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"Someone who is a genuine believer never takes sin lightly and would always want to live a life so that whatever happens, rapture or death, we are as ready as possible to stand before Christ."

This is true, but the issue is that of being "shaken in mind, or be troubled" by great persecutions because they were told that they would escape this, as if the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, by our gathering together unto him = the day of Christ (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:2) would occur before the manifest revelation of the Man of Sin "Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." (2 Thessalonians 2:4)

Sincere believers in the word of God who were wrong about the Rapture can be shaken in mind, and feel that they were lied to and be more easily seduced to fall away. Though there is no real excuse for this, Hymenaeus and Philetus erred in "saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some" (2 Timothy 2:18) which was not good.

I remember reading that before the Boxer rebellion in China many Christians were told that there would be no great persecution until the Lord came, and when the vicious Boxer rebellion came the faith of many simple Christians (who likely had little knowledge of Scripture and depended upon oral teaching) fell away. In contrast, if the pre-Trib rapture does occur then those of faith who were prepared to endure much persecution will be graciously delivered from it in faith.

Daniel, the issue is not persecution coming, it is that Jesus Promised to keep His born agains from 'the hour'. When the Lamb opens the first seal the antiChrist is no longer restrained. He is the man of sin, so if the Christians are still on earth when the man of sin is released then God did not keep His from the presence of sin, the presence of the man of sin. Yet that keeping from the hour is what Jesus told John to write to one of the churches.

Think about it, the removal from the hour coming IS The Blessed Hope.

Jesus never taught we wouldn’t be persecuted.

Pre-trib rapture does not preclude persecution which beleivers of all ages face.

I believe that God is going to physically remove His true church before the Great Tribulation just as He’s delivered other believers from widespread judgment of unbelievers in the past, like Noah and the Flood, Israel and the Egyptians, and Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah.

However, He NEVER said that we wouldn’t face persecution nor did He give us any indication of how bad things would get before the rapture and Great Tribulation.

So the problem people had with falling away wasn’t because the rapture was taught but because of conflating the Tribulation with general persecution.