[Boogieman]

“There are 3 things (if you can bring more ideas to the table, I’m all ears!) that could be considered to be “holding back” the anti-christ from being revealed.”

Well, here is the problem that I have with this line of thinking: it’s unverifiable, and therefore, any conclusions you draw from it must be tentative ones.

The Bible simply doesn’t tell us what will be taken away before the anti-Christ is removed. We can speculate, and make deductions, and perhaps even guess correctly, but without seeing the prophecy fulfilled (or some further divine revelation), we will never have a certainty that we are correct. So, knowing that, I think we shouldn’t make statements like this:

“Anti-Christ will not be revealed until the church has been removed and is no longer stopping the evil.”

After all, that statement expresses a certainty which we just don’t have. Then, if you are trying to use such uncertain ideas to support other deductions and extrapolations (the pretribulation rapture), you are on even shakier ground.

Now, I wouldn’t be so much of a stickler on this if the pretrib rapture folks would just say “we think the rapture might happen before the tribulation, because we make the following deductions...”. Yet, you don’t often hear them say things like that. Most of the time, their statements are much more final and certain, as if their interpretation is based only on Scripture, and not on their own fallible interpretations of it.

[CynicalBear]

Do think God has appointed His people to wrath?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3209503/posts?page=96#96

[Lee N. Field]

Now, I wouldn’t be so much of a stickler on this if the pretrib rapture folks would just say “we think the rapture might happen before the tribulation, because we make the following deductions...”. Yet, you don’t often hear them say things like that. Most of the time, their statements are much more final and certain, as if their interpretation is based only on Scripture, and not on their own fallible interpretations of it.

It's more than that.

For many I've seen, dispensational distinctives are what scripture says, without any interpretive step acknowledged.

[dware]

After all, that statement expresses a certainty which we just don’t have.

For me, that's called a statement of faith! =)

[Jeremiah Jr]

After all, that statement expresses a certainty which we just don’t have. Then, if you are trying to use such uncertain ideas to support other deductions and extrapolations (the pretribulation rapture), you are on even shakier ground.

Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch

Mystico and Janet - Flats Built By Hypnosis
If we cease to believe in this building it will fall down

When the rapture folks quit believing the whole structure comes down.