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The Abomination of Desolation - St. Marys Coptic Orthodox Church

The Abomination of Desolation - St. Marys Coptic Orthodox Church

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DAY OF THE LORD 159<br />

<strong>The</strong> elect, <strong>of</strong> course, will be spared this, since they will be “caught up to<br />

meet the Lord in the air” moments before God passes His righteous<br />

judgment against the world and the prince <strong>of</strong> the world.<br />

<strong>The</strong> general resurrection will have to follow so that the judgment<br />

takes place. Those who died in Christ will be resurrected first, and will<br />

come with the Lord in His second coming. Those who are alive at the<br />

Lord’s Parousia will change and will be caught up to meet the Lord in<br />

the air. <strong>The</strong> rest <strong>of</strong> the dead will then be resurrected to be judged.<br />

That is why we say that Christ will come to judge the living and the<br />

dead.<br />

THE HERESY OF THE “LEFT BEHIND”:<br />

For 19 centuries, the <strong>Church</strong> believed that the “rapture” or the<br />

snatching <strong>of</strong> the elect from earth will happen on the great day <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Lord, just before the end <strong>of</strong> the world. Towards the end <strong>of</strong> the<br />

nineteenth century, a mercenary preacher decided to change this<br />

universal understanding <strong>of</strong> the rapture and substitute it with his own<br />

erroneous views. <strong>The</strong> error spread like fire among many who call<br />

themselves “Evangelicals” and millions are now lead astray by this<br />

fallacy. Here is what Time Magazine recently wrote about the preacher<br />

and his innovation:<br />

An Anglican priest turned travelling evangelical preacher named John<br />

Nelson Darby, who arrived in the U.S. in 1862 for the first <strong>of</strong> seven<br />

visits, bearing a radical new eschatology. His most striking innovation<br />

was the timing <strong>of</strong> a concept called the ‘Rapture,’ drawn from the<br />

Apostle Paul’s prediction that believers would fly up to meet Christ in<br />

heaven. Most theologians understood it as part <strong>of</strong> the Resurrection at<br />

time’s very end. Darby repositioned it at the Apocalypse’s very<br />

beginning, a small shift with large implications. It spared true believers<br />

the Tribulation, leaving the horror to non believers and the doctrinally<br />

misled, thus moving Christianity’s us-vs. -them concept <strong>of</strong> heaven and<br />

hell into a new and exciting theatre. 1<br />

1<br />

Time Magazine July 1, 2002

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