Unfortunatley, those verses that you provide in support of the pre-trib rapture acutally negate it once you take into consideration the context in which they appear. The most dangerous thing we as Christians do is pull verses out of context to support our pet doctrines without due consideration of the overall context in which they appear.
For instance, there is Matthew 24:38-41:
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two [women shall be] grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. – Matthew 24:38-41
The context these verses appears in is ALL of Matthew 24 and 25. To understand the full implication of what Jesus is saying here, one must understand all that which comes before: Matthew 24:1-37. It's too long of a passage to quote in full, but it blatantly contradicts the pre-trib ratpure doctrine. Here are they main points Jesus makes BEFORE bringing up Noah and the flood:
1. The temple will be destroyed (24:1-2)
1. There will be many false Christs appearing (24:3-5)
2. There will be many more wars (24:6-8)
3. There will be persecution unto death (24:9)
4. Believers will fall away from the faith (24:10)
5. False prophets will arise to mislead people (24:11)
6. Love will be an increasingly rare thing (24:12)
7. The gospel must be preached to the whole world (24:13-14)
8. The antichrist will be revealed (24:15)
9. There will be great tribulation against believers('the elect'); so bad that if it were not put to an end, no one would survive the persecution! (24:16-22)
10. False Christs will be everywhere, and they will have miraculous powers! (24:24-28)
11. The literal, physical, visible return of Christ occurs (24:29-30)
12. The rapture takes place --the only mention of a rapture up to this point! (24:31)
13. Jesus warns his listeners that all these events must take place, just as he described them. And they must happen before His return (24:32-35)
14. Jesus warns that no one knows when these events will take place, except for the Father (24:36)
15. Jesus warns that His coming (and the circumstances, events surrounding his coming), will be similar to that of the days of Noah (24:36)
Now that we see the 'big picture' of what Jesus is talking about, we see that Jesus does not bring up The Rapture until after a whole bunch of other stuff happens first, including the revealing of the antichrist, the great tribulation against believers, and his own physical, visibile return to earth. There is no possible way you can interpret this passage and come up with a pre-trib rapture, not unless you wish to make Jesus a liar. Yes, it is literally that serious of a matter.
However, there are more than a few "prophets" that are making Jesus out to be a liar, and telling us the rapture will take place before the great tribulation, and everything else besides! (Or that there will be more than one rapture...) But they don't have a biblical leg to stand on; and as a matter of fact, the Bible clearly and consistently contradicts this position at every turn.
As for Noah, did he know 'the end' was coming? Yes. Did he prepare for 'the end?' Yes. Did he get 'raptured' before the floods came? No! Did Noah get 'raptured' (via the ark) at the exact same time that the floods came to destroy evil? Yes! Did the wicked people alive during Noah's time expect the floods to come and wipe them out? No!
So the point of bringing up Noah's story is to show that there will be people who are wise like Noah that will be prepared for the end; and there will be fools, like the evil people alive during the time of Noah, who aren't going to know what hit them. It is those kind of people Jesus is refering to when he speaks about coming 'like a thief.'
How do we know that Christians will be aware of Christ's coming, while evil people will be living 'high on the hog,' not knowing their destruction is near? Because Jesus has warned us AHEAD OF TIME about those events that WILL PROCEED his coming and the subsequent rapture. As Jesus says himself: "See, I have told you ahead of time." (Mt 24:25)
But not only does Jesus warn us, so does Paul:
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
1 Thes 5:1-5
Paul is paraphrasing Jesus in his letter to the Thessalonians; his warning is the same as that of Jesus (as you correctly point out). The suddeness of Christ's return will ONLY be a surprise to the unbelievers, not the believers, who will be expecting his return because they are watching for the signs Jesus himself gave us. It will be just as the flood was only was a surprise to the wicked people God determined to wipe out, not to Noah and his family; they were prepared.
Jesus does not give us a date, BUT he does give us signs to watch for. He does not want his return to be a complete surprise to believers, rather he wants us to be expecting it, and to be prepared for it.
