The real question is still IF the Thessalonians understood that the day of the Lord entailed Christ descending from heaven for literally every eye to see, bodies of dead and alive believers literally flying into the air, and Christ setting up a literal earthly kingdom, how could they be deceived this already happened?
This choice shouldn't be a possible choice to begin with, since it is plainly obvious that the Thessalonians couldn't have taken any of these things to be involving any of that. Even though I'm Premil, this choice here is not even worthy of entertaining since it would be preposterous that if the Thessalonians took some of these things to be involving those things, and then they thinking those things already happened and that they missed seeing it at the time, thus were left behind, as if anyone could even miss any of that if it actually happened, to begin with.
If Pretribbers think that the Thessalonians thought they may have missed the rapture, how could anyone miss an event where bodies are literally ascending into the clouds? That's something you don't see happening everyday. You might see birds ascending into the clouds everyday, but you certainly don't see ppl doing that everyday. Therefore, when this does happen, this is not something others are not going to notice.
2 Thessalonians 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
What I see Paul basically doing here, based on what he wrote to them in some of his other letters, that since those letters involved being raptured(1 Thess 4), involved the day of the Lord coming like a thief on those not prepared and being watchful(1 Thess 5), that they are not to be suddenly shaken in mind about any of this, that any of this is at hand, since none of these events can even happen until after there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, that this has been fulfilled.
Matthew 24:29 and Revelation 6 and the 6th seal make it crystal clear to me, but maybe not to everyone else, that the day of the Lord, meaning verse 2 in 2 Thessalonians 2, and the gathering meant in verse 1, that these events are not before nor during the trib of those days, they are after the trib of those days. That means that whatever one is applying the trib of those days to, none of that involves the day of the Lord nor any gathering(rapture).
Matthew 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Some of us take verse 31 to be involving the gathering meant in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, where we take that to be meaning the same gathering of both the dead and those still alive recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. And assuming we are correct to connect these things like that, clearly then, verse 31 is meaning after the trib of those days, meaning after what is recorded in Matthew 24:15-26 has been fulfilled first. And then according to the 6th seal recorded in Revelation 6, it indicates that His wrath is come, and that Matthew 24:29 records that this is immediately after the trib of those days. Is anyone going to argue that the day of the Lord does not involve His wrath? If His wrath doesn't come until the 6th seal events, and that Matthew 24:29 records that this is immediately after the trib of those days, how could His wrath have already come prior to the 6th seal events?
Clearly, the great trib involves wrath. But who's wrath? God's wrath? Are we to then disregard what Matthew 24:29 records, and are we to also disregard what Revelation 12 records, that God is not the only one that has great wrath, satan also has great wrath? Therefore, the great tribulation is not God's wrath, it is satan's wrath. Great tribulation, though I realize many of you think otherwise, is not meaning events pertaining to 70 AD, it is meaning wrath upon the church big time once the beast ascends out of the pit and becomes fully active in the earth again.
There has already been wrath upon the church for the past 2000 years, but can anyone insist it matches the following---For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be? What about the USA? Numerous Christians in this country, yet nothing involving this country, in regards to Christians being persecuted on a mass scale, matches what Matthew 24:21 records. Does that mean great tribulation is already behind us, or that the USA is spared great tribulation altogether, or that maybe great tribulation isn't even involving wrath upon the church? Or could it simply mean that great tribulation, as portrayed in verse 21, that it's still coming, that it hasn't fully arrived yet?