Messy said in post 1:
Barnabas 130 A.D.- "Take heed, lest resting at our ease, as those who are called by God, we should fall asleep in our sins, and the wicked prince, acquiring power over us, should thrust us away from the kingdom of the Lord."
(The Epistle of Barnabas, chapter IV)
Are you saying that this is referring to a pre-tribulation rapture (instead of apostasy)? If so, how?
Messy said in post 1:
There is an interesting paragraph in the Shepherd of Hermas, that shows that the early church spoke of tribulations often, for they were going through many, but they also knew of a separate tribulation, through which they believed the church would not pass.
Hermas tells us that he passed by a wild beast and met a virgin who saluted him saying, Hail O man.! He returned the greeting... Lady, hail! Then she asked, Has nothing crossed your path? Hermas replied. I was met by a beast of such a size that it could destroy peoples, but through the power of the Lord and His great mercy, I escaped from it. The virgin said, Well, did you escape from it, because you cast your care on God, and opened your heart to the Lord, believing that you can be saved by no other than His great and glorious name? You have escaped from great tribulation on account of your faith, and because you didnot doubt in the presence of such a beast. Go therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds, and say to them that this beast is a type of the great tribulation that is coming. If ye prepare yourselves, and repent with all your heart, and turn to the Lord, it will be possible for you to escape it, if your heart be free and spotless in serving the Lord blamelessly."
Hermas, The Shepherd of Hermas,
Book I, fouth, ch. ii, also ch. iii)
Note that the quoted passage doesn't require a pre-tribulation rapture, just as Luke 21:36 doesn't require one. For some in the church will escape all of the future tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24 by dying before it begins (Isaiah 57:1), and others in the church will escape all of it by being physically protected on the earth during it (Revelation 12:14-16, Psalms 91). Those who will escape it by dying before it begins will stand before the Lord in heaven (Philippians 1:21,23; 2 Corinthians 5:8). And those who will escape it by being miraculously protected on the earth during it will stand before the Lord in the sky at the rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:17), which won't occur until immediately after the tribulation (Matthew 24:29-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Revelation 19:7 to 20:6).
Messy said in post 1:
Isaiah 26:20-21
"Come, My people enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For behold, Jehovah cometh forth out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain."
Isaiah 26:20-21 can be addressing those in the church who will still be alive on the earth at the time of the 7 vials of God's wrath (Revelation 16), the final stage of the future tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24. These believers will still be waiting for Jesus' coming as a thief (Revelation 16:15). And Isaiah 26:20 can refer to them going into protective chambers which they will have prepared for themselves on the earth, just as Noah and his family went into the protective ark which they had prepared for themselves on the earth (Genesis 7:7).
Also, nothing forbids believers from preparing these chambers now, and hiding in them out in the wilderness at some point in our future (Revelation 12:6a), not only during the time of the 7 vials, but also during the preceding, literal 3.5 years (Revelation 12:6b) of the Antichrist's worldwide reign (Revelation 13:5-18). For his reign will involve the wrath of Satan coming against those in the church who will still be alive on the earth at that time (Revelation 12:17, Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6, Matthew 24:9-13).
One way for believers to prepare these chambers would be for them to bury old shipping containers. Shipping and trucking companies could have such shipping containers stacked up in their back lots ready to sell cheap to anyone who will take them off their hands.
Once you have a few 50-foot shipping containers at your wilderness site, you can rent a bulldozer for a few days and dig big trenches in which to bury the shipping containers. The trenches need to be deep enough so that once you've put the shipping containers into them you can pile 6 feet of dirt on top of the containers. For that much dirt is required to stop radiation from any nuclear fallout from reaching the containers. Also, 6 feet of dirt will serve as great insulation, so that no matter how hot or cold it gets on the surface, the shipping containers will always remain at a pleasant 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) all year 'round.
Once you've put the shipping containers in the trenches, you can cut a manhole in the center of the top of each container, and then cut two smaller, 6-inch ventilation holes in the top of each end of each container. Then you can attach to each manhole a 7-foot-long vertical pipe with the same diameter as the manhole, and attach to each ventilation hole a 7-foot-long vertical pipe with the same diameter as the ventilation hole. Then you can use the bulldozer to carefully bury the containers, without breaking off the vertical pipes.
Then you can place a long, extendable, 14-foot ladder down the manhole pipe of each container. And you can go down into each container and place a small battery-powered fan inside one of its ventilation holes, to be turned on whenever fresh air is needed in the container. Your containers will then be all set to start stocking with canned food, water, bedding, batteries, and all other needed supplies whenever you want to do that. You will then need to secure the top of each manhole pipe with some sort of thick metal or thick PVC-like, perhaps screw-on, cover that can be locked from both the outside when you're away from the container, and from the inside when you're in the container. To keep any radioactive dust or ash from entering very far in the ventilation pipes, you can place a cylindrical air filter near the top of each pipe. And to keep rain, insects, and small animals from entering the pipes and affecting the filters, you can place a screen and side-vented cap over the top of each pipe. Another thing to worry about is floodwater pouring into the pipes. So your wilderness site shouldn't be in a floodplain, but on high-enough ground where it won't be flooded.
