That passage says nothing about not being aware that God is working through one.
Revelation 17:15-17....
" He said to me: “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is sitting, mean peoples and crowds and nations and tongues." 16 And the ten horns that you saw and the wild beast, these will hate the prostitute and will make her devastated and naked, and they will eat up her flesh and completely burn her with fire. 17 For God put it into their hearts to carry out his thought, yes, to carry out their one thought by giving their kingdom to the wild beast, until the words of God will have been accomplished."
OK so how is this passage NOT describing God putting thoughts into people's minds to do something that they later regretted? They think that it is their idea, completely unaware that God inspired it.
This is the destruction of "Babylon the great"...a spiritual harlot, sleeping with the Kings of the earth and feeling no shame or guilt, sitting like a queen, because of her lovers' care and protection.
This is God's judgment on false religion (all of it, including Christendom, the most disgusting part of Babylon the great) and the regret they feel over their destroying her is shown in the following verses....
Revelation 18:9-10
"And the kings of the earth who committed fornication with her and lived in shameless luxury will weep and beat themselves in grief over her, when they look at the smoke from the burning of her, while they stand at a distance because of their fear of her torment and say, ‘Too bad, too bad, you great city, Babylon you strong city, because in one hour your judgment has arrived!’”
They did not decide to kill off their greatest supporter....God did, and he used them to do it by putting the thought in their minds. Too bad now for them.
That's your opinion. The church still survives. Had it been completely corrupt, it would not have survived. And it's still the largest sect of the body of Christ. Yes, there was corruption. But that corruption was not complete. The church righted itself.
By what stretch of whose imagination did the church ever right itself? It is the same church with the same beliefs that it has always held. When the time for cleansing came, (as foretold by Daniel for "the time of the end") the "wicked" shunned the opportunity to "right" themselves because they have no love for the truth.
They teach the same God dishonoring lies they have always taught, cozying up to the world that Jesus said we must be no part of. (1 John 2:15-17; 1 John 5:19; John 15:18-21; Daniel 12:4, 9-10) She is sleeping with God's enemies.
See above. This is an excellent example of a lack of critical thinking where the texts are concerned.
You just quoted Revelation out of context above, and used it out of context to support a statement that it patently does not support.
Again: see above. This, too, is an excellent example of a lack of critical thinking. As far as the texts are concerned, you're seeing a big picture that does not exist.
Disagreeing with your take on scripture is not evidence of a lack of critical thinking at all....it just disagrees with what you believe....at the end of the day there is just truth or lies. Which is which? Thankfully God knows....and he reveals his truth only to those who love it.
Apparently, then, human beings fouled up what God intended.
Well, true to Jesus' words, Christendom fouled up its interpretation. God chose the words and their true meaning remains. Only at the time of the end would the truth come to the surface and the needed 'cleansing, whitening and refining' take place. (Daniel 12:4; 9-10) Why would God need to clean up his worship if it had not been contaminated with filth and impurities?
That is the textbook definition of blind faith.
LOL, and yet it is exactly what Jesus taught us to have....not blind faith, but trust in the God who authored his word. It is Jesus who said "it is written", and when correcting the Pharisees whom he said were "blind guides" leading other blind ones to their death, he used God's word.
To doubt the words of the Bible is to doubt God's existence, his power and the inevitability of his will. If your faith has its eyes wide open, then how are those of your faith obeying Christ's commands? How are we to be "no part of the world"? How are we to obey Matthew 28:19-20? Matthew 24:14 is being fulfilled as we speak....but who is doing it?