What must happen before the tribulation can begin?
Before the tribulation can begin, there must first be the departure—the sudden removal from this place to the other—and the man of sin, the Antichrist, must be revealed, called the son of perdition. The text states the tribulation cannot start until this departure occurs.
Les explains that the word departure means either departing from another person, to go away, or departing from one place to another. He emphasizes this makes all the difference in the text: the tribulation cannot begin until there is the departure. He expects we may live to see the day, getting closer and faster, when we will suddenly be gone from this place to the other. Then, as the text goes on, the man of sin, another title for the Antichrist, must be revealed, called the son of perdition. Les casually notes that Judas Iscariot was also called the son of perdition, and Revelation speaks of the Antichrist as the son of perdition who also came from his own place. He says there are many Scriptural analogies, and perhaps we will have the one instance of a reincarnation.