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A former student asked me this question on Facebook. It was such a good question, I wanted to share the answer in my blog. Here is the question:

Dr. White, Im reading Matthew and this caught my attention:

“And they knew nothing until the flood came and took them all away. It will be the same at the coming of the Son of Man. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one left. There will be two women grinding grain with a mill; one will be taken and one left. “Therefore stay alert, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have been alert and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. ” (Matt 24:39-44) How can Jesus say that they must “be ready” and “stay alert” if, according to pretibulationism, it must be at least 7 years before it happens?

Here is my answer:

George Eldon Ladd, a post-tribulationalist who believes the church will go through Tribulation, uses the dispensational view that Matthew 24:36-42 refers not to the rapture but the Second coming of Christ as an argument against the pretribulational doctrine of imminency because the Tribulation believers are commanded to “watch” for the Lord’s return. “Such admissions as these are fatal to the theory of an any-moment rapture and a secret coming of Christ which is based on the argument that the exhortations to watch require such an any-moment return of Christ. If pretribulationists can apply these words without difficulty to the Jewish remnant in the Tribulation and yet admit that they are exhorted to watch for an event which will take place at the end of the seventieth week, although they ‘do not know the day or the hour,’ then two results follow. First, if the exhortations do belong to the Jewish remnant, they do not apply to the Church. Jesus then did not exhort the Church to watch for an unexpected event” (The Blessed Hope, page 114).

The Jewish remnant in the Tribulation are exhorted to watch for the Second Coming of Christ because they do not know the day or hour. The parables that follow this exhortation helps us understand the meaning of “watch.” To “watch” in Matthew 24:42 means be like the servant in v. 46 who will be found “so doing” when the Lord returns. The Jewish remnant is to be faithful right up to the Second Coming.