The Rapture, the Remnant and the Poseidon Adventure

Enoch is an enigmatic bible figure. Not a lot is known about him. He was seventh from Adam. He was the father of Methuselah, the bibles' oldest recorded person. We know Enoch walked with God, and then he was not, for God took him. (Genesis 5:21-24)

And in the NT we know that God was pleased with Enoch, "By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God." (Hebrews 11:5)

And we know that Enoch prophesied. Jude 1:14 has the prophecy-

"It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones,"

Which is pretty cool because Enoch lived before the flood and the only people to survive the flood and thus record the prophecy are Noah and his sons and their wives. It was a prophecy that is obviously important for the succeeding generations to know about.

"The exact meaning of Methuselah's name is somewhat uncertain: Dr. Henry Morris said it may mean, “When he dies, judgment.” Others say: “When he is dead it shall be sent” (“it” refers to the Deluge) (Cornwall and Smith, Exhaustive Dictionary of Bible Names). He was the oldest man of whom we have any record. This very ancient man lived before the Flood, and died at the age of 969 years, in the year of the Flood (Gen. 5:21-27; 1 Chr. 1:3). This fact, plus the former possible meaning of his name, suggests that Methuselah's very godly father, Enoch, received a prophecy from God when his son was born, thus the name. Methuselah's great age may be further evidence of God's “long-suffering… in the days of Noah” (1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 3:9)." (source)

My opinion is (and this is speculation but it's based on logical bible interpretation) is that Enoch will be one of the two witnesses during the Tribulation. Hebrews 9:27 says it is appointed for a man to die once and then face judgment. The verse obviously does not mean to die only once, because Lazarus and others died twice. And with the exception of the people who will be raptured, in my opinion the verse means that everyone has to die at least once. Enoch and Elijah never died. But if they are the two witnesses, they come down to earth and prophesy for an appointed amount of time and then they are killed. They eventually do die, fulfilling the general rule that Hebrews 9:27 states.

So even at that early date, God planned the second coming, precisely and perfectly, even down to the name of the Methuselah who was the canary in the coal mine, so to speak. His use of Enoch however was not just literal, but as with many lessons from the Old Testament, it was also a picture, or a type.

Enoch is a well-known type of the Church. He walked in fellowship with God and warned the world of coming judgment (Jude 14-15). Enoch had the distinction among the patriarchs of not seeing death. He was instead translated to heaven, being a picture of the Rapture of the Church. Enoch was translated to heaven before the flood came. After he was taken, God brought the flood upon the world, which is a foreshadow of the judgment to come in the Tribulation (2 Pet. 3:3-10; Lk. 17:26-27). (source)

Have you ever thought of Enoch in that way? He is a picture of the rapture, the church taken up to heaven alive before the long-prophesied judgment is unleashed.

Noah is a man of faith. There is no doubt that the lessons we can learn from his life yield many treasures of God's character and might. He used Noah in a mighty way and Noah's faith is a reminder to us today about being steadfast in trusting God.

But in addition to a literal lessons we can learn from Noah or about Noah, Noah was also a picture or a type. Noah was representative of God's remnant of the Jews, going through a global judgment but being supernaturally preserved during it.

Lambert Dolphin has a good essay on the concept of the remnant. Numerically, the remnant has always been very small. Keep that in mind.

God foretold what will happen at the outset of the Tribulation and in a whistlestop discourse He marched the Apostles through the overview of it in Matthew 24. In Revelation, He gave more detail to John through a series of visions.

The remnant preserved through the Tribulation, though alluded to in Matthew 15-25, is slightly more specific in Joel 2:32, Zeph. 3:12f, Zech. 8:12; 13:7-9. It is a lot more specific in Isaiah 63:1-6, where the ancient name for Petra is called Bozrah.

In Revelation 12:6, we read a bit more about Petra being the stand-in for the Ark, where His remnant is preserved and protected through the global judgment:

"The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days." The woman in context here is Israel. Revelation 12:14-16 has a bit more. Zechariah 14:1-3 speaks of it also, and uses similar language.

The point is, the LORD always preserves a remnant. he has promised to do so and He will again. He will literally carry them through to be His glorious trophies after the judgment subsides.

So we have mentioned Enoch as a picture of the church, taken up bodily before the judgment starts. We have spoken of Noah, a faithful man and his family preserved through the global judgment which will be a picture of the Tribulation. But what about those who come to salvation during the Tribulation? The most vivid picture I can use here is an analogy of the movie The Poseidon Adventure.

I know that cultural references are usually no good for the obvious reason that they are not truth like the bible is. Just as obviously, if you haven't sen the movie then the analogy fails. But here goes anyway, lol.

The Poseidon Adventure was a 1972 disaster film about an aging cruise ship heading to Greece from NY on its final voyage when it met up with a tsunami wave broadside and was capsized. Parts of the movie were filmed aboard the RMS Queen Mary, whose encounter with a rogue wave in 1942 inspired the book upon which the film is based. The movie was a critical and audience success. The original poster for the film had the tagline "Hell, upside down." This is the analogy. The Tribulation will be hell on earth when everything everyone knew will be turned upside down.

The scene in which the wave turned the ship upside down was memorable. It happened on New Year's Eve, and being a luxury liner, the ballroom was filled with people dressed in fancy clothes and wearing jewels and eating luxurious food. They are having a good time, oblivious to the danger that is coming their way.

Suddenly and without warning, their world literally turns upside down. It happens fast and nothing looks like it did before. Mangled catwalks bar their way. Lumps of fire-glowing infrastructure are a menace. The lights go out. Many try to find a way to survive but they make wrong decisions and are killed in constant disasters such as explosions, steam pipe breaks, drowning, fires, etc.

A very small band of people fight their way through by going toward the propeller room, which is counter-intuitive because in a sane world the propeller room is down, under the waterline. But in an upside down world, the propeller would be above water. It was difficult going because everything is backwards and is so unlike the world they had been living in just a few moments before. Even at that, many in the small party die. Only 5 people on the entire ship of thousands make it to daylight.

The Tribulation will be hell in a world turned upside down.

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." (Isaiah 5:20)

"Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted." (Habakkuk 1:4)

The world will be upside down! A hellish struggle with death at every corner!

You have a choice in which group to belong as this age winds to its end. You can be saved by the blood of Jesus now, repenting of your sins and escaping all these things in the rapture. If you are Jewish you can wait and be supernaturally converted to Christianity during the Tribulation, if you aren't one of the billions who die first, and hope that you will be included in the very small remnant who make it to Petra to be protected by God. Or you can shake your fist at God, hope you don't die along with the billions of others, and become one of the very, tiny few who become born-again, and escape the guillotine of the antichrist and live through the Tribulation to emerge in the morning after.

I am saved by the grace of Jesus, I KNOW that I KNOW that I will go in the rapture, which will occur prior to the tribulation. I often wonder what the morning after the rapture will be like. How bright the glory! How peaceful the lands! How beautiful His brethren! How faithful His angels!

Listen to the song from The Morning After (from the Poseidon Adventure) and listen to it with a Jesus-tinge. I hope to see you there, the morning after.