The Ones who are taken are the true followers of the LORD Jesus Christ.. The ones left are the ones who have believed in a false religion or who do not believe it God at all..
So the saved are caught up to meet Jesus in the air.. and the others are left to face the wrath of the Day of the LORD..
Hello Adstar!
I would greatly disagree with your conclusion. First of all in the context, the "one taken" group are being compared to those who were taken in the flood, which are the wicked. Therefore, the comparison is wicked to wicked.
The "one taken and the other left" scripture has nothing to do with the gathering of the church, but is referring to those who are still alive and will be gathered by the angels when the Lord returns to the earth to end the age as described in Matt.24:30-31.
"Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth
c will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.
And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other."
It is important to not pigeonhole words such as the word trumpet in the scripture above and erroneously apply it to mean the last trumpet. This is a mistake that many make.
Also, those that the angels will be gathering in the scripture above, is not referring to the resurrection of the dead and the living being caught up, but is referring to the righteous who will have made it alive through the entire tribulation period. In short, the angels will be gathering living people, those still in their mortal bodies.
We also know that the wicked/weeds are gathered first when the Lord returns to the earth as described in the parable in Matt.13:
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The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters:
First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.
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When the Lord returns to the earth to end the age, the angels first collect the weeds, which symbolically refers to the wicked, who will be brought to the area of Armageddon where they will be killed by that double-edged sword which will proceed from the mouth of the Lord and which represents the word of God. (Rev.19:17-18, 21)
In further support of this, in Luke's version, after the Lord says, "one will be taken and the other left" the disciples ask "Where, Lord?" i.e. where are they going to be taken? The Lord's response is, "Wherever there is a carcass, there will the vultures/birds be gathered. This is referring to the event mentioned in Rev.17-18 when the angel calls all of the birds of the air to come and gather themselves to the supper of the great God.
"Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out in a loud voice to all the birds flying overhead, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings and commanders and mighty men, of horses and riders, of all men slave and free, small and great.”
After the angels gather the wicked (one taken), they will be killed by the word of the Lord, which is the double-edged sword and the birds that will have been gathered by the angel will gorge themselves on their flesh.
The others who are left will be the righteous whom the angels will gather after the gathering of the wicked. These are those who will enter into the millennial kingdom and along with the remnant of Israel, will repopulate the earth.