According to the Bible, this sudden day of the Lord will bring utter ruin and devastation. Peter foretold a cataclysmic cleansing of the world in fire in 2 Peter 3:10:
The day of the Lord will come like a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.We get the same picture in Revelation 6:15–17: a supernatural upheaval, in which ungodly rulers seek to hide themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling out to the mountains and rocks:Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?On that day, all the treasures gained by a world of sin will be lost. It will all be plundered by the thief who comes. It will all be replaced by the wretched prospect of what Paul callseternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord, from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints(2 Thessalonians 1:9–10).Well, Jesus cited Noah’s flood as a type of the future judgment. People were leading their self-centered lives. They were oblivious to God’s threatened wrath. And then the flood came, and it struck them and swept virtually the entire race away. Jesus said,
So will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken, one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken, and one left.Notice again that it is the ungodly who are swept away. It is the believers who are left behind for salvation. And the future day of the Lord will bring that kind of disaster—only by fire instead of by rain and water.Now, we have noted that the day of the Lord will be unforeseen, and it will be sudden. But notice what Paul says in verse 3 as well. He adds a third feature: that it will also be completely unavoidable. There will be no escape on the day of the Lord, and he makes his point by reference to a pregnant woman in her birth pangs:
Richard D. PhillipsSudden destruction will come upon them as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.Well, daunting as labour is today, in the ancient world it involved dreadful suffering and a serious danger to the life of the mother. And Paul’s point is that once the contractions begin, the painful labour is inescapable and irreversible.1
3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.