What does Matthew 24 show about the Rapture and the Second Coming?
Matthew 24 serves as the prime example that end-time prophecy refers to the Second Coming, not the Rapture. The Rapture—the church caught up to meet the Lord in the air—is a secret revealed only to the Apostle Paul. Matthew 24 instead points to Christ standing on the Mount of Olives.
Les teaches that the Rapture and the Second Coming are graphically different. In the Rapture, those alive and remaining are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and then the final seven years, or tribulation, begins. That tribulation ends with the Second Coming of Christ, when He stands with His feet on the Mount of Olives. Matthew 24 is the prime example showing that everything the Old Testament, Jesus, and the Gospel accounts refer to in Christ’s coming is never the Rapture of the Church, the meeting in the air. That was a secret revealed by and to the Apostle Paul. All other references to end-time events are directed to the Second Coming, when He will come and stand in that day on the Mount of Olives.