“Whoever will seek to gain his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life shall preserve it.”
The third illustration is between those who cling to their lives of sin, like Lot's wife, and thus perish, and those whose hearts, like that of Lot, are on the righteousness of God (2 Peter 2:7-8), in New Testament terms those who take up their cross and follow Christ (Luke 9:24 with 23).
So two examples of those whose eyes are to be fixed on God in Luke 17:31 are followed by the example of the one whose eyes were fixed on sin in Luke 17:32, and in this verse the two are contrasted. Furthermore these examples, which are very much in terms already applied to the disciples, emphasise the continuity between the disciples and those who will be alive in the ultimate day of Christ's return. For between the Day of suffering and the Day of glory such tests may come again and again. In these three warnings we can see His instructions, not only for the time of the end, but also as those which are to be followed throughout the whole preceding period as they make themselves ready for that Day.