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Him to the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane; after praying and finding His Disciples asleep, He warned them: (Matt 26, vs. 40-41) "What, could ye not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation (tribulation)."
I Corinthians 3 (vs. 13-15) states, "Every man's work shall be manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire: And the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he has built thereupon he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved: yet so as by fire."
Paul, (in 2 Tim. 4 v. 8) declares, "Seek the crown of righteousness that Christ will give to all those who love His appearing."
I believe that in the day of Christ's return, many Christians shall be unprepared and will turn back as Lot's wife did for one surreptitious glance back at Sodom. This is why Christ warns us to "Remember Lot's wife." Luke 2, vs. 34-39 says, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the good man of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through."
A perfect picture of those Raptured before the tribulation and those left behind is of course the parable of the "ten virgins" (Matt. 25, vs. 1-13). You see this Rapture is not related to salvation, but to obedience and works. Salvation is free but christ's Lordship of our lives demands a surrender of our wills -- the denial of self, and a picking up of our cross to follow Him. "They that are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God."
Man by nature is a religious creature: ask most people if they believe in God and almost unanimously they will declare "yes!!" But unfortunately, so do the devil and his demons (believe in God). People today want to follow God in their own way -- not in the way God demands. Jesus said that those who worship God must worship Him "in Spirit and in Truth": it is possible to "have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof." False religions have the spirit without the truth and Christian churches can have truth without the Spirit. We need both. Cain offered God the fruit of the works of his own hands and his sacrifice was rejected. For this he killed Abel. but "obedience is better than sacrifice" (I Sam. 15, v. 22). Today we see multitudes offering God religious sacrifices, philanthropic humanitarianism; yet the origins of their works is their own religious conceit; their faith, however noble, remains gestated in self aggrandizement. True faith, as espoused in the scriptures, revolves around the dynamic of personal relationship with God; approaching Him on His terms, instead of our own conceptualization. This is why Jesus could tell the five foolish virgins, "I never knew you"; for they were virgins (had salvation) but their lamps were going out because of lack of
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