🕒 5 min read · 📝 993 words
Most readers approach Matthew 24 expecting a dramatic end-of-world scenario. But Scripture offers something deeper: not the destruction of creation, but the completion of faith—the telos, or goal, being the salvation of the soul (1 Pet 1:9).
🔥 Armageddon as Spiritual Discipline
The Battle of Armageddon is not a geopolitical war, but a spiritual conflict fought in the Valley of Decision (Joel 3:14), the Jezreel of the soul.
It is the moment when willfully sinful Christians, under Jesus’ supervision, are led into the prison of hellfire (Mt 24:51, 25:41) —not for condemnation, but for discipline.
There, they are taught to deny ungodliness (Titus 2:11–12), so that they may be restored and released, just as Jesus taught in Matthew 5:25–26.
Ezekiel 20:37 ASV — And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant;
Matt 24:2 but he answered and said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down
This is the Grace of God teaching the humble (James 4:6) to deny ungodliness (Titus 2:11-12).
The Father’s Discipline –
Hebrews 12:4 ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin:
5 and ye have forgotten the exhortation which reasoneth with you as with sons,
My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord,
Nor faint when thou art reproved of him;
6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,
And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7 ¶It is for chastening that ye endure; God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father chasteneth not?
8 But if ye are without chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
🧠 Parables Concealing the Day of the Lord
This process is veiled in parables (Matt 13:11–12), hidden from casual readers but revealed to those who seek understanding.
It is the Day of the Lord—a time of correction, not annihilation, Joel 1:15-16.
Divine messengers (Psalm 78:49, Matt 3:12, Matt 8:12 Matt 13:41 and 49) carry the disobedient into fire for refinement, and the obedient into joy, peace, and righteousness (Rom 14:17).
📜 Revelation 20 and the Obedient Life
Revelation 20 deepens this theme.
The millennium symbolizes the obedient Christian life—when Satan is bound and cannot deceive.
Proverbs 16:7 ASV — When a man’s ways please Jehovah, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
When obedience ends (teleo), Satan is loosed again 20:7.
The “first resurrection” is not physical, but spiritual: believers living in obedience (Col 3:1).
Rev 20:5 shows that the millennium is the first ressurection which Pauls covenant keeping students were enjoying in Col 3:1.
Those who fall into disobedience are called “the rest of the dead” (Rev 20:5), and only “live again” when they return to obedience.
This cycle is echoed in 1 Thess 4:13–16, where sleeping Christians (after the Lord’s Discipline) rise again into the obedient life, Col 3:1.
🌱 A Personal Invitation
The “end” is not the end of the world—it’s the end of disobedience, the end of deception, and the beginning of restoration.
It is the “Goal” of the age: It is our salvation, it is being saved from God’s wrath as it is visited against sin Rm 1:18.
The battle is not against one another—it’s within. against Spirits of wickedness.
Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
De 7:22 And the LORD thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.
23 But the LORD thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed.
And Jesus, ever faithful, leads even the fallen into fire with hope of renewal.
The Promised land is the Nature of Jesus, who through the Holy Spirit lives in the temple of a Believers body Acts 3:19-21.
The relationship between God and man is restored initially when a person repents of unbelief, Matt 17:11 , Acts 3:20 – this is the Second Coming.
In the case of willful sin ( The abomination which brings desolation) a sinful believer resumes their relationship with God after repenting of the willfully sinful behavior.
Joh 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
🙏 Call to Decision
The valley of decision is Not a place of fear, but of turning. Not the end of your story, but the beginning of resurrection.
It is where the good fight of faith is fought.
1Ti 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
It is the battle of Armageddon.
Re 16:16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
2Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming/presence:
Christians have the choice of living/abiding in the presence of Christ Matt or the presence of the fallen spirits in hell Mat 5:26.
- Joh 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
- Matt 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
- Matt 5:26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
Once this pattern is understood it can be seen repeatedly (often symbolically) throughout many parables in the Bible.