What Happened the Day Noah Entered the Ark?

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).

Jesus shared two examples of times when there was unrestrained evil on earth; one in a local area, and one that was worldwide. In both cases given, life was going on seemingly as normal; people were eating and drinking, they were planning long term, as in planting for a harvest, building homes, weddings planned, etc. But all of a sudden, a day came when Lot and his family disappeared with a couple of angels, and Noah and his family got into his boat, and the door was locked. As soon as the righteous were safe, on the same day for each of them in our two examples, the judgment of God fell on those who did not get their lives right before the Lord—those who had not turned from ungodly deeds 

There was no timegap in between Noah entering the ark and the judgment of God falling.

Similarly, in Christ’s second example, too, there was no time gap between Lot leaving Sodom and the judgment on the city. There was also no second chance where the Lord told those left behind to come back later, and they would get in. No, my dear friends, there is no biblical truth in the Left Behind series of books, it is entirely fiction and deception, I believe. Jesus is saying in this passage above, that the rapture of God’s people and the wrath of God falling is a back-to-back event. As soon as the rapture happens, the judgment and wrath of God will fall.

Scripture never says that the tribulation is the wrath of God. If the seven-year period is the wrath of God, as some Bible teachers say, how can Antichrist be setting up an image of himself at the midpoint of the seven-year period (the abomination of desolation)? How can Antichrist make war against the saints (Rev 13:7), if that period is when the wrath of God is being poured out? Scripture tells us that when the wrath of God comes on this earth, Antichrist and his minions will be hiding under rocks from the face of the Messiah! (Revelation 6:16). 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). The tribulation is a time of persecution on 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 must stay close to Christ in a time of unrestrained evil that is being poured out on our planet. We are not to compromise with evil, but we are to live a life uncontaminated by the world we live in:

²⁷Religion 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. 

Taken from the series The Second Coming of Christ. Click on the study, The Rapture and Day of the Lord.Keith Thomas