Persecution and growth or the Rapture?

 

I often hear that persecution is coming to true believers and I'm sure that's quite true, but there's one problem with that. Generally when the Church is persecuted it causes the church to grow tremendously. But God says that this time is the time of the great falling away, so there won't be any huge numbers added to the church in our time. To me that says that the rapture most likely will happen before the persecution gets bad enough to cause the church to grow.  Of course God can cause anything to happen, but I'm hoping this is true!