Jesus Christ is coming here to earth. Heaven will be on earth. No "rapture". You must go through both tribulations (i.e Satan's and God's); but do not fear! The LORD will never leave you nor forsake you.
Remember the 3 children of Israel, Shadrach, Michshach, and Abednego!? They were thrown into the fiery furnace and did not burn!! You won't be harmed in the tribulation IF you believe in Christ and are not deceived. He is not mad at you, He is mad at His enemies.
Read 2 Thess.2:1-4. The son of perdition = Anti-Christ = Satan. Satan must be revealed BEFORE the return of Jesus Christ.
You will not find the word "rapture" in the Bible or the Greek Manuscripts. Rapture comes from "rapture of the deep"____VERY DANGEROUS!!!! Hallucinations, fase sense of security.
BEWARE OF FALSE TEACHERS WHO WILL ROB YOU OF YOUR SALVATION!!!!!!
���The King James Translation of 1 Thess.4:16-17 does not
quite convey the meaning from the Greek Manuscript. The English "air" does not fully bring across the Greek meaning. It should be spiritual body (Greek "aero", or breath of life [spiritual] body), not atmosphere. Also when Paul was speaking he was using colloquial Greek (i.e. street Greek, or conversational Greek, a figure of speech), and when he speaks of "clouds" it means a large crowd (see Heb.12:1. Another example compare with "a cloud of locusts").
���Therefore the correct translation (not transliteration)
of this passage should read:
�16: "For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the arch-angel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. (Why? they are already with Him! To be absent from the flesh is to be present with the Father - Ecc.12:6,7).
�17: After that (i.e. after the the 7th trumpet blast), we who are left alive will be caught up together with them in a big crowd to meet the Lord in the spiritual body."
�1: Now we beseech you (I want to talk to you very seriously), brethren, on behalf of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (this is the subject), and by our gathering together to Him,
�2: To the end that you all be not quickly shaken in mind (Do not be deceived, don't get your mind messed up), nor be troubled, neither by spirit-communication, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is present (the day of Christ is the day of v.1. The day of the Lord is the day of O.T. prophecy, see Isa.2:12)
�3: Let not any one deceive you by any means (they are trying to! Lit. according to no way. A double negative for emphasis): because that day SHALL NOT COME, except (OR BEFORE) there come THE falling away first (= apostasy.) (event BEFORE the return of Christ when Anti-Christ [= instead of Christ] shows up), and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition (= Satan, destruction, death. See Isa.14:12-16);
�4: Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is an object of worship; so that he (i.e. the Anti-Christ, pretending to be in place of God) sits in the Temple of God (i.e. Jerusalem), showing himself that he is God.
In His service, your friend in Christ, Jim.