his apostles set about building the church and bringing everyone to Christ. It was a great time of enlightenment for the people. They finally had the truth about why they were here on earth, and what they needed to do to be happy during this life. They learned, most importantly, the things they needed to do in order to return to live with their Heavenly Father.

As the church grew, it became more spread out. We read of seven churches (Revelation 1) of Christ, in different parts of the land. Being isolated they began to make small changes in the doctrine of Christ. When the apostles heard of this, they wrote letters to remind the churches the true doctrine of Christ's church and taught them the things they needed to be doing. The people knew who they could trust, because they knew Christ had given his apostles the authority to guide them. They were the "foundation" "And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;"    (Eph 2 :20)

The members of the church at this time endured great persecution. So great that the apostles began to be martyred, until they were all taken from the people. This authority wasn't able to be passed on to more people. The foundation of the church was gone! As a result the church began to deteriorate and just as a house with no foundation would, Christ's church fell. Despite the faithful members, error crept into the church. As Christ's divine organization was lost, the church lost the truth. This was foretold by many prophets. Amos talks about a "famine... of hearing the words of the lord: " (Amos 8: 11). This famine began and the church was no longer Christ's true church. This time in history is called the Dark Ages.

Many inspired men knew that something was wrong with the church. They helped bring this knowledge to the people. This period of time is known to us as The Reformation. Many people began to pick up the pieces that they could find that Christ talked about. But in doing this they would miss some of the important parts of Christ's Gospel. During this time people would "wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." (Amos 8: 12).
The fulness of Christ's Gospel wasn't on the earth. Instead of a reformation of the church, we needed a restoration by someone called of god.

The Lord promised us that he would restore his church to the earth again. John said, "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (Revelation 14:6). I can promise you that this has taken place. We once again have the "everlasting gospel" on the earth today. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.