The Early Church was being put to death a lot at the hands of the Government as various Ceasars took various positions on Christianity and whether to let them live.  The official charge when they were killed by the government tended to be ATHEISM - that is, they refused to ackowledge "the gods", since we believe in only one God.

Many preferred and hoped their end would be martyrdom, because they understood that God rewarded martyrs in the next life with "The Crown of Martyrdom", a reward much bigger than if you had lived out the rest of your life.  In fact Polycarp was criticized for not running from the Government as hard as he should have, as if perhaps he wanted to get caught.  Because just giving up and saying "take me" is a bit selfish since you are losing out on the chance to witness to people in the future.

One early writer had this to say,

"What more glorious and blessed lot can fall to man by the grace of God, than to confess God the Lord amidst tortures and in the face of death itself; to confess Christ the Son of God with lacerated body and with a spirit departing, yet free; and to become fellow-sufferers with Christ in the name of Christ?  Though we have not yet shed our blood, we are ready to do so. Pray for us, then, dear Cyprian" (Letter to Cyprian, circa 249-260 AD)

If someone said they'd rather die in a car wreck at the age of 40 than die a martyr at the same age, you'd consider them insane.  Why?  Because there is no great reward for dieing in a car wreck.  Why then would someone prefer to go in the rapture?  Is it not more logical to remain and die a martyr if there is a greater reward for that?  At what state is our spiritual mind if we prefer to trade temporary comfort for an eternal reward?

My preference is simply whatever God's calling is for me. But I make the point because most people have embraced the rapture theology simply because they WANT it to be true and don't want to go through the temporary discomfort that living during the tribulation would entail.  They'd RATHER be raptured than spend the next 3.5 years running from the beast and using a tree for a toilet.  How badly have we let our modern society warp our thinking to come to that conclusion?

Shalom,

Joe