Luke 17:20-37
RTNT 2021. …He answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” (vv. 20b-21) In the book Heaven the author, Randy Alcorn argues extensively that we are living in Heaven, that our Earth – in a glorified state – is the future Heaven. So when Jesus says that the kingdom of God is in the midst of you, He could be speaking specifically of “Heaven on Earth”. That is, His words could be taken both literally (a physical Earth) and figuratively (spiritually, within each of us).
In verses 26 to 29 Jesus talks of the people who are living normal lives in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot. I fear that we are living in those days all over again – …eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage … buying and selling, planting and building… And those days resulted in a flood in Noah’s time and fire and brimstone on Sodom. More specifically I think of our current days more like Sodom. Jesus mentions marrying and being given in marriage in Noah’s time, but not in Lot’s time. Likewise, our own traditional institution of marriage (in many lives) has fallen out of our culture. I can picture fire and brimstone falling down on Sodom. I wonder what fire and brimstone awaits us.
See also: August 3 / Luke 17:20-37