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First, sincere thanks to all of you for the overwhelming response to my question. It was not meant to start a pre-trib/post-trib/no-rapture debate, but since it did I've now bookmarked this thread as a reference source to use later.

Next, let me say that I'm a born-again Christian who does believe in a Rapture and I lean toward the pre-trib argument myself. In any event, the main thing for me personally is the fact that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and when He's ready for me to join Him, I will. :)

Now the reason for the question: remember, this is a novel I'm writing. I was writing this afternoon when I got to a point where an atheist was asking some questions of a couple of pre-tribbers. This particular exchange is gonna be pretty brief and I was looking for the one verse that a pre-tribber would be most likely to start with as they explain their position. I couldn't find the verse that I had in mind and thought to myself, "I bet someone on FR knows which verse I'm thinking of!" Thus, here we are.

This information in the book will be coming from Christian characters espousing their opinions, not as authoritative commentary on the Word of God which I'm not qualified to render. Nonetheless, I do plan to be very careful about how those opinions are presented.

I just needed the one verse for this particular point in the book, but the subject will be re-visited in more detail later and you've all managed to provide me with a trove of material to consider at that point. Again, thank you!

One more thing: I meant to tell you about a GREAT Bible program that's the best I've seen. You can download a 30-day trial at this site and if you decide to keep it it's only $20ish. The one you want is the Audio Plus Bible Study. I rarely use the audio features, but this is still the top of the line package. You can download a plethora of different versions of the Bible, commentaries and study guides, etc., as plugins. I have no affiliation whatsoever with the site; it's just great software that was done as a labor of love and costs a tiny fraction of what I've seen commercial packages go for. I think you'll love it, but you're welcome to flame me if you don't. ;-)