I believe in a post trib rapture. I do not see any strong evidence (though I do see wishful thinking) in the bible regarding a pre tribulation rapture. The early church was not spared martyrdom, nor have other Christians over the course of the centuries. Why should we be any different? God never promises us an easy path - in fact, He assures us that our path will be narrow and hard to follow.
Matthew 24 seems pretty clear chronologically, regarding the end times - much more clear than Revelations. When speculating on these things, the clearest passages should be our default, in my opinion.
Matthew 24
Signs of the End of the Age
1Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings.
2"Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."
3As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
4Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you.
5For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,[
a]' and will deceive many.
6You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,
11and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
12Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,
13but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15"So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,'[
b] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—
16then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
17Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house.
18Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak.
19How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.
21For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. 22If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. 23At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it.
24For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive
even the elect—if that were possible.
25See, I have told you ahead of time.
26"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it.
27For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
28Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
29"Immediately
after the distress of those days
" 'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'[
c]
30"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.
31And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.
33Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it[d]is near, right at the door. 34I tell you the truth, this generation[
e] will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
The Day and Hour Unknown
36"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[
f] but only the Father.
37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;
39and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
40Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.
41Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
43But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
44So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
45"Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time?
46It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.
47I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
48But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, 'My master is staying away a long time,'
49and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.
50The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.
51He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Sounds to me like we'll be around till the end.
The whole concept of a pre-tribulation rapture didn't even get any serious "play" till the 1800s, "when 15-year-old Margaret Macdonald, a "prophetess" of the newly arising Pentecostal movement in Scotland, uttered a vision that stated that Christians were to be raptured just prior to the Great Tribulation.
This event surely causes many, especially the Pentecostals of our own day, to give pause. Surely if something was spoken by a "word from the Lord," one cannot take it lightly, they reason. Yet these same people would have to take the words of
Jesus and Paul lightly, to believe Margaret. One sadly lacking gift in the explosion of charisma over the years has been the gift of
discernment, whereby utterances should, yea must, be challenged and compared to what God has already said. And when it is discerned that deception is at hand, a further discernment is needed, namely the
identification of the spirit coming forth into the meeting and the subsequent repudiation of it along with the teaching it promotes. One doesn't
see this too often. It seems Margaret was not challenged then and is not now.
Within a year or two afterwards, Presbyterian pastor Edward Irving, of "Irvingite" fame in London (The Catholic Apostolic Church), heard about this dream, developed it theologically, and began teaching the pre-tribulation rapture to his congregation. By the time dispensationalist Darby got hold of it, it was already circulating fairly well. But Darby we will talk about another time.
For now, the point is made, I think, that the idea that Christ will catch away His bride before trouble breaks out planet-wide, then come back in 7 years to set up His Kingdom, having left "tribulation saints" behind to be punished for their lackadaisical ways... historically, it's just not there."
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Scant-History-Of-The-Pre-Tribulation-Rapture-Theory&id=981727
"Whenever a Christian encounters a doctrine that has not been taught by anyone in any branch of Christ’s church for over eighteen centuries, one should be very suspect of that teaching. This fact in and of itself does not prove that the new teaching is false. But, it should definitely raise one’s suspicions, for if something is taught in Scripture, it is not unreasonable to expect at least a few theologians and exegetes to have discovered it before."
http://www.reformedonline.com/view/reformedonline/rapture.htm
