Board index ‹ The End of the World

[Son of Light]

Genesis 8:4
and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

Genesis 19:17
As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”

Matthew 24:15 - 16
So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

[jimwalton]

These are all specific situations that have nothing to do with our behavior. The first (Gn. 8.4) was not a flight, but the resting place after judgment. It has nothing to do with us. The second (Gn. 19.17) referred to the Judean hills after Lot fled Sodom. It has nothing to do with us. The third (Mat. 24.15-16) referred to the Judean hills when Rome destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70. It has nothing to do with us. None of these references are commands for us, nor anything that we have to plan ahead to be prepared for. In a sense, your question is like "The Bible says, 'And they crucified Jesus.' Who are you planning to crucify today?"

[Son of Light]

Matthew 24:37
As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Luke 17:28-30
“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.

Do you have any scriptural backing to support your statement that these events have nothing to do with us?

[jimwalton]

> Matthew 24:37

Jesus is speaking here (since He said it explicitly) that the connection of the time of Noah with the End Times is "people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage"—a picture of indifference to the signs, of a supposed "normal life" that would continue. It has NOTHING to do with Mt. Ararat. Matt. 24.39 says, "and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." There's the connection, not a mountain.

> Luke 17.28-30

Again, the picture is of cavalier, apathetic, and self-centered lifestyles, and how the end came as a surprise to them. That is Luke's point. Jesus's return will come suddenly and when people do not expect it. It has nothing to do with a mountain.

> Do you have any scriptural backing to support your statement that these events have nothing to do with us?

No one can prove a negative, my friend. The burden of proof is on you who is making the claim to verify the connection. There is simply no connection of these events (Mt 24; Lk. 17) with a mountain.

[Son of Light]

Yep. Plus, the context of this fleeing to the mountains is all about fleeing the wrath of God, the "coming of the Son of Man" (24:37), when "they were swept away" (24:39), also known as the "day of the Lord". We believers are not "appointed unto wrath", so this event does not directly involve us.

[jimwalton]

> Plus, the context of this fleeing to the mountains is all about fleeing the wrath of God

The example you gave from Noah was NOT about fleeing the wrath of God; it was instead about where the ark would come to rest after the flood.

The example you gave from Lot WAS about fleeing the wrath of God. Their leaving Sodom was fleeing the wrath of God. The mountains (not a specific one, but just to create distance between Sodom and themselves) were a place of safety and protection.

The example you gave from Matthew 24 was NOT about fleeing from the wrath of God. What He says in v. 16 is about fleeing from the Romans when they come to destroy Jerusalem in AD 70. There is no indication in the text that this is about the wrath of God. The wrath of God in the text doesn't show up until v. 51.

> v. 37 & 39

These verses have NOTHING to do with a mountain. We have to be far more careful in our use of Scripture than you are being. There is nothing about a mountain, no reference to a mountain, no allusion, no allegory, no metaphor, no whisper.

[McAdam]

I'm sorry, but God controls the nations. He used Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, and yes, even Rome! to enact His judgment & wrath. Saying that the destruction of Jerusalem in 70A.D. had nothing to do with God because it was Rome who did it implies that God has no control over Rome. Who's God and who's not?

The description of the fall of Jerusalem ends in v.14. The Great Tribulation, that great and terrible day of the Lord is introduced in verse 15 with the Abomination of Desolation as referenced by Daniel when he says it comes in the middle of the Tribulation. There was never an Abomination of Desolation standing in the holy place during the fall of Jerusalem. In the 2nd century B.C., Antiochus poured pig's blood in the Temple, but that's it.

[jimwalton]

> I'm sorry, but God controls the nations.

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I was saying, since I was talking about Lot, Noah, and the Jews fleeing the destruction of the Roman Empire in AD 70.

God exercises control, but he doesn't control them. He pokes in as His wisdom demands. You are correct that He used Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, and Rome, but that's a far cry from He controls them (implying everything they did is God-ordained and God-to-blame). He did use them to enact His judgment and wrath—I have no quarrel with you there (so no need to say "I'm sorry").

> Saying that the destruction of Jerusalem in 70A.D. had nothing to do with God

I didn't say it "had nothing to do with God." What I said was that Matthew 24 (and parallels) never identifies that military action as God's judgment. If you have a text to that effect, I'll be glad to discuss it with you.

> implies that God has no control over Rome.

God's power is different from some of his other attributes. You'll notice in the Bible that there are times when God withholds His power and chooses not to act (such as Jonah 3.10). God can't choose when to not be all-knowing, and He can't choose to be not-present somewhere, but He can choose when and how He uses His power, or at all. There are times God fights for Israel and times when He lets them get conquered; it's His choice to use or withhold His power.

Just because Rome acts doesn't mean God made them do it. The Gospel text doesn't tell us God was acting in judgment, so we are remiss to jump to that conclusion. It's altogether possible that God stopped protecting Israel, and so Rome was free to act. Possibly God wasn't controlling Rome at all, but instead either guarding or withdrawing His hand of protection from them (Lam. 2.3). Unless the Scripture tells us, we can't draw a firm conclusion.

> There was never an Abomination of Desolation standing in the holy place during the fall of Jerusalem

In AD 66 Zealots slaughtered the priests in the temple, committing a sacrilege (Human bloodshed in the temple desecrated it). In addition, Josephus tells us that in AD 70 the Romans burned the Temple and offered sacrifices to their ensigns at the eastern gate while proclaiming Titus as Divine Emperor. They erected standards with the insignia of the Roman emperor (worshipped as divine), and so committed desecration and blasphemy.