Twitter: @DepthsPentecost
YouTube: Depths of Pentecost
This is the official ping list for Depths of Pentecost: I’m a Christian blogger who writes weekly Bible lessons. Topics range from Bible studies, apologetics, theology, history, and occasionally current events. Every now and then I upload sermons or classes onto YouTube.
Let me know if you’d like to added to the Depths of Pentecost ping list. New posts are up every Saturday.
Abraham was unique even among his blood kin. He is the only one who wasn’t an idol worshipper. Even he was marked by the culture he came out of. What was different about him is that he sought God from the heart and responded when God spoke to him, though there wasn’t much in the culture to tell him who God was.
When you think about it, Noah was God’s man, but his offspring were apparently not. Within only a couple of generations of the flood, much of the evil that existed before was back, and the God of Noah forgotten. But then there was Abraham.
Great article! Very instructful! May you be blessed for sharing this wisdom and knowledge! /ABSOLUTELY NO SARC
We do not really know if the daughters were virgins.
That was what Lot said at the moment.
They did not act like virgins later in the story.
“Think of Lot fleeing Sodom as the Rapture and the destruction as the Tribulation period. The Lord is getting ready to take us out of this sinful world before unspeakable horrors are unleashed on planet earth.”
Jesus did make a clear comparison between the last days before His return and the days of Sodom and the time of Noah:
Luke 17:26-32
And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife.
I believe this is one of the distinctions between the Tribulation and the Day of the Lord. Daniel’s seventieth week begins with a time of deception and false peace, probably based on disarmament and gun control. It is followed by war, famine, disease, and natural disasters. But Christ called these the “beginning of sorrows” with the “great tribulation” to follow.
But none of these things depict fire being reigned down from heaven by the holy angels in a fashion like the destruction of Sodom. When we read Revelation, these things begin in chapter 8. In fact, there are four angels in chapter 7 who are restrained from pouring out destruction until 144,000 faithful Jews are sealed for protection from these events, AND the uncountable multitude from every nation, tribe, language, and ethnicity appear in the throne room of Heaven.
I believe there is strong historical and Biblical evidence that the Church will face the worst persecution of her history by the antichrist just before the rapture. Then, when Christ returns in His glory, Christians who survive this perilous time will be rescued and raptured out. After this, the judgement of the earth by fire begins.
This is the only chronology I believe is consistent with all of scripture on the timing of the rapture. Consider this passage from Paul’s second epistle to the Thessalonians:
2 Thessalonians 1:7-8
[It is righteous for God] to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Contextually, I think the rest spoken of here must be of raptured saints because those who have already died have already entered into rest. But the passage clearly connects this event and the return of the Lord with the simultaneous judgment of the inhabitants of the earth (particularly the tormentors of Christians) by fire administered by angels.
We see an exact parallel between the Olivet discourse and the opening of the seven seals in Revelation. The Olivet discourse discloses the timing of the Great Tribulation as beginning at the abomination of desolation in the exact middle of Daniel’s seventieth week. This is a time of antichrist reigning in terror, persecuting followers of Christ, forcing all of the world into complete subjection to his rule, even to the point of demanding to be worshipped and all to receive his mark.
This reign of terror will be worldwide in scope but will never completely succeed because God will end it with the shaking of the powers of heaven. The darkening of the sun and moon (apparently simultaneously) will mark the end of this most terrible time of trouble. As massive meteors fall to the earth, everyone will be forced to hide underground. Then Christ will rapture His followers, and the Day of the Lord judgments by fire will commence.
Peter also made this connection. In Acts 2 he quoted Joel in regards to the coming of the Holy Spirit and the subsequent Day of the Lord in which the world would be judged by fire. He also spoke of this in his epistles:
2 Peter 3:10, 12
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up... Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat....
Christ will return and the Day of the Lord will arrive like a thief in the night. He will rescue His bride from the antichrist who will be attempting to force us to worship him and receive his mark. Re-reading the Olivet Discourse it will be found that the likeness of the days of Christ’s return to the days of Noah and Lot are in reference to the time during the Great Tribulation, with the destruction pictured by Noah’s flood and Sodom’s destruction by fire occurring AFTER the Great Tribulation.