Is Lot’s escape from Sodom really evidence for a pre-tribulation rapture? Was Enoch taken to heaven so that he could escape the Flood? Does Daniel’s absence from the furnace scene support the same idea?
Subjects covered lately in this series have been a little on the fringe of the whole matter of the timing of the rapture, but considering that some ardent preachers of a pre-tribulation rapture borrow every corner of Scripture to try to prove their point, it’s necessary to counter some of those weak arguments, and bring some reality to light.
I want to reiterate that I am not a-millennial in my beliefs, and I know that the rapture is a real Scriptural event. However, having been misled on the subject for twenty-eight years, I wish now to help others see what the future really holds, and not allow them to stick their heads in the sand of faulty interpretation. This post is excerpt number 29 from my book*. There’s a lot of meat in earlier posts. Just search “rapture” or try search terms such as “rapture wrath”, or “rapture bride”.
LOT’S ESCAPE FROM SODOM
Jesus’ reference to Lot’s escape from the destruction of Sodom in Luke chapter 17 is used to support a pre-tribulation rapture. However, Lot left Sodom on his own two feet, not on angels’ wings, knowing it was going to be judged that very day, because he had been told so. The ungodly were living out their usual daily lives when destruction from the Lord took them by surprise (verses 28-29). This is the point Jesus is making: not that believers were taken away without knowing that they would be or when they would be, but that the wicked were taken by surprise and were not expecting judgment. The wicked were appointed to wrath instead of salvation (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
Noah entered the ark on the same day the Flood came (Genesis 7:11-13) and not days or years before. Lot escaped from Sodom on the same day judgment came. They did not leave the earth. Do we really want to take these events as templates for the rapture? If so, at best we would have to take the “mid-Tribulation” position, because Jesus and Paul said that the “time of trouble”-equivalent to the Flood and the destruction of Sodom-will begin when Antichrist enters the temple, and not before (Matthew 24:17 and 21). This will be only three and a half years before Christ’s visible return, not seven or eight or ten years before it. Even in the words of pre-tribulation “experts” the first half of the “seven years” will be a time of apparent peace and prosperity for the world: not the day of judgment, wrath and trouble. Antichrist’s power lasts only for forty-two months (Revelation 13:5). If Noah’s escape and Lot’s escape prefigure the rapture itself then the rapture would have to be on the very day Antichrist is revealed on the temple mount-at the earliest.
Noah’s deliverance does not work as a model for a rapture years before the time of trouble: neither does Lot’s. It’s intended to demonstrate that the unbelieving world will not be ready for the Day of the Lord while true believers will. Paul put it this way:
“…for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly…But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief…” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-4).
ENOCH
“Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” (Genesis 5:24).
Enoch’s disappearance could certainly be considered a type of rapture. It’s very reminiscent of Paul’s description of our being changed from mortal to immortal, in his letters to the Thessalonians and the Corinthians. However, some pre-tribulation teachers go beyond what this brief account actually says, by claiming that Enoch’s “rapture” is symbolic of a pre-tribulation rapture of the Church. They assert that Enoch was taken to heaven to escape the Flood, and in the same way, the Church will be taken to heaven to escape the tribulation. Is there a statement in the Bible plainly connecting these two events-Enoch’s “rapture” and the rapture of the Church?
This concept gives the impression that Enoch was raptured a day or so, or a year or so, before the Flood, so that he wouldn’t have to suffer it. After all, the Church, it is said, will be raptured days or perhaps a few years before the “seven-year” tribulation begins. In fact, when you do the math, you find that Enoch was taken by God to heaven nine hundred and sixty-nine years before the Flood (Genesis 5:21-29 and 7:6). We’re told in Genesis that Enoch “walked with God”. This is why the Lord took him. We’re not told in scripture that Enoch was taken to spare him from the Flood almost a thousand years later, but because he walked with God. Being so close to God, would he not have escaped the Flood, along with “righteous” Noah, were he around for that long? There was no need for him to be raptured from the Flood!.
DANIEL
One prominent denomination teaches that Daniel had his own “rapture” which is intended to model the pre-tribulation rapture. Into the fiery furnace went Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo, in Daniel chapter 3, for not worshiping Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. But where was Daniel? He was not there at all. The fearless three had to endure the trials and tribulations of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, while Daniel was nowhere to be seen. His absence is not only a “mystery”, but is considered a type of the pre-tribulation rapture.
Of course, there’s no statement to that effect anywhere in scripture, not even in Paul’s discussion of the rapture in the New Testament, when he shares his “mystery”. It’s an idea which is not provable, but which tickles the fancy of those who look for support for a pre-tribulation rapture in every corner of the Bible and beyond. There’s no consideration of the possibility that Daniel was, for example, away on business for the king. It was a very big kingdom. And why were the other three not raptured also, considering they were men of great faith, whose faith would put most of us to shame?
Not only is there no statement in scripture that Daniel’s absence models a pre-tribulation escape from the events of Revelation, but when we read on in the book of Daniel we find that he’s back in the flesh, on earth, and undergoing his own “fiery trial”. Chapter six sees Daniel falsely accused and set up by the king’s counselors. He’s then thrown into the lion’s den, where he is miraculously protected, but nonetheless very present on the earth for the ordeal.
