Bible Reading for August 26 – Luke 17:22-37

This world is not going to rock along in its current sinful state forever. God will eventually put down the rebellion against Him. There will be a day of judgment. No, we don’t know all the particulars of how it will all happen. But Jesus said that His coming in glory, the day when He will be revealed to all the world as the Son of God (v. 30), is certain.

But He also said that His coming will be unmistakable. All the fake and phony pretenders throughout history who have claimed to be Messiah, or said they were the reincarnation of Jesus, or said they were greater, more accurate prophets than He is will be unmasked on that day. For when He comes again, there won’t be any possible way to miss it – there won’t be any room for doubt. His coming will be just as obvious as a flash of lightning in the sky.

And His coming will be just as sudden, just as unexpected. In this passage, He reminds us of two other great judgments that God sent earlier in history – one on the whole earth in the days of Noah, and one on the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In both cases, He points out that everything was going along in its normal fashion, with people doing everyday things like having dinners and attending weddings, sleeping and working – until the floods came and the fire fell.

So, what is His advice to us? How should we prepare for something so certain yet so unexpected? The main teaching of this passage is to keep the things of this world in the correct perspective. Everything around us will eventually be burned up, so it just doesn’t make sense to place much value on material things. If we try to hold on to the sort of life we’ve been living, as Lot’s wife did, we’ll lose it.

No, it turns out that the only way to survive in the Day of Judgment is the only way to live every day in this world: to follow Jesus, to share His priorities, to be willing to give up everything, even to lose our own lives for the glory of God and for the good of others. As Jesus says, “Whoever seeks to keep his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life shall preserve it” (v. 33). May it be so for us today.

Luke 17:22-37 (NAS)

22 And He said to the disciples, “The days shall come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.
23 “And they will say to you, ‘Look there! Look here!’ Do not go away, and do not run after them.
24 “For just as the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day.
25 “But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
26 “And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it shall be also in the days of the Son of Man:
27 they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
28 “It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building;
29 but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
30 “It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.
31 “On that day, let not the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house go down to take them away; and likewise let not the one who is in the field turn back.
32 “Remember Lot’s wife.
33 “Whoever seeks to keep his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life shall preserve it.
34 “I tell you, on that night there will be two men in one bed; one will be taken, and the other will be left.
35 “There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken, and the other will be left.
36 “Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.”
37 And answering they said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also will the vultures be gathered.”