Exactly

what I mean....

Who can know for sure?

He will return as he left. How did he leave? Ostensibly, floating up into a cloud. So, he would presumably come back OUT OF A CLOUD. So what if a fellow drops out of an airplane and claims to be Jesus because he wasn't killed? (It's happened. An airline stewardess dropped thousands of feet, strapped in a seat ........ and lived).

Yet, in Jesus' own presumed words ......... his return (or "the son of man")s return will be like a lightning bolt across the sky. In Paul's version ...... he descends with a shout and a trumpet blast, (totally unlike his ascending, described in Acts).

Since you obviously can't have all THREE scenarios happening simultaneously ....... believers will have to settle for ONE of them. Which one?

"One will be taken and the other left"

What does that actually MEAN? Soldiers coming and whisking people away? People mysteriously vanishing? All of this has happened in the past. No special explanation is offered in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. So exactly how will people know that a massive disappearing or arrest or whatever ....... actually signals the coming of Jesus?

"If the saints are gathered to him, they will know."

Just my point. Christians have OFTEN been gathered to someone they perceived to be THE one. Turned out he wasn't. Right now -in Russia, I believe- there's another new fellow who claims to be Jesus come back.

"If someone comes TELLING us he is Christ, we obviously know it isnt."

That's truly funny, it tis. Reminds me of Cheech and Chong: "Don't answer the phone man, don't answer the PHONE!!"

If the fella doesn't announce himself as Jesus then how the heck will ANYONE know it's him? Huh?

-Vince