If our understanding is correct, the teaching that there will be a seven year period, or a three-and one-half year period, after the saints leave and before the world system is destroyed, is not scriptural.

As soon as the saints are gathered together to meet the Lord in the air, the wrath of God will be poured out on the world. Christ will destroy Antichrist and his followers by the fiery glory of His appearing. The Lord's coming will immediately bring to an end the persecution of the elect (II Thessalonians 1:7,8), not by removing them from the earth but by destroying the works of Satan. The saints will not assemble in the air in order to escape persecution from Antichrist, or so they will not suffer tribulation (remember, they are in glorified bodies), but in order to work with the Lord in bringing judgment on the wicked (compare Psalms 149:6-9; I Corinthians 6:2,3).

From the day that Cain murdered Abel the righteous have suffered afflictions and tribulation. From the time of the flood of Noah until now there have been periods when the Divine wrath has fallen on the sinners of the world and also on the sinners among the Lord's own people.

The fiery wrath that will fall on Antichrist and his followers, including the professors of Christianity who have become part of the world system, will be as the judgment on the civilization in which Noah testified and as the judgment on the prosperous agricultural cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. It will be totally destructive. There will be no chance of escape from it.

The "escape" will take place before the Divine wrath begins to fall from Heaven. Men and women, boys and girls, right up to the moment that Christ appears, can choose to flee from the world system and to seek refuge in the name and blood of Christ.

During the various tribulations that are yet to fall on mankind there will be places of refuge. There will be saints who possess the authority and power to provide deliverance and covering in the name of Christ. Such "cities of refuge" will be available on the earth until the Lord returns—even through the darkest part of the reign of Antichrist.

Also, some of the peoples of the earth will assist and protect the saints (compare Revelation 12:16).

And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain. (Isaiah 4:5,6)

Notice, in the following passage, what will be true at the hour of the Lord's coming:

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call. (Joel 2:31,32)

To be continued.