Hey CS1! Peter says after Jesus comes as a thief in the night ("rapture"), the Earth is pretty much gonna look like someone detonated a couple bazillion nukes. God's going to protect us during the tribulation as He's both promised and demonstrated His ability to do so. Well, since the "context" is the actions of "left behind" heathens, its an apt description of what might happen in the Jesuit Futurist fantasy of a "seven year tribulation". Are you saying Jesus comes TWO TIMES as a thief? Please tell me you are not.
Negatory. The saints are going to be protected through the tribulation, just like Noah in the Ark, Israel in Goshen, Daniel in the Lion's Den, the Hebrews in the Furnace (I could keep going...) For someone who constantly reminds people of the "context", you've dropped the ball here, brother
The context of "wherefore, comfort one another with these words" has to do with verse 13 regarding the bereaved, heartbroken Thessalonian saints whose loved ones have "fallen asleep" -
it's not advice on how the saints are to cope when we go through the tribulation because such advice is unnecessary...we are promised that we'll only behold the terror, not suffer it. Paul is telling the bereaved Thessalonians to take comfort in the promise of the Resurrection of their loved ones (so, why do so many preachers comfort the bereaved at funerals with vain words like "Oh, he's walking the streets of gold..she's singing in the angelic choir..."?) Is not Psalm 91 an apocalyptic Psalm depicting the tribulation and
does it not promise that we will be kept from the terror? Does not Matthew 24 speak of the same things the Psalmist here does like "pestilence" and "terror" and "arrows" (warfare) and "destruction" and "plagues" (like the "Seven Last Plagues") and 'deliverance" and the "reward of the wicked" which is, of course, at the end? The promise is that we will only behold the tribulation, not suffer it. Besides,
Jesus prayed the opposite of what you teach: "I pray
not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil" just like He kept Noah, Israel in Goshen, Israel in the Red Sea, Daniel, the Three Hebrews, Elisha in Dothan, the disciples on the raging Galilean Sea, etc., etc.