Who Do You Want to Be Left Behind? Text: Matthew 24:36-41
Introduction: Eschatology in Overalls
When modern Christians hear the phrase "end times," their minds immediately fill with a collage of images drawn more from paperback novels and Hollywood movies than from the hard-headed realism of the Scriptures. We think of unmanned cars careening down the highway, empty clothes piled on the floor, and a great cosmic escape for the saints. But this is a theology built on sentiment, not on exegesis. It is a theology that has inverted the very meaning of the words Jesus speaks here in the Olivet Discourse.
The Lord is not giving us a secret decoder ring to predict the headlines. He is giving His disciples, and by extension us, a set of instructions for how to live in the long meantime between His ascension and His final return. This is eschatology in overalls. It is meant for work, for watchfulness, for faithfulness in the field and at the mill. The central point is not "when," but "what." What kind of people ought we to be, knowing that history is headed toward a final, decisive judgment?
Jesus has just spent a good portion of this chapter describing the calamitous judgment that was to befall Jerusalem within a generation. He spoke of wars, famines, earthquakes, and the abomination of desolation. All of that was a historical, temporal judgment that came to pass in A.D. 70, just as He said it would. But that judgment was also a type, a foreshadowing, of the final judgment. The principles of God's dealings with men are consistent. And so, as He transitions here, He broadens the scope to the final coming of the Son of Man, the one that is yet future for us. But the warnings, and the central point, remain the same: God's judgment falls on a world that is not paying attention.
The popular understanding of this passage has managed to get it precisely, exactly, 180 degrees backward. They have turned a terrifying warning of judgment into a comforting promise of escape. We must therefore come to the text with our minds scrubbed clean of these modern inventions and listen to what Jesus is actually saying.
The Text
"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For just as the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding grain at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left."
(Matthew 24:36-41 LSB)
The Unknowable Hour (v. 36)
We begin with the Lord's clear statement on prophetic timetables.
"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." (Matthew 24:36)
This verse should be the death of all the date-setting charlatans who have plagued the church for centuries. Jesus is emphatic. The specific timing of the final judgment is a piece of information that the Father has kept to Himself. It is not for us to know. It is not for the angels to know. And in His state of humiliation, in His incarnate role as the Son, Jesus Himself submitted to this limitation. To attempt to calculate the date of His return is therefore an act of supreme arrogance and disobedience. It is to claim to know what Christ Himself, in His earthly ministry, did not claim to know.
The purpose of this secrecy is not to frustrate us, but to cultivate a particular kind of character in us. It is designed to produce a state of constant, vigilant readiness. If the master of the house told his servants he would return on October 23rd at 3 p.m., they would likely slack off until the afternoon of the 23rd and then frantically try to get things in order. But because they do not know the hour, they must keep the house in order at all times. The uncertainty of the timing is a tool for our sanctification. It forces us to live every day as though it might be the last, which is precisely how we ought to live regardless.
The Normalcy of Judgment (v. 37-39)
Next, Jesus gives us a historical analogy to illustrate the atmosphere of the world when the end comes.
"For just as the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be." (Matthew 24:37-39 LSB)
What characterized the days of Noah? We know from Genesis that it was a time of profound wickedness and violence. But that is not the point Jesus emphasizes here. He focuses on the sheer, mundane normalcy of it all. They were eating and drinking. They were getting married. They were going about the ordinary business of life, completely oblivious to the storm of judgment gathering on the horizon.
The problem was not that they were eating or marrying. These are good, creational gifts. The problem was that this was all they were doing. Their lives were entirely horizontal. They were so absorbed in the rhythms of earthly existence that they had no thought for God, no ear for Noah's preaching, no concern for the coming wrath. They were spiritually deaf, dumb, and blind. They "did not understand." It was not a lack of information; Noah was a preacher of righteousness. It was a willful, culpable ignorance.
And the judgment, when it came, was sudden and total. The flood "took them all away." This phrase is crucial for understanding what follows. The flood did not "rapture" the wicked into a better place. It swept them away in a cataclysmic judgment. They were the ones who were "taken." Noah and his family, the righteous remnant, were the ones "left behind" to inherit the cleansed earth. The ark did not fly up to heaven; it rode out the storm and landed right back on the ground. The goal of God's salvation is not to escape the earth, but to inherit it.
The Great Reversal (v. 40-41)
This brings us to the two verses that have been so spectacularly misunderstood in our day.
"Then there will be two in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding grain at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left." (Matthew 24:40-41 LSB)
Given the immediate context of the flood, who is the one "taken"? It is the one who is like the people in Noah's day, the one who is swept away in judgment. The Greek word here, paralambano, simply means "to take." Its meaning, whether for blessing or for judgment, is determined entirely by the context. And the context here is the flood that "took them all away." The one taken is taken to judgment. The one left is the one who is spared, left to continue in the kingdom.
The popular "Left Behind" theology has performed a complete exegetical somersault. It has made being "left behind" the terrible fate and being "taken" the glorious reward. Jesus teaches the exact opposite. You do not want to be the one taken. The one taken is the unbeliever, working in the field, suddenly seized by the judgment of God. The one left is the believer, who is preserved through the judgment to inherit the new heavens and the new earth.
Look at the parallel passage in Luke. After Jesus gives the same illustration, the disciples ask Him, "Where, Lord?" And He answers, "Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered" (Luke 17:37). The ones who are "taken" are taken to the place of the corpse, the place of death and judgment. This is not about a rapture; it is about a rupture. It is the final, sudden separation of the righteous from the wicked.
Conclusion: Are You Ready to Be Left?
The entire force of this passage is a call to vigilance. The judgment of God does not arrive with a brass band and a formal announcement. It breaks in upon the world in the midst of its ordinary, humdrum, God-ignoring business. It finds people in the field, at the mill, going about their day, and it makes a final, eternal distinction.
This is not a call to abandon our work and stare at the sky. The people in the field and at the mill were doing their duty. The difference was not in their external activity, but in their internal posture. One was ready to meet the Lord; the other was not. One was living in light of eternity; the other was living for the weekend.
The question this text puts to each one of us is not, "Have you figured out the timeline?" but rather, "Are you ready?" Are you living as though the master could return at any moment? Is your life oriented around the reality of God and His coming kingdom, or is it consumed with the eating and drinking and marrying of this passing age?
The great irony is that the church has spent a century dreaming of being "taken" when the prayer of the saints should be to be "left." We are not looking for an escape hatch out of creation. We are looking for the King to return and claim His creation. We are praying "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." The righteous will inherit the earth. The wicked will be taken from it, like weeds pulled from a garden, like dross skimmed from molten gold.
Therefore, do not be deceived by fanciful stories. Be sober. Be vigilant. Do your work faithfully, whether in the field or at the mill or in the office. Love your family. Worship your God. And be ready. For the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. And on that day, the great hope of the Christian is not to be taken, but to be found faithful, and to be left behind to inherit all things.