As In The Days Of Noah.

AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH.

Luke 17:26-37.

The suddenness of the lightning flash (cf. Luke 17:24) illustrates the unexpectedness of Jesus’ return. Jesus goes on to describe the unpreparedness of the population of the earth for such a momentous event.

LUKE 17:26-27. “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.”

Eating, drinking, getting married. Generation after generation. These things are all very good: but not if we are going about our lives without setting God in first place. Then “the flood came, and destroyed them all.”

LUKE 17:28-29. “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot.”

Eating, drinking; buying, selling; planting, building. All legitimate things: but not if we are living as if there is no God. Then “the same day Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone, and destroyed them all.”

LUKE 17:30. “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”

For most people in the earth - and, tragically, for many people in the Church - life just goes on and on, just as it has always gone on. But in the first case, ‘flood;’ and in the second case ‘fire and brimstone’ “destroyed them all” (Luke 17:27; Luke 17:29). If I may quote the Apostle Paul: ‘For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them… and they shall not escape’ (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:3).

LUKE 17:31-32. “Remember Lot’s wife.”

Jesus warns professing Christians that that day will not be a day for looking back. The man on the rooftop is not to be thinking about the goods he has left in the house, but rather about his imminent meeting with the Lord. That was where Lot’s wife went wrong: looking back at Sodom, against the specific instructions of the angel, when peace and safety beckoned in the ‘little’ city beyond. She died in her sins (cf. Genesis 19:26).

LUKE 17:33. “Whosoever shall seek his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.”

If we seek our life in the things that we own, our lives are upside down. It is a matter of priorities. It is God who made us, it is God who provided for us, it is God who has kept our soul. We should be willing to yield it all, even our very soul, to Him. In that day, and every day.

LUKE 17:34-36. There shall be “two men in one bed,” “two women grinding together,” and “two men in the field.” In each instance, “one shall be taken, and the other left.” These are the words of Jesus, remember, not Luke.

This is the great separation. At the coming of Jesus there will be a separation between the righteous and the ungodly, the wheat and the chaff, the good and the bad, the born again and the worldly. Those who are genuine believers, and those who are play-acting hypocrites.

LUKE 17:37. The disciples asked, “Where, Lord?”

Where is this all going to happen?

Jesus answered, “Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.”

Wherever the “body” of Christ is, there will ‘they that wait upon the LORD’ who ‘mount up with wings as eagles’ (cf. Isaiah 40:31) “be gathered together.”