I noticed here ahwatukee (and at some of your other post) that you post verses that anybody can post but how do you know these verses support the pre-trib rapture? The question of this thread is "WHEN" and the poster posted a verse that said, "after the tribulation."
I believe that after posting the scripture I also include what the gathering of the church cannot be after the tribulation. The reason being that believers are not appointed to suffer God's coming wrath and that because Jesus already suffered God's wrath for sin our every believers behalf. Therefore, believers in Christ will not go through God's coming wrath.
And you and others keep saying the " gathering of the church vs. the Lord's return to the earth to end the age are two separate events with different purposes." How do you know that?
It's an issue of understanding the underlying principle. This error of making the gathering of the church as taking place when the Lord returns to the earth is based in-part on the fact that, before Jesus returns to the earth to end the age, God's wrath via the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments must take place. When we became believers in Christ, we were credited with righteousness and reconciled to God, i.e. brought back into a right relationship with Him. The seals, trumpets and bowls which are God's wrath, will affect every person on the earth. It would make no sense for Jesus and the apostles to tell us to always be watching and ready if believers in Christ were going to be on the earth right along with the wicked. In regards to this time of wrath Jesus promised the following:
"Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you out of the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth."
The "hour of trial" is another designation representing the time of God's wrath, which the Lord will keep believers out of.
Scripture states that Jesus is the One who will trample the winepress of the wrath of God Almighty. The seals, trumpets and bowls are that wrath. And since Jesus is the One who opens the seals, which lead to the trumpets and bowl judgments, then He will be responsible for all of the resulting fatalities. With just the accumulation of the first four seals and the 6th trumpet (a fourth and a third), this will equal over half the earths population killed within the first 3 1/2 years of that seven year period and that is not counting the fatalities that will result from trumpets 1, 2 and 3, nor the fatalities from the bowl judgments. By the time the Lord returns to the earth to end the age, the majority of the earths population will have been decimated, which is supported by the following:
"For then there will be great tribulation, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened."
So, according to the scripture above, if the time of God's wrath/tribulation was allowed to go on any longer than the set time, no one would be left alive on the earth. That's how bad it is going to be. People who say that the church is going to be on the earth during that time don't understand the severity of it, not the fact that we have been reconciled and are not appointed to suffer God's wrath.
In describing the details of the resurrection and the living being changed and caught up, Paul said to "comfort each other with those words." That said, if the church was to go through the wrath of God, there would be nothing to comfort each other about and that because believers would be going through the same plagues of wrath that the wicked would be going through. And we know that God does not punish the righteous with the wicked (see Lot and Noah). Also in writing to Titus, Paul called the gathering of the church/rapture the "blessed hope." If the church was to go through God's wrath, then it would be no blessed hope.
This all stems in-part from expositors who do not understand the full extent and severity of the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments, as well as our status with God. These people have us going through the same punishment as the wicked, even after we have been credited with righteousness and have been reconciled to God.
Others say that the church will be protected during that time and that is because they don't understand the severity of those plagues of wrath, else they wouldn't say that.
In further support that the church will be on the earth during the time of God's wrath, throughout chapters 1 thru 3 in Revelation the word ekklesia translated as church is used 19 times. Then after that the word is never used again, except in Rev.19:6-8 where the church is alluded to as being the bride and in Rev.22:16 at the epilog. The fact is that the church is never mentioned within the narrative of God's wrath and that because it is no longer on the earth during that time. The word which appears after is hagios translated as Saints, which is referring to the great tribulation saints.
When the disciples ask Jesus when will the end of the age/world be, Jesus outlined certain events and all I see Jesus and others saying is there is only one second coming which is a single event. Not some made up second stage called the rapture that comes before the one and only second coming.
IN GOD THE SON,
bluto
Jesus was talking about the end of the age and those who would be on the earth at that time, not the church. It's not a made up second stage, but a completely different event. It is just a matter of taking all the other scriptures into account in order to come to a right conclusion. And the belief that the Lord is going to send His reconciled bride through His wrath is not a right conclusion. God's wrath upon Jesus was enough, satisfying it completely.
God does not punish the righteous with the wicked.
I challenge you to do a close study of the seals, trumpets and bowl judgments and to consider what believers have inherited by believing in Christ. God's coming wrath is not something that believers will experience.