THE GOSPEL OF LUKE: - Vital Christianity

161The satanic insinuation that Jesus expected his glory in the final phase of the kingdom totake place soon is refuted here. The Lord envisaged a time-lapse, measured not in years, but ingenerations. Although there is abundant evidence of this in the New Testament some seemunwilling to see it. Jesus here clearly predicted that His contemporaries would reject the messageHe came to deliver.Jesus in this verse announced that a gloomy state of things would prevail on earth beforeHis Second Advent.Although some have vainly proclaimed that Christianity, like some conquering army, willsweep over every country, capturing the whole world for Jesus, such is not pictured here at all.Rather the question Jesus asks is,". . . when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" (18:8).The next few verses tell how it really will be. As the cup of the iniquity of this peopleshall not be full till they have finally rejected and crucified the Lord of life, so this desolationcannot take place till after Jesus’ death.THE DAYS OF NOAH AND LOT AND JESUS’ RETURN (17:26-31)Jesus will return when society is very much like in the days of Noah and Lot:"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of theSon of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given inmarriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came anddestroyed them all.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, fireand sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that dayno one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should godown to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything.”(vv. 26-31)