Here's an interesting tidbit for all of you to chew on for today.  For those of you who understand typology in the bible, I'm sure you're aware that certain people, places and events act as "types" or representatives of either future events, people, or places.  For example, there are numerous typologies of Jesus throughout the bible played out through people like Joshua, Daniel, David, Joseph and countless others.  These gave the reader of the old testament hints to the characteristics and nature of the soon coming messiah.  IE, this is a little taste of what Jesus would be like.

For those of you who don't understand typology, a good way to explain this might be to look at things from a more modern perspective to see how typology plays out even in today's world.  For example, let's say someone you know says you're like a Bing Cherry.  What's distinct about a Bing Cherry?  Well, it's red, tart, a small round fruit, grows on trees, etc.  Therefore to be like a Bing Cherry, in the sense of typology, would be to say you're a fierce person (red), sharp in tongue (tart), well rounded/educated/experienced (round fruit) and you come from a strong family (tree) that stands tall (cherry trees tend to be HUGE) in a world full of good (grass) and evil (weeds) people.

Now sure, that's probably stretching the example a bit, but you see how this works, and ultimately how typology works.  It's basically correlating one thing to another through representative actions or things.  Another example of how this works would be to use a common, yet modern word play.  Saying "That man is a dog!" isn't saying that the person it's directed at is a dog.  Instead it's saying that the person in question displays characteristics (fierceness most likely, perhaps animalistic cruelty, maybe even loyalty) that is comparable to what one might think of when picturing a dog.  That's typology in it's most elemental form.

So what does all of this have to do with Noah, Lot and the Last Days?  Noah's Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are typologies of the last days.  Allow me to use scripture to demonstrate.  First of all, what were the days of Noah and Lot like?

IN NOAH's DAY
Genesis 6:5, 11, 12 (KJV) - ⁵ "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ¹¹ The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.  ¹² And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth."

IN LOT's DAY
Jude 1:7 (KJV) - "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

In Noah's day God destroyed the whole Earth with water.  But with Lot, He only destroyed a few cities with fire.  Even so, both are typologies, despite one being a worldwide judgment and the other merely regional, and both share some surprising similarities.

Matthew 24:37-39 (KJV) - "But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

Luke 17:28-30 (KJV) - "Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed."

Interesting comparison, no?  In both cases, just before they suffered judgment, the people ate, and drank, bought and sold, planted and reaped, built, etc just like today.  But now look closer at the two verses.  Why was one judged with fire and the other with water?  Well, first of all you have to understand the typologies of water and fire.  Water cleanses by washing away.  Fire cleanses by burning away the impurities.  It's why you heat metal to purify it.  The heat separates the metal from its impurities, allowing you to obtain good, useful metal from otherwise impure stock.  Water merely washes the impurities off, but doesn't cleanse the metal.  So again, why use fire in the end and not water?  Well, for several reasons.  The first comes from the bible.

Genesis 9:8-17 (KJV) - "And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth."

Part of the reason is that God promised to NEVER destroy the Earth again with water.  So in a way He tied His own hands.  But there's bigger things with this too.  In Noah's day there'd never been rain, and therefore floods didn't exist.  Or at least not that we're aware of.  Now can you imagine Noah preaching to an unrepentant world about how it was to rain and the whole Earth would be flooded?  Try to picture what they were thinking when they heard that.  Up till that time it'd never rained, nor flooded.  In fact, I doubt there was even a word in their vocabulary for either of those things at the time.  There sure was afterwards, but doubtless any existed beforehand.

In fact, I can just picture Noah hearing God tell him to build an ark.  It probably went like any other conversation would right up until the end, and likely sounded something like this: "Sure, Lord, I can do that.  But, um, what's rain?  And for that matter, what's an ark!?"  I'm sure they had small boats and dinghies during those days as the Earth at that time was dotted by thousands of small lakes filled with fish.  So small boats in that era were probably quite common.  But an ark?  Yeah, that was new.  Today though, not so much as we have lots of ships, submarines, and other large, extremely durable vessels which could easily survive another global flood.  In fact, doing so would be frighteningly easy.  And I know that God knew about this even way back during the time of Genesis.

In fact it's reasonable to assume that the descendants of Ham, Shem and Japheth knew in great detail about the flood and would've either prepared, or known how to prepare, in some way to survive a second world wide flood if such should occur.  Therefore were there to be another global flood as in Noah's day, it'd be unlikely to catch anyone by surprise in the way the first one did, and thus wouldn't be as effective a judgment.  Now fire, that's a whole other animal.  Even with our modern technology and super alloys, fire is not something we could survive if push came to shove.  We don't live in a Star Trek world.  We can't escape to the stars, or survive a fiery destruction in specially designed super ships.  So fire is a perfect destructive judgment tool for God to use and, like the flood, will be unexpected by most of the people of the Earth.

Plus, as I said, water washes away, but fire purifies.  There's spiritual significance in that too, as well as other end times symbolism displayed in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  In Genesis Lot is spoken of as a righteous man, although he clearly had his failings and compromising, going so far as to even live in the center of Sodom, right in the heart of a city packed full of sin.  Yet God sent two angels to rescue Lot before He destroyed the city.  Now think about that.  What does the bible say that God will do prior to the Tribulation?  He will rapture (rescue, catch away, protect) His children prior to destroying the Earth in the Tribulation and judging its inhabitants.

Again, typologies aren't perfect analogies of what is to come, but they are adequate foreshadowings, which is what the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah are; a typology of the end days foreshadowing the events of Revelation where God will rescue the believing church (raptured) out of Sodom (the present day Earth) prior to raining down judgment (fire) upon them (the Earth) to judge those who remain for their sins, destroying them by fire and removing them from the Earth forever (ie, killed and/or turned to ash).  Now how's that for an interesting bible lesson to go with your morning coffee? :)