Now, brethren, concerning the COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST and OUR GATHERING together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that day will not come unless THE FALLING AWAY COMES FROM FIRST, and THE MAN OF SIN is revealed, THE SON OF PERDITION, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
–2 THESSALONIANS 2:1-4 (NKJV)–

The above passage is a revealed doctrine, based on a prophetic vision of future events; and it tells us the following things:

1. The Lord Jesus Christ will come back to earth.

2. True Christians will be raptured up to be with Jesus when he returns.

3. The Church will experience a worldwide apostasy or backsliding.

4. There will be a personal Antichrist: here called the Man of Sin and the Son of Perdition.

5. The Antichrist will sit in the Jerusalem temple and call himself God.

6. Steps 3, 4, and 5 happen (Antichrist): then Steps 1 and 2 (Advent and Rapture).

Then there will be GREAT TRIBULATION, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but FOR THE ELECT’S SAKE those days will be shortened. Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. For FALSE CHRISTS and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders TO DECEIVE, IF POSSIBLE, EVEN THE ELECT…Immediately AFTER THE TRIBULATION of those days…they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven…And He will send His angels with a great sound of a TRUMPET, and they will GATHER TOGETHER HIS ELECT from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other…Then two men will be in the field: ONE WILL BE TAKEN AND THE OTHER LEFT…Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.
–MATTHEW 24:21-24, 29-31, 40, 42 (NKJV)–

The above passage is a revealed doctrine, based on a prophetic vision of future events; and it tells us the following things:

1. The Great Tribulation is the time when the Antichrist tries to deceive the elect.

2. After this, that is, POST-TRIBULATION, Jesus will return on the clouds.

3. After this, that is, POST-TRIBULATION, the angelic trumpet will blast.

4. After this, that is, POST-TRIBULATION, the gathering or rapture will happen.

5. The elect living in the time of the Antichrist won’t know the exact time of the rapture.

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St. Irenaeus, “The Fraud, Pride, and Tyrannical Kingdom of the Antichrist.” (180 A.D.). “They [the ten kings] shall…give their kingdom to the beast, and put the Church to flight…But he [John] indicates the number of the name [Antichrist, 666] now, that when this man comes we may avoid him, being aware who he is.”

St. Hippolytus of Rome, “On Christ and Antichrist.” (202 A.D.). “Concerning the tribulation of the persecution which is to fall upon the Church from the adversary…That refers to the one thousand two hundred and threescore days (the half of the week) during which the tyrant is to reign and persecute the Church.”

George Eldon Ladd, The Blessed Hope (Eerdmans, 1956). Shows that the early church fathers taught that there will be a post-tribulation rapture. The appearance of the Antichrist was the first aspect to be expected in the end-time process; and not a sudden and unexpected rapture like in the Left Behind films. The Omen films, as worldly as they are, come much closer to the Biblical and early church view of the last days.

Robert Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation (Zondervan, 1973).

Douglas Moo, “A Case for the Posttribulation Rapture,” Three Views on the Rapture (Zondervan, 2018).