Another "straw" that pre-tribbers grab for is in II Thessalonians, chapter 2, and verse 3...
3. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition:

    The "straw" in this case is the insistence that the phrase "falling away" actually means rapture, or "taking out". Let's look at a few scriptures and see what the Word actually says.

I Corinthians, Chapter 14,
verse 33... For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

    How does this pertain to the subject at hand? Very simply, if a phrase in the Word of God means a particular thing in one scripture, it must mean the same thing in any other scripture, otherwise, there will be confusion, and God is not the author of confusion. Then let us see what the phrase "falling away" means in the rest of the scriptures.

Luke, Chapter 8, verse 13... They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.

    What? Was Jesus saying that, in a time of temptation, these people were raptured out? No. It is quite apparent that they lost their faith in a time of temptation and "fell away" from God.

Hebrews, Chapter 6, verses...
4. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
5. And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
6. if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

    Were these people "raptured out" because they crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame? That would be against everything that Jesus ever taught. It is obvious to anyone who reads it that the term "falling away" in these scriptures means moving away from God. It follows, then, that it means the same thing in II Thessalonians. . Otherwise, God has authored confusion. Since we know that God does not author confusion, then we also know that the term means the same in Thessalonians as it does in Luke and Hebrews.

    It is also interesting to note that there are some 40 references to "fall" in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, and in none of them does the word mean anything other than to lose standing, as in Jude 24, Romans 11:11, Isaiah 14:12, Job 4:4, etc.

    The only conclusion that is consistent with the rest of the Book is that Thessalonians tells us there will be a great apostasy before the "Coming of the Lord, and our gathering together unto him."...

    Matthew, chapter 24, verse 31...And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.