then why did Paul admonish us to prepare for His coming instead of prepare for 7 years of torment before His coming?
But I will ask you, why did Jesus go to all of the trouble to tell the disciples what was coming in Matthew 24, not mention "the rapture" and then states "immediately AFTER the tribulation of those days". Who are the angels gathering? Who are the "elect"? Regarding the "elect", get a concordance and look up every NT use of the word, you will be surprised who it refers to! Don't take someone elses word for it, look it up yourself!
Regarding Paul, why did he say our "gathering" would happen after the great falling away and the "man of sin be revealed"? (1 Thess 2:1-3). Incidently, Jesus and Paul, when talking of the timing of these events (same passages) warned us to "Take heed that no man deceive you" and "Let no man deceive you by any means"? Be a Berean, read it for yourself, without the "interpretive" lenses of someone else's charts, books, or timelines. Plain as day. I once believed the Pre-trib stuff as well, but could never honestly reconcile the pain teaching of scripture with that theory. Everywhere I looked, the scripture plainly teaches the opposite!