Is there anything in this passage that indicates that Jesus comes and receives His church BEFORE the tribulation? Is there any indication here that there are two 'coming of the Lord' type events, and that the church goes up in the event?
The Lord is preparing a place for the church. After the rapture we shall 'ever be with the Lord.' Thessalonians and Revelation do not mention the Lord going to heaven after the second coming, and neither mention a pretribulational rapture at all.
But if you do insist that when the Lord returns, he first takes the church to heaven in physical bodies, how is that any kind of evidence for a pretrib rapture? Why couldn't the Lord take the church all the way up to heaven at the second coming and then come back for the millinneal reign? There is no evidence for two return of Christ in the scriptures. It just isn't mentioned.
The coming of the Lord is referred to as the coming of the Lord. Pretribbers assume there are two separate events, but there is no Biblical justification for this assumption.
In Matthew 24, the coming of the Son of Man is clearly set 'after the tribulation' which is called 'great tribulation.' It shall be like the days of Noah at the coming of the Son of Man. One shall be taken and the other left....when.... seven years before the coming of the Son of Man? No, this is also about the coming of the Son of Man. What event should Jesus' disciples be waiting for, as if for a theif coming in the night? The come of the Son of Man. This is post-trib event according to the passage.
The reason pre-tribbers have to take post-trib verses clearly set after the tribulation to apply to the pre-trib rapture is because there are no pretrib passages. There is no passage that says that Jesus comes back before the great tribulation, or that a rapture will take place before the great tribulation. There are passages that refer to the coming of the Lord, and a plain sense approach treats those passages as referring to the same time frame.
When you read one verse about Judas Iscariot, and then another, you don't say, "This verse is about Judas Iscariot Johnson, and that other verse is about Judas Iscariot Smith. These are two men." Why not? Because the Bible speaks about Judas Iscariot and doesn't give us any reason to think there is more than one of them in the Bible. It's the same thing with the coming of the Lord. We have no reason to think there are two comings of the Lord referred to in Paul's or Revelation, and so there is no reason to say that the rapture happens at this coming of the Lord and this other stuff happens at the other coming of the Lord. There is no evidence for multiple events.
1 Thessalonians 4:17
“Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
Being caught up is Scripture. Post-trib error dictates that we stay down here for an Earth-based wedding. Your dog doesn't hunt. A place is being prepared in Heaven.
You have in your mind that the wedding must take place in heaven. Where does the Bible say that?
If the wedding is in heaven, why would that be any kind of evidence for a pretrib rapture?