*ALL LEFT BEHIND:THE CASE AGAINST A PRE-TRIBULATION RAPTURE, by Nick Fisher, on Amazon in paperback and e-book.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 
LOT & NOAH — Timing and Typology
Claim: Noah and Lot weren’t removed before judgment day, so they can’t picture a pre-Trib rapture.
Response:
They were removed before judgment fell.
Genesis 7:16–17 says, “The LORD shut him in. Now the flood was on the earth forty days.” Judgment did not begin until after Noah was sealed inside the ark.
Genesis 19:22–24 says, “Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” God Himself delayed judgment until the righteous were out of danger.
That is exactly the pre-Trib principle: God’s wrath cannot fall while His righteous are still present.
Jesus’ comparison in Luke 17:26-30 shows sequence, not location. He said the day Lot went out of Sodom, “it rained fire.” He was stressing the order—deliverance first, judgment second—mirroring the pre-Trib pattern of removal before wrath (see 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9; Revelation 3:10).
The “day of the Lord” is not the same as the entire seven-year Tribulation. The day of wrath begins after the man of sin is revealed (2 Thessalonians 2:3-9) and culminates in God’s direct judgments (Revelation 6 and following).
The Church’s removal before that wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10) fits Noah-Lot typology perfectly.
ENOCH — A True Type of Pre-Trib Removal
Claim: Enoch was taken 969 years before the Flood, so it can’t symbolize deliverance from it.
Response:
Typology is about pattern, not proximity. Scripture often uses chronologically distant events as prophetic pictures—like Isaac’s sacrifice foreshadowing Christ’s centuries later (Genesis 22; John 3:16). Enoch’s translation (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5) establishes the pattern of a believer who “walked with God” and was taken before judgment ever arrived—the first explicit model of a man escaping death before worldwide judgment.
Contrast Enoch and Noah: two pictures, two groups.
Enoch represents the Church—taken to heaven before the Flood—picture of a pre-Trib rapture.
Noah represents Israel—preserved through the Flood—picture of God’s protection of a remnant during the Tribulation.
This double picture is deliberate: one removed, one preserved.
DANIEL — Presence, Not Absence, Teaches the Pattern
Claim: Daniel’s absence in the fiery-furnace story is meaningless.
Response:
While Scripture doesn’t state why Daniel wasn’t there, the Holy Spirit’s silence in prophetic books is often purposeful. The pattern mirrors Revelation 6–19.
In Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzar’s image parallels Antichrist’s image in Revelation. The three faithful Hebrews endure fire but are preserved, just as Israel and the Tribulation saints will be protected through fiery trials. Daniel’s absence fits the pattern of the Church not being present on earth during the judgments.
Later, Daniel reappears in chapter 6, just as the Church returns with Christ in Revelation 19:14. This isn’t a doctrine by itself, but it harmonizes with the consistent biblical pattern of removal before wrath.
THE CLEAR SCRIPTURAL FOUNDATION
1 Thessalonians 1:10 — “Jesus… delivers us from the wrath to come.”
1 Thessalonians 5:9 — “God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation.”
Revelation 3:10 — “I will keep you from (Greek ek, ‘out of’) the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world.”
2 Thessalonians 2:6-8 — The restrainer (the Spirit-indwelt Church) must be removed before the man of sin is revealed.
John 14:2-3 — Jesus promised to receive believers to Himself in the Father’s house, not to return immediately with them to earth.
These verses cannot be harmonized with a mid- or post-Trib interpretation without redefining “wrath,” “hour,” and “receive.”
SUMMARY
Enoch — removed before judgment — picture of the Church raptured before the Tribulation.
Noah — preserved through judgment — picture of Israel’s remnant.
Lot — removed same day judgment fell — picture of deliverance before wrath.
Daniel 3 — Daniel absent — Church not present during the Tribulation.
Daniel 6 — delivered after trial — Israel’s final rescue.
The consistent scriptural pattern is always the same: God removes or protects the righteous before His wrath is poured out. The pre-Trib rapture aligns perfectly with that divine precedent.
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This does not at all support a rapture seven or ten or forty years before wrath. Between the sixth and seventh seals of Revelation the kings of the earth conclude that God’s wrath has come…not at the beginning of the first seal. The Olivet Discourse sees Jesus gathering his elect (whoever you think they are) at the end of the signs he has described. How would they survive to that point? Enoch was “raptured over nine hundred years before the Flood – hardly a rapture to deliver him from the Flood, and in any case, why did he need rapturing ,when he could have just got on the ark with Noah? Lot left Sodom on the day of judgment, not seven years before it. No, the restrainer does not even have to be removed at all from the earth: He will stand back as in Paul’s description of the corrupt culture of Romans 1. God would not and cannot leave his Revelation saints without the Holy Spirit during Tribulation events. Today, this very day, Christians in Sudan and Nigeria and other places are being killed for their faith: do you assume that you have a right to escape and they don’t? You have given me a long list of claims but I don’t think you’ve read much of what I’ve published about the rapture, and I don’t want to repeat it all here.
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