26 “As it was in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man. 27 They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ship, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise, even as it was in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all. 30 It will be the same way in the day that the Son of Man is revealed. 31 In that day, he who will be on the housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away. Let him who is in the field likewise not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever seeks to save his life loses it, but whoever loses his life preserves it. 34 I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. The one will be taken, and the other will be left. 35 There will be two grinding grain together. One will be taken, and the other will be left.”

37 They, answering, asked him, “Where, Lord?”

He said to them, “Where the body is, there will the vultures also be gathered together.”

Luke 17:26-37 - World English Bible

Jesus used two figures from Scripture to describe the people’s blindness to the coming of the Son of Man: Noah and Lot. In both cases, the people at the time of these two men did not see the approaching judgment, just as the generation of Jesus did not see the times of destruction coming. His advice to the faithful: flee. Escape without concern for personal possessions. Don't look back like Lot's wife. Those who remain to save their “life” (i.e., their “stuff”) would lose it, but those who risk all would save it. (Notice Luke shifted the verse from the question of salvation to that of survival.) Two might work together, but one will escape (be taken). (Some Christians use this last verse to bolster their belief in the “Rapture,” the notion that Jesus will come to take the Church into the “clouds” before the Tribulation, yet fail to notice that the context for the verse depended upon the prerogative of the believer.)

When the disciples ask the Lord for the location of the troubles (not the time frame), he responded with the image of the rotting caucus that attracted scavengers. This image brought his listeners full circle to the corruption of those who refused to heed his message about the coming Kingdom.

How have you heeded the message of Christ's coming?