[unlearner]

“I still think Christians need to be watching and expecting His Return”

True.

However, the (Biblical) idea of watching for Christ’s return is antithetical to the (unbiblical) idea of a sudden, signless rapture. That is, the “at any moment” (so-called “imminency”) rapture teaching contradicts the Biblical command to watch.

The false argument in the linked video is that “waiting” for Christ’s return is somehow incompatible with looking for specific prophetic events that must occur before the rapture. This can easily be demonstrated to be false. It is like saying that a child is watching and waiting for her daddy to come home from work, but she is not watching and waiting for the sun to go down or the sound of her father’s car entering the driveway. (This is the same illustration that the video uses.)

The argument goes something along the lines of we are waiting for Jesus not the anti-Christ. The problem here is that waiting entails going through things that are different from the rapture. In other words, of course the anti-Christ arriving is not what we are waiting for, it is one of the things we are waiting through. Big difference. Otherwise, it is not really waiting or enduring anything.

We cannot watch for an event that transpires instantly and is not preceded by signs to tell us that the event is about to happen. (We can wait for His return, but we would not be able watch for it without signs.) We also cannot “see the day approaching” if it is not preceded by signs.

There are specific signs of Christ’s return, and these signs will tell us that His return has become imminent. His return is now certain but not yet imminent. The specific signs Jesus gave us have not happened yet.

The idea that Jesus could come back in the lifetime of any believer (including Paul) is not the same as Him potentially coming back at any moment without any preceding signs.

The video also asserts that Revelation (3:10) describes being delivered from the great tribulation, but this does not necessarily mean being taken out of the world because Christ used the same language in John:

John 17:15 (NKJV)
I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep (teresa) them from the evil one.

God can and will “keep” believers during the Great Tribulation, but He may do so without taking us out of this world. Thus, He will keep us THROUGH the Great Tribulation.

[metmom]

1 Thessalonians 5:1-10 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.

The Tribulation if God's judgment on an unbelieving world and to redeem Israel.

We do not qualify in either of those cases and there's ample evidence in Revelation that we are in heaven at our wedding feast and then will return with Christ when He comes back the second time. That army that He comes back with has to have been with Him to return with Him and that can't happen if we're still here on earth.

Nor is it our job to witness during the Tribulation. God has that job for the 144,000 Jewish witnesses from the twelve tribes of Israel.