Jesus said: As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be when the Son of Man comes. Matthew 24:37-40
Obviously referring to another worldwide disaster of a similar magnitude as the Flood. Can't be by water the next time, clearly stated to be by fire. 2 Peter 3:7
Read Ezekiel 30:1-5, Jeremiah 10:18, Hosea 4:3, Zephaniah 1:1-18, +
The holy Land will be cleared and cleansed, Deuteronomy 32:34-43. Only the Lord's faithful people will go to live there. Isaiah 35:1-10, Ezekiel 34:11-16, Romans 9:24-26
I know the Bible. The Scriptures often speak with a focus on a particular event at a particular time. Sometimes universal language is applied only to a local event.
I may say that a backslidden, rebellious friend is despicable and won't be forgiven for his acts of rage, that he will pay the last penny for damages, and that even with apologies there is no turning back--he will go to jail. If I say this, and apply it to a particular situation to a particular friend at one time in his life, I may seem to speak in universal language, as if my friend is lost to Hell forever.
But in reality, 10 years later, my friend may be fully reformed, walking with Christ, and in no danger of future punishments. The words of the prophets have to be understood *in their context!*
Israel at one time was despicable, and apostate, and the prophets railed against them, saying they would not be forgiven. Even today, the majority of Jews remain lost, but being lost they are not necessarily rebellious like they were in ancient times when the prophets railed against them.
And even if only a small remnant of Jews are Christians today, and throughout the NT age, what prevents a nation from turning to being a Christian nation? If France did it under Clovis, if England did it under Christian kings, if Germany did it, Russia did it, the US did it, etc. etc., what on earth prevents Israel from doing it once Christ comes back and deals in judgment with the hard-hearted majority who are seeking to prevent this from happening?
But yes, Jesus compared his 2nd Coming to the Flood, because both constitute a universal judgment. In the case of the Flood it exterminated an entire civilization across an entire region, at the very least. In the case of the 2nd Coming, there will be a world war, I believe. One wiped out a civilization. The other punishes, but does not exterminate, the population.
So the difference is this. The Flood absolutely exterminated mankind within this region. It scrubbed humanity clean of the area.
On the other hand, the 2nd Coming is not designed to destroy mankind, like the Flood did. What makes it similar is the universality of the judgment. But it does not contradict what God said about the Flood, that He would never again scrub mankind from an entire region of the planet like that. At the 2nd Coming, He will not exterminate mankind from any region, because His purpose has always been to fill the earth with people. Rather, he will judge them, which is to discriminate between the good and evil among them.