Jesus gave us two historical examples of how the world would be before His Second Coming. In both cases, life was going on seemingly as usual; people were eating and drinking, planning long-term, planting for harvest, building homes, planning weddings, etc. But suddenly, the day came when Lot and his family departed the city of Sodom with two angels, and Noah and his family got into his boat, and the door was shut. On the very same day when the righteous were made safe, the judgment of God fell on those who did not turn around from their ungodly deeds. There was no time gap between Noah entering the ark and the judgment of God taking place. Here’s what Jesus warned:
26“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. 28“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. 30“It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed (Luke 17:26-30, emphasis mine).
Some say that Noah entered the ark sometime before the rain came, but this is incorrect. Let’s look at what God’s Word says:
11In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark (Genesis 7:11-13).
16And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in (Genesis 17:16).
Similarly, in Christ’s second example, there was no time gap between Lot leaving Sodom and the judgment on the city. In fact, the angels had to hurry up those God set apart as righteous (Genesis 19:15-17). The Lord did not tell those left behind to come back later to get in. No, my dear friends, there is no biblical truth in the Left Behind series of books; it is entirely fiction and misleading. Through these two examples, Jesus was warning us that the rapture of God’s people and the wrath of God falling are back-to-back events, the door of the ark was shut as soon as the righteous entered—there was no second chance after the rain started falling. As soon as the catching up of God’s people (the rapture) happens, the judgment and wrath of God will fall.
The wrath of God is poured out after the true Church has gone through the time Jesus warned us about, the time He called the Great Tribulation (Matthew 24:30-31). It will be a time of persecution for those who will not go along with the Antichrist’s one-world economic system of taking a mark on the wrist or forehead (Revelation 13:16). We are not to compromise our faith but stay close to Christ during the unrestrained evil poured out on our planet by the evil one. We are to live our lives uncontaminated by the world system.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27).
There will come a day when our God will intervene, and what an awesome day that will be for every one of us who has chosen to walk with Christ. Keith Thomas
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To study this topic in more depth, click the All Studies box on the Home Page, then The End Times series. The study is number 5, The Rapture and Day of the Lord. There are also 23 studies in the Book of Revelation.