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You are welcome, and you are not alone. I find many, many, many Christians in the exact same predicament; I used to be one, myself.

I grew up reading Hal Lindsey’s “Late, Great Planet Earth” and consuming all kinds of pre-trib rapture films and arguments. Then, one day, a very close Christian brother said to me, “Hey, let’s set aside what we’ve been told, and explore all of these apocalyptic scriptural passages verbatim, and find out whether they actually say what we’ve been told that they say.”

That started a sea change of scriptural truth, one example of which was the bit that I shared with you. It really was like reading with new eyes, and the chain reaction of revelation straight from the text, without third-party commentary, was sufficient to undercut all that I’d been told about the timing of the rapture and the Second Coming of Christ.

That process began a few years ago, and, at this point, this is what I know:

There is ONE “Great Tribulation,” and it is yet to come.
There is ONE “Day of the LORD,” and it is yet to come.
There will be ONE “Last Trumpet”: The Seventh Trumpet of Revelation 11, not any other.
There will be ONE Second Coming of Jesus, not any other.
There will be ONE resurrection of the dead “at the last trumpet,” not any other.
There will be ONE rapture of the saints “who are alive and remain,” immediately after the resurrection of the dead, not any other.

This is what St. Paul taught in 2 Thessalonians 2:
This “Day of The LORD” will be preceded by two events, in the following order:
There will be a great apostasy, and then “the man of sin” or “of lawlessness” will be revealed.

Jesus taught two significant preconditions for his own return:
1) In Matthew 23:39 Jesus predicated his appearing upon the Jews’ acceptance of him as Messiah. He plainly spoke over the city of Jerusalem, “You will not see me again until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’” Reference what Paul wrote in Romans 9 - 11 as he clarified the outworking of The Promise among the Jews with respect Jesus, their yet-to-be-recognized Messiah.

2) In Matthew 24:14 Jesus told us that “the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony, and then the end will come.” “The end” culminates with the second coming of Jesus.

[I have recently heard testimony from leaders of the foremost missionary organizations in the world stating that this precondition — the spread of the gospel to every race, kingdom, tribe and tongue — will be completed in the next 15 years. These are EXCITING times to be alive. Watch, therefore, and pray.]

I used to believe that all of these pieces fit together differently from the plain-language manner in which they are presented in the Bible. Now, all of those old contrivances lie in ruins; done in by the Word of God.

I leave you with this:

Perhaps the most important sign that Jesus consistently gave us regarding His appearing is that, when it’s REALLY HIM, He will come with clouds.
30 “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.”
— Matthew 24:30

64 Jesus said to [Caiaphas], “ You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.”
— Matthew 26:64

24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT,
25 AND THE STARS WILL BE FALLING from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken.
26 “Then they will see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN CLOUDS with great power and glory.
— Mark 13:24-26

62 And Jesus said [to Caiaphas], “I am; and you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.”
— Mark 14:62

25 “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves,
26 men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
27 “Then they will see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN A CLOUD with power and great glory.
— Luke 21:25-27

Jesus’ testimony about his Second Coming was confirmed by angels at His ascension into Heaven:
9 And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them.
11 They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”
— Acts 1:9-11

St. Paul, in his first epistle to the Thessalonians teaches:
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
— I Thessalonians 4:15-17

And how shall be “be caught up together with them in the clouds” unless He comes with clouds?

In this same way, Jesus’ Second Coming was revealed to John on the isle of Patmos, and he wrote, saying
7 BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.
Revelation 1:7

Even the Old Testament prophets saw this:
2 “Son of man, prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,
“Wail, ‘Alas for the day!’
3 “For the day is near,
Even the day of the LORD is near;
It will be a day of clouds,
A time of doom for the nations.
— Ezekiel 30:3

13 “I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days, and was presented before Him.
— Daniel 7:13

1 Blow a trumpet in Zion,
And sound an alarm on My holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
For the Day of the LORD is coming;
Surely it is near,
2 A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness...
— Joel 2:1-2a

14 Near is the great day of the LORD,
Near and coming very quickly;
Listen, the day of the LORD!
In it the warrior cries out bitterly.
15 A day of wrath is that day,
A day of trouble and distress,
A day of destruction and desolation,
A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness...
— Zephaniah 1:14-15a

I go to such great length to emphasize Jesus’ appearing WITH CLOUDS for one reason: there are yet to come false Christs, the most deadly of whom will be The Antichrist — the Man of Lawlessness — himself. NONE of these false ones will “come with clouds” in the way that Jesus will, such that every eye will see him, and the nations of the Earth shall mourn.

See, you have been told ahead of time, that you be not deceived.
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All scripture references from the NASB, Copyright The Lockman Foundation: http://www.lockman.org/