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must be revealed before "the day of the Lord is present." But the day of the Lord is not the coming of Christ to receive His church, but that which follows upon it. How closely it may follow it is difficult for us to say. The Thessalonians were troubled by the teaching that had risen among them that the day of the Lord was already at hand, and that they were in the midst of the judgment, "the day of the Lord.'' They were greatly excited aud perturbed by the fact. Paul shows them that this could not be for the "man of sin" who was to be especially dealt with in "the day of the Lord'' had not yet been revealed. There is reason to think, as we have already said, that the taking away of the church must precede the revelation of the man of sin. There is a quite widely accepted theory that ''the man of sin'' has already been revealed in the Pope, or in the Roman Catholic Church: but while the Pope exhibits some of the char acteristics of the man of sin he does not :fill out the picture. In the Roman Catholic sys tem, as in some other systems of the present day, there is apparently a preparation for "the man of sin," but the man of sin has not yet been revealed. At this point the question will arise, ''Shall
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