Because one of the reasons to go underground is to be hidden out of sight of hostile people during the Antichrist's worldwide reign, you will want to restore the surface of the ground above the buried containers so that it, as much as possible, appears like it did before you began digging. The tops of the manhole and ventilation pipes of each container will need to be camouflaged with brush, so that any hostile people passing by won't notice them. Also, in case some hostile people with dogs happen to pass by while you're hiding inside a container, you will need to place some long-dead (non-smelling) carcass of a small animal near enough to each ventilation pipe so that if the dogs pick up the scent of you and your family and pets emanating from a ventilation pipe, the hostile people with the dogs will think that their dogs are just interested in the carcass of the animal, and won't start rummaging through the brush and discover the ventilation pipe.
Besides camouflaging your underground hideout so that no hostile people will even notice it during the Antichrist's worldwide reign (in the tribulation's 2nd half), before the tribulation even begins and you're still thinking about where in the wilderness to prepare your hideout, you will need to be very circumspect about who you tell about your plans. You will want to tell only those people who are completely committed to joining you in hiding in your containers during the Antichrist's worldwide reign. For if you get any other people involved in knowing before the Antichrist's worldwide reign where your hideout is located, during the Antichrist's worldwide reign those same people could be captured by the Antichrist's police or soldiers and under torture or interrogation drugs tell them the location of your hideout. Or those same people, even if they're not captured, could start to get very hungry during the Antichrist's worldwide reign, and so could decide to go out to your hideout and demand to be fed with your supplies, even though you didn't store up enough for them because before the tribulation they'd said that they definitely weren't going to join you in your hideout.
Another thing to remember is that even before the Antichrist's worldwide reign, even when communicating with those who are completely committed to joining you in your hideout during the Antichrist's worldwide reign, you must never refer to the location of your hideout over the internet or over a cell phone or landline phone, or even in your car or home, or in any (e.g.) workplace, supermarket or restaurant equipped with surveillance cameras, as all of these could be currently tapped and recorded by intelligence or law enforcement agencies, and their surveillance records could later be searched by the Antichrist's police or soldiers to determine the location of your hideout. For the same reason, you mustn't have any device with a GPS chip (such as a cell phone, tablet computer, laptop computer, OnStar, LoJack, Garmin, TomTom, etc.) with you when you're out at your hideout, as the GPS chip could be secretly pinged remotely in order to determine your hideout's location. You will also need to have your car, shoes, clothing, and all supplies intended for your hideout electronically swept for any GPS chips covertly placed in them by intelligence or law enforcement agencies.
More generally, during the tribulation, as now, whenever you want to keep your cell phone with you but at the same time want to avoid having your movements tracked through it, place it in a small box, like a cigar box, and wrap the box completely with foil, so that no cell phone signals can reach the cell phone. To make sure that there are no tiny gaps or tears in the foil through which signals can enter, once the cell phone is in the foil-wrapped box, call it from another phone and see if it rings. If it does, hang up, wrap the box with a 2nd layer of foil and call again. If the cell phone doesn't ring, that means no signals can reach it, and so your movements can't be tracked through it.
And when you make your final trip out to your hideout, when you will begin hiding there during the Antichrist's worldwide reign, you will need to abandon your car miles away from your hideout and walk the rest of the way, as otherwise your car could catch the attention of any passing hostile people or patrolling drone aircraft. And even if you abandon your car miles away from you hideout, you will still want to camouflage it with brush to avoid it being seen and starting a general search of the area. Or, if there's not enough brush with which to camouflage it, you can let the air out of one of its tires which is visible from the road, so that people passing on the road will think that your car was left there only because it got a flat tire.
Some people think that everyone in the cities will try to go out into the wilderness during the tribulation. But that may not be the case, for almost all people in the cities don't have hunting/fishing and other wilderness survival skills, and won't know of any well-stocked hideouts in the wilderness, and so they won't think that there's any food out there, or that they will be able to construct any decent shelter out there. They will think of the wilderness as being only barren ground and brush, rocks, trees, and mountains, and so they will stay in the cities where they have some chance of finding food. And if the cities come under martial law, they could become the safest places to be, as the military could bring order to them and supply them with emergency food and water. And the cities have plenty of shelter.
But martial law will cut both ways in that once the Antichrist takes over everything (Revelation 13:7-18), the cities could become, in effect, huge military prisons, where people will have to receive the Antichrist's mark on their right hand or forehead if they want to be able to buy any food (Revelation 13:16-17). And everyone will have to worship Lucifer (the dragon, Satan) and the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of the beast) (Revelation 13:4-10, Revelation 12:9) and a speaking image of the Antichrist (Revelation 13:15) if they don't want to be beheaded (Revelation 20:4). Believers must be willing to be beheaded, for if they go ahead and take the mark and worship Lucifer and the Antichrist and his image, they will ultimately lose their salvation and suffer eternally in fire and brimstone (Revelation 14:9-14).
Believers shouldn't assume that they will necessarily be able to stand up well under the hunger (and possibly torture) and beheading which will be imposed on believers trapped within the cities during the Antichrist's worldwide reign. Many believers could eventually give in and take the mark when their hunger and the hunger of their crying little ones reaches a certain point (Isaiah 8:21-22). And they could give in and worship Lucifer and the Antichrist and his image when they're confronted with they and their little ones being tortured and beheaded if they don't do those things.
It will be much, much better for believers to avoid these horrors by fleeing into prepared places in the wilderness right before the Antichrist's 3.5-year worldwide reign of terror begins (Revelation 12:6, Matthew 24:15-16).
these are two statements. period.
