Far from being promised deliverance from suffering, the church is called to suffer (Philippians 1:29; 1 Peter 2:21; 5:10). We'll not be secretly snatched up into Heaven before we stump our toe on any end-time tribulation, but through many tribulations enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22).

Through our suffering we not only share in the sufferings of Christ, but, as His body, we complete His sufferings in this world and for this world (Romans 8:16-17; Colossians 1:24). After all, as He told Saul of Tarsus, whom He called to suffer great things for His name's sake (Acts 9:16), to persecute His church is to persecute Him (Acts 9:1-4). Christ suffers when His body—the church—suffers, just like you suffer when your body suffers.

Our suffering is also the means by which we are refined by God (1 Peter 1:6-7, 4:12-19). In order for the carnal and compromising church of our day to become the "glorious church" for which Christ shall return, a church "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that [is] holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27), the contemporary church will have to go through the refining fires of end-time tribulation. To suggest otherwise is to believe Christ will secretly wed Himself to the old hag we've been calling church rather than to a "bride prepared and adorned for her husband" (Revelation 21:2).