When God removes the Holy Spirit as He is functioning during the Church Age, birthing believers from above and placing His spark of God Life in them, we would not be delivered from the hour of testing if we no longer have the Holy Spirit of Promise with us, would we! The solution to that apparent dilemma is that when He is taken from His current ministry to built up the body of believers under pure Grace of God in Christ, when the Jews are the evangelizers during the Tribulation we will be outta here.
Michael did confront Satan directly when they contended over the body of Moses(proving that Moses did die as some Christians mistakenly think he was taken up alive to be one of the two witnesses later...the Bible says he was buried in one of the valleys in the land of Moab). Michael just didn’t judge Satan ...from Jude:”9But even the archangel Michael, when he disputed with the devil over the body of Moses, did not presume to bring a slanderous judgment against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
Now the verse in context>Jude 1:4For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into licentiousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
5I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
6And the angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
7Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after unnatural lust, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise authority, and speak evil of the glorious ones.
9Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil as he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke you.
10But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
The angels of God do confront those of Satan and even Satan himself....they just don’t judge them for that is up to God himself. That is why I have questioned the ID of the “restrainer”. It might be the Holy Spirit directly, it might be a special angel or entity set up specifically to keep the entrance of the Beast in Check or it could be just the Church with the influence of the Holy Spirit that keeps the Beast in check. As for the Holy Spirit, he existed in the hearts and lives of believers even before God loosed him to be extant upon the earth....even if God should take him off the Earth, he would still exist in the hearts of the believing to empower and strengthen them as he did with Christ and the prophets of old.
The other scriptures that speak of end times issues and what happens to believers specifically don’t all dovetail nicely with the Pre-trib doctrines and Revelation seems to point of a time of severe testing for latter day believers, even to the point of being dominated by the Beast system for a time. Yes they could be believers who came to faith after the “big lift off” as it were but there seems to be a lot of teasing of needed scriptures to get to that point of belief.
I think as Christians, we need to be prepared that events may not go in the way we “always” expected them to go so that we don’t despair when we are tempted(and I use that word in its most active demonic meaning) to feel that God may have abandoned us or worse that we have believed in a lie.(that will be the greatest danger and it may be the ultimate point of the testing of many a person’s faith) God will not abandon us or his children no matter what scenario emerges! If the big “lift off” occurs as pretribbers expect...well wonderful and we’ll all certainly be rooting and praying for those who come to faith during the final 7 years!
The great apostacy has begun I believe but the great delusion has not yet been laid down(that they should believe a lie). Should the Son of Perdition be revealed before the rapture we should still not be disheartened but rather we should draw together closer in unity. Christ will be opening the seals and we will receive wisdom and grace, we will be instructed as to how to live and survive...we will not be alone! Revelation says that God will put his seal on his believers so that they don’t receive the same punishments as those who took the Beast’s mark. (Obviously the great delusion doesn’t effect everyone lest there be no one saved at all during the tribulation)
To sum up...Pre-trib rapture happens...great! If the rapture tarries for a time until after the rise of the Beast...then be as Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednigo who declared when facing the firey furnace” God is able to deliver us but even if he doesn’t we will still not bow down to the king’s image”!