Elchingen

cardcaptor: I agree. This view can be substantiated by Christ Himself, where in Matthew He says: "Immediately following the distress of those days 'the sun shall be darkened, and the moon will not give it's light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken'(Isaiah 13:10, Ezekiel 32:7)" Matthew 24:29 When you reference the scripture Christ is quoting, these words are used by the prophets to describe the end of a nation. Christ was speaking of the end of Israel as his disciples must have known. Even if they did not, not perhaps being as versed in the word as Christ, surely He knew exactly what he was saying because He was repeating what he had already said to Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Joel. When Christ quotes Daniel about the "abomination that causes desolation", he is merely repeating Himself, and directing the disciples to the fulfillment of that prophecy. Why Daniel 9 and Matthew 24 are so consistently misrepresented by Christian "prophets" today, I do not know, but the fact that neither the "antichrist" nor the "abomination that causes desolation" are to be found in Revelation would lead one to discard the theory of the rebuilt temple, the antichrist, and the three and a half years. Instead, certain creative writers are reaping millions off of fictional representations of this theory and potentially deceiving many well-meaning Christians about what is soon to come to pass. Christs' Second Coming, as I understand it, IS the Rapture. There are not, to my mind, two seperate events, but ONE event, and that ONE event is the very one we all look forward to. The return of the King, the Lord Jesus Christ, to reclaim his Kingdom from Satan and his works--halleluja, and Amen! I would also read with caution the opening verses of Daniel 12. Verses 1-3 sound exactly like the death and resurrection of Christ. In Christ.

I am a Christian, but I have always found many of Iran's president's statements to be odd to say the least. Odd, however, in that there is obviously a good deal lost in the translation. I don't doubt that this is the case in the above excerpt. Nonetheless, it was interesting to find a blog sight at http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/ which is, as it were, his blog. On that blog, I found this: "My sincere congratualtions to everyone for the Glorious and Auspicious Birthday of the Divine Prophet-confirmed and authenticated by Gabriel, the angel of divine revelation-the Obedient of Almighty God. Jesus Christ, the Messiah(peace be upon Him) 12-21-06" Now that is interesting. I know that Islam borrows an enormous amount from both Christianity and Judaism, but I was nonetheless suprised to see him revere Christ at all, much less as the Messiah. I wonder how much of what this man says becomes lost, distorted, or otherwise. In the same vein, I wonder how much of what some Christian leaders say becomes lost or distorted in their translations as well. In Christ.