Can any serious student of the Bible maintain that the Thessalonian saints were promised deliverance by being carried to Heaven? No, this is not a possible interpretation unless we cannot read the English language.

Were the suffering Thessalonians delivered by a "rapture?"

No, they were not.

Were they delivered, was Paul delivered, by the appearing of Christ and His powerful angels? No, they were not. However this passage leads me to believe that Paul thought the Lord was coming in his lifetime.

But the persecuted saints who are alive on earth when the Lord appears will be delivered from the Antichrist world when the Thessalonians saints and Paul descend from Heaven, receive their bodies back from the ground, and then along with the living saints ascend to meet the Lord in the air.

Then the two armies of saints and angels will descend and destroy from the earth all who would harm God's people.

This is the only end-time deliverance from the wickedness of the world that the Bible mentions. There absolutely is no support whatever for the unscriptural teaching that an invisible Christ will come and catch up the believers prior to His biblical appearing. The doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture of the saints simply cannot be found in the first chapter of Second Thessalonians—or anywhere else in the Scriptures for that matter. It is contrary to one of the principal concepts of the entire Bible, which is the coming of the Lord with His saints to establish His Kingdom on the earth.

I said earlier we would look at some of the passages that speak of the coming of the army of judges, and then of the required change in the Christian religion as we practice it today.

The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. (Revelation 19:14—NIV)

The fine linen, white and clean, is the righteous acts of the saints (Revelation 19:8). Because of the current false teaching in the Christian churches, the believers do not practice righteousness. As the Spirit of God moves today to prepare the army of judges, the great emphasis is on righteous behavior. Imputed righteousness, that which we are given when we first receive the Lord Jesus as our Lord and Savior, is intended to serve while we learn from the Spirit of God how to behave righteously.

When we attempt to use imputed righteousness as a permanent way of relating to God, we are endeavoring to change the grace of God into an excuse for immorality, as Jude says.

The army of saints is sometimes associated with horses, when the Old Testament describes the Day of the Lord, just as we see in Revelation (above).

Were you angry with the rivers, O LORD? Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode with your horses and your victorious chariots? (Habakkuk 3:8—NIV)

They have the appearance of horses; they gallop along like cavalry. (Joel 2:4—NIV)

To be continued.