End times Antichrist

For some time I've been aIN A STRUGGLE WITH THE pRE tRIBULATION rAPTURE END TIMES ESCHATOLOGY FOR THEIR IDEA THAT THE aNTICHRIST IS ONLY GOING TO E KNOWN JUST BEFORE HE COMES TO POWER.  i'VE BEEN PERSUADED OF HE rEFORMATION VIEW OF THE aNTICHRIST AS THE rOMAN pApacy, the final Antichrist to be the last Pope whenever he comes at the right time.  I've accepted some of the Pre Trib scenario about the very last  SSatanic playing out of the Antichrist's persecution of true Christians, along the lines of the persecutions by ghe Roman Church in the middle Ages against Christians anbd other supposed  heretics.  

Lately I've had some other problems with ehte Pres Trib cenario.  For instance I'm dcoming to think that the first five seals of Revelation Six are jot part of the Great Tribulation but evils  that have existed for the last two thousand years.  Revlation Six  is future it seems to me, all those sings in sun and moon and earthquake and so on heralding the tribulation.  I odon't yet know how to understnd the plamecement of thje rolling up of the heaven like a scroll and so on, but it's future in any case.   And the martyrs of Revelation Five are a particular problem for the Pre Trib scenario in my mind because fotr one thing they are described as "souls', meaning they are not in their glorified bodies as all those raptured would be.  Of course if this occurred after the Raputre they'd be gpart of the tribulation martyrdomes so nothat wouldn't be expected, but I just can't see a whole group of martyrs waiting for thei r fellow martyrs to show up who were madew in the very few years that would be all that could occur if the first five seals were part of the seven year Tribulstion period.   But I don't think that any more.  I think the martyrs are first the martyrs of the Caesars, and then the martyrs of the Roman papacy of the Middle Ages.  That means there are yet more martyrs to come during the seven year tribultion that is  about to be unleacshed.    

So now I thinkthe WSeventieth Week of Daniel, or the seven hyear Great Tribulation starts with the opening of the Weeventh seal, and that the ratprue has not yhet occurreds.    When it is to coccur I haven't yet understood but I'm starting to think it may be just when Jesus returns or perhaps just before the final wrath of the vials, or a bit earlier.  But I still have a problem with tyhere being two separate grops of believers and I know the pre trib system accepts that idea.  

I think it could all get starte with Pope Leo's confirming a covenant, accporeding to the book of Daniel, with Israel.  I hink that may be the next thing on the proophetic agenda.  But I'm still pondering all this and praying for God's leading.

More to say about all this.