The Falling Away, The Abomination of Desolation and the Tribulation

Posted : 22 May, 2013 03:50 PM

The Falling Away, The Abomination of Desolation and the Tribulation



The Scriptures say at the end of the age there will be a time of great deception, a Falling Away from the truth, the Abomination of Desolation, the Strong Delusion, the Snare, and the Tribulation.



In four places Paul warns against believing in fables, which are false doctrines concerning prophecy about the end times. I Timothy 1: 4, I Timothy 4: 7, II Timothy 4: 4 and Titus 1: 14 all warn about accepting fables, which are man made prophecies about what is going to happen in the end times.



"And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.' II Timothy 4: 4



"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty." II Peter 1: 16



The dispensationalist teaching of a pre-tribulation rapture of the dispensationalist church is such a fable.



Look at Matthew 24: 29-30: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

30. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."



Now wait a minute. Matthew 24: 29 says that after the tribulation, then will the heavens be shaken. The question becomes, what is the tribulation? The dispensationalist end time scenario says the tribulation is a seven year period of great distress because of frightening earth changes which hinder and kill ,many people. So, to avoid the tribulation, the man made theology of John Darby, C.I. Scofield, Lewis S. Chafer and many contemporary Christian celebrities following them say that the church will be raptured off the earth to escape this horrible period at the time of the age.



The tribulation is not the only thing end time Bible prophecy says is to occur. Paul says in II Thessalonians 2; 3-4 that "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

4. Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God."



This has been made into another fable, that the one man super anti-Christ figure will brake his treaty with the nation of Israel and will literally come and desecrate the newly re-built temple in Jerusalem, by literally sitting in it. In the world of fables most prophecy has to play out in a literal way; the language of metaphor is not understood by those who make up the fables.



The temple is the Christian believer in I Corinthians 3: 16-17 and I Corinthians 6:19, and a concept called the man of sin is predicted to occupy, or sit, in the hearts of those who claim to belong to Jesus Christ.



The falling away from the truth began in the 19th century. As a result of

the influence of humanism - especially that of Hegel (1770-1831) and

Marx (1818-1883) - on Christians and the cultural change as a paradigm

shift in thinking away from a paradigm in which the Word of God is

seen to be absolute truth, many Christians lost their love of the

truth (II Thessalonians 2:10-12) and zeal to protect the faith and

Gospel of Christ. So, the false teachers of the 19th century and the

cults began to gain more and more Christian followers.



Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), Ellen G. White (1827-1915), Edward Irving

(1792 -1834), John Darby (1800 -1882), Charles T. Russell (1852-1916),

and C.I. Scofield (1843 -1921) were some of the major false

teachers of the 19th century who influenced Christians. Remember

that the Mormons also began in the 19th century. John Darby

and C.I. Scofield became the most popular of these 19th and early 20th

century figures. The Mormon church also began in the 19th century.



By 1881 there was a major revolt against the Textus Receptus and the King

James Version as being the authorized and received texts for Christians. Westcott

and Hort had the dialectic mind and argued against the long accepted Greek and English

New Testament texts, in favor of the Alexandrian texts, which had been rejected at the time of the

Reformation.



Matthew 24: 15 says "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand." The abomination of desolation would be that which makes physical Israel in the Old Covenant timeline and the church in the New Covenant timeline desolate. Christ said of physical Israel in Matthew 23: 38, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." There was a fulfillment of Daniel 9: 27, on the abomination of desolation, in 70 A.D. when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army. But there is to be something in the New Covenant timeline which makes the organized Christian community, calling themselves the church, desolate. Remember that the metaphoric concept called Babylon runs twice, once when physical Israel went into apostasy and again when the church goes into false doctrines. Jeremiah 50 and 51 are about physical Israel in apostasy, called Babylon and revelation 17 and 18 are about the Christian church in apostasy, again called Babylon and Mystery Babylon in Revelation 17.



In history, at the important period of 1945-1948 the four

horses and riders of Revelation 6:2-8 have scattered, or diminished

God's people. Remember that the United States emerged as a world power

at the end of World War II in 1945, along with the Soviet Union, the bear empire of

Daniel 7. The British empire - the lion in Daniel 7 - remained an empire in 1945

but did not gain power. The United Nations began in 1945. The American National Security

State began in 1947 with the National Security Act of 1947. The fourth dreadful beast of Daniel

7 can be seen as the American Empire and the UN. And the nation of Israel was

established in the Middle East in 1948.



During this period of time, the falling away of II Thessalonians 2: 3 and the leavening

of Luke 13:18-21 gained momentum. The Christian II Timothy

Church, which is never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, and

resists the truth (II Timothy 3:7-8) become more evident in this

period. The remnant, mentioned in Revelation 11: 13 and in Revelation

12: 17, having the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12: 17) are

literally scattered over the world. And as in Daniel 12: 7 the

spiritual and earthy power of the holy people are scattered, which

means the spiritual

power of the II Timothy church is diminished. The salt has lost

its savour, as Matthew 5: 13 says, and the Greek word translated as savour is

moraino. Strong's says moraino, number 3471, is from moros, number 3474, which means "dull or

stupid,.i.e, heedless, absurd, foolish."



Note that Revelation 13: 11-12 says:

"And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed."



Revelation 13: 3 says "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast."



The nation of Israel received a deadly wound by the Roman army in 70 A.D., but the deadly wound was healed with Israel became a nation again in 1948.



The Strong Delusion is found in II Thessalonians 2: 10-12 says "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

11. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

12. That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."



"For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth." Luke 21: 35



Luke 21: 35 can be interpreted by II Thessalonians 2:10-12, that the snare is being caught up in a false doctrine that is difficult to come out of.



The False Prophet as the second beast seen in Revelation 13: 11-18, representing many false prophets (Matthew 24; 11, II Peter 2: 1) causes people, that is, the Christians, to worship the first beast, who would be the one man super anti-Christ figure, except that again this is fable. There is a spirit of anti-Christ found in I John 4: 3.

The False Prophet, or many false prophets in the church, cause the church or most in it, to honor all physical Israel, when in fact, Paul teaches in Romans 2: 23-24 just the opposite. "Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written."



"I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan." Revelation 2: 9



Honoring those who rejected Christ is something that makes the church desolate. Honoring physical Israel, who as a majority rejected Christ and continue to do so, is honoring the spirit of anti-Christ of I John 4: 3.



Trying to go back to the doctrine that physical Israel is the chosen people because of bloodlines from Abraham also makes the church desolate. Any one can accept Christ and become transformed in him,

or born again, including the Jews,who can come to Christ one at a time. But in becoming Christians, they

give up their belief that they are chosen now under the New Covenant because of their bloodlines from Abraham.



They cannot be twice chosen, first because of bloodlines,and second by accepting Christ

because as Hebrews 10: 9 says "He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second."

In faith they would accept Galatians 3: 16-29, Christ is the seed of Abraham, if you are in Christ then you are the seed of Abraham, and in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. There can be no dialectic argument against Galatians 3; 16-29, no "yes-but" compromise, but only total acceptance of it as part of Paul's revelation from the risen Christ (Acts 13-18).

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