In the doctrine of the pre-trib rapture, there is nothing to watch and wait for, as there will be no visible, physical return of Jesus before the rapture, no great tribulation, no antichrist setting up his world dominion. The pre-trib doctine is a blatant contradiction of what Jesus himself tells us. Wherever the idea for a pre-trib rapture came from, it wasn't the Bible, and certainly not Jesus.
Alamo-Girl, I realize that the pre-trib rapture is taken as gospel truth by 90 to 95% of evangelical Christians, but they believe it because that is what they are taught to believe. Competing viewpoints surrounding the end-times are either ignored, or falsly shown to be lacking in some way. People like Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsay are especially guilty on these points.
My intention is not to further the pre, mid, post tribulation debate, but to end it. We all have access to the same Word of Truth, we all have access to the tools we need to interpret and understand it correctly. If we are being taught something that contradicts the Word of God, no matter how many other believe it, we need to discard it.
Here is a challenge for you Alamo-Girl, and for anyone else who cares to try: show me, using nothing more than the Bible, a passage from scripture that clearly shows a rapture occuring before the revealing of the antichrist, the great tribulation, and Jesus' physical, visible return to earth. I've shown you two passages; 2 Thessalonians 2 and Matthew 24; where the rapture does not happen until after all the events of the end-times takes place first. There are many more passages I can give you that demonstrate this exact same chain of events. There will be no rapture until the very end.
If you wish to believe the pre-trib rapture, do it because it is the truth of God's Word, not because it is the deceptive teachings of know-nothing teachers of the end-times, who are more interested in making a fast buck then leading the church into all truth. (Yes, I'm speaking directly of LaHaye and Lindsay, both who've profited handsomely from their "teachings" -- Tyndale House Publishers has a brand-spanking new, state-of-the-art printing plant in operation thanks to all the revenue from the "Left Behind" books.)
A proper understanding of end-times events, as described by the BIBLE, is of critical importance at this time. We are certainly getting closer to the end, not further from it! There's good reason why so many of us feel that Jesus will come back during our lifetimes. But even if he doesn't, we need to make sure the subsequent generations are armed with the Word of Truth, and not some goofey teachings based on self-preservation.
What's going to happen to all those who've put their faith in the pre-trib rapture, only to see the antichrist come to power and the greatest persecution in the history of planet earth take place??? Will they be willing to die for the sake of the gospel after they've been lied to by their own shepherds? I doubt it. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Those who are expecting to see all that Jesus describes will be in a good place, even if they are ulitmately martyred for their stand. They believed in the warnings, and understood that they applied to them. They will be prepared to sacrifice their lives for their faith.
As John clearly states in Revelation:
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.----------------------------Revelation 6:9-11 NIV
After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:----------------------------“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying:
“Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”
Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”
I answered, “Sir, you know.”
And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
NOTE: They "came out" of the great tribulation through maryrtdom, not ratpure...]
Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Revelation 7:9-17 NIV
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:----------------------------“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
Revelation 12:10-11 NIV
Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead:----------------------------MYSTERY
BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.
Revelation 17:3-6 NIV
I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge.And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God.
They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands.
They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Revelation 20:4 NIV
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, - 1 Thessalonians 5:9
It begins:
3 the disciples ask what are the signs of His coming.
6-8 wars and rumors of wars, but it is just the beginning.
9 all the nations will hate Christians
10 believers will fall away
11 there will be false prophets
12 love will be a rare thing
13 he that endures to the end will be saved
14 the gospel will be preached everywhere and “then shall the end come”
15-20 when you see the abomination of desolution, flee
21-22 for “then shall be the great tribulation
23-28 then is when there will be false prophets and false Christs everywhere with great power
29-30 then Christ appears in power, visibly as He left
31 – the elect are gathered “from one end of heaven to the other”
35-36 that His words are true though only the Father knows the exact date and time