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“IMHO that passage refers to Tribulation Saints”

Yes, but who are the “tribulation saints”? They are the final generation of church-age believers.

Whole books could be written to address this issue, and it is not possible to even outline all of the evidence for this in an FR thread. But I’ll give a few simple examples.

The signs of Christ’s coming and the End given in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25, Mark 13, and Luke 21) align with the Seal Judgments of Revelation 5-8. The first is a false peace accompanied by great deception (strong delusion, perhaps?). We know there is peace at first because the 2nd horseman (same as the second seal) is given the power to “take peace from the earth”. But if Daniel’s 70th week begins with peace, what does the “sudden destruction” refer to?

1 Thessalonians 5:1-4 NKJV
But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.

Christ’s second coming (same as the “Day of the Lord”) will be “like a thief”.

Revelation 16:15 NKJV
Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.

Matthew 24:42-44 NKJV
Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

The three points I will briefly underscore are these: 1) Daniel’s 70th week begins with peace, while the Day of the Lord begins with sudden destruction. 2) Peace is not God’s wrath, and neither is the persecution of believers. These both are part of the signs of Christ’s return that occur during Daniel’s 70th week. 3) The Great Tribulation begins at the abomination of desolation (where the Antichrist is revealed) and ends with a sudden cataclysmic event that involves a simultaneous solar and lunar eclipse. This same great sign is what marks the imminency of the Day of the Lord. It MUST come BEFORE the Day of the Lord but is AFTER the Great Tribulation.

Sudden destruction, as described above, clearly accompanies the rapture:

2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 NKJV
It is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.

Notice that this MUST be the rapture because it is when the Thessalonians can expect deliverance and rest from the tribulation (not wrath of God) they were already experiencing. But the same event is accompanied by fiery destruction poured out by angels on the earth.

Here are 4 passages describing the spectacular sign in the Heavens that signifies the Day of the Lord / Second Coming is about to happen:

Isaiah 13:6–13
Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand!
It will come as destruction from the Almighty.
Therefore all hands will be limp,
Every man’s heart will melt,
And they will be afraid.
Pangs and sorrows will take hold of them;
They will be in pain as a woman in childbirth;
They will be amazed at one another;
Their faces will be like flames.
Behold, the day of the Lord comes,
Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger,
To lay the land desolate;
And He will destroy its sinners from it.
For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not give their light;
The sun will be darkened in its going forth,
And the moon will not cause its light to shine.
I will punish the world for its evil,
And the wicked for their iniquity;
I will halt the arrogance of the proud,
And will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold,
A man more than the golden wedge of Ophir.
Therefore I will shake the heavens,
And the earth will move out of her place,
In the wrath of the Lord of hosts
And in the day of His fierce anger.

Joel 2:1, 31 NKJV
Blow the trumpet in Zion,
And sound an alarm in My holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble;
For the day of the Lord is coming,
For it is at hand…
The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.

Matthew 24:29-30 NKJV
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Revelation 6:12-17 NKJV
I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”