Be An Active Participant in the End of the World
Luke 17:27 They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Luke 17:28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building,
Luke 17:29 but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—
Luke 17:30 so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
Luke 17:31 On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back.
Luke 17:32 Remember Lot’s wife.
Luke 17:33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.
Luke 17:34 I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left.
Luke 17:35 There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left.”
Luke 17:37 And they said to him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”
The context here is the Kingdom of God. Sometimes we call it the End of the World but that’s not exactly accurate. Maybe the end of the world as we know it with sin and evil in the world.
But Jesus mixes in this language with a sense of calling out. It’s not just like the end happens and we have no choice in the matter. When Jesus talks about it, He puts some choice into it, like we are going to be asked to do something about it.
The thing is, we have chances every day to answer His call. If you mix this with the parable statement to “take up your cross daily” then you see that Jesus is offering us an end-of-the-world lifestyle. Every single day we have a chance to leave behind the dead works of our flesh — the desire and unction to live our lives apart from God’s leadership — and to choose to live the life that Christ is actually living inside of us.
As unexpectedly as the flood, you can be in a situation today where God whispers “leave your old self behind, she’s dead. Now live the life I’m living in you.”
He mentions Lot’s wife in here. The irony about her is that she turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back, longingly, on the city of Sodom. Salt preserves other things, but it doesn’t preserve itself. She’s a reminder. If you try to preserve your own self, you’ll become an example for others.
As we demand our own lifestyle over the life Christ offers, we become salty. But not a good salt-of-the-earth salty. We instead become an example to other Christians of the selfishness we all want to avoid.
Let’s act on Jesus. Let’s leave our old ways behind. Let’s lose the fruitless lives that we may have lived to preserve ourselves and watch Jesus show off in simple and not-so-simple ways.
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