Bible Study Seattle

There’s a curious line from Daniel:  “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One [Jesus], the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’  It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.  After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler [Romans] who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.  The end will come like a flood:  War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.”  Daniel 9:25-26

The end will come like a flood?  Perhaps like Noah’s flood?  Three passages come to mind:

“In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer.  “To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth.  So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.   Isaiah 54:8-10

The end is pictured as the days of Noah.  The mountains will be shaken and the hills removed – a lot of geologic change, yet after this the Lord will have a covenant of peace with his people.  Two other very related passages:

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.  As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.  For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 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.  Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.  Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.  But understand this: If the owner of the house [Satan] had known at what time of night the thief [Jesus] was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house [the world] be broken into.  So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you [Christians] do not expect him.”  Matthew 24:36-44

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man: People went on eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day Noah boarded the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in the days of Lot: People went on eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building.  But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be like that on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, a man on the housetop, whose belongings are in the house, must not come down to get them.  Likewise the man who is in the field must not turn back.  Remember Lot’s wife!  Whoever tries to make his life secure will lost it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.  I tell you, on the night two will be in one bed:  One will be taken and the other will be left.  Two women will be grinding grain together:  One will be taken and the other left.”  Luke 17:26-35

For more details, we must study Noah’s flood.  It lasted 370 days.  Could that represent 370 years?  There are two periods that start with 40 days.  40 is the number symbolizing preparation for something new.  Could the days of Lot represent the time when Jesus is manifested to the whole world?  Will this be the battle of armeggedon?  Similar to Joseph’s violent revealing of himself to his brothers?  Who knows?