Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24 (closely following Daniel 9) that the end will not be driven by human events but by God’s set events and timing: a Daniel-style abomination of desolation, the great tribulation, then earthly and cosmic signs that lead to the parousia, when Jesus will gather his church. Jesus said the exact timing is unknown to humans and angels—even to the Son. Only the Father knows (Matt. 24:36).
Jesus describes his parousia as sudden and disruptive, coming after those events, not as a gradual evolution or "breaking in" of the Kingdom into human, as so-called “already/not yet,” amillennialism, and other end-times views tend to interpret it. In Matthew 24, life is going on “as in the days of Noah,” and then the Son of Man appears and everything changes at once (Matt. 24:30–31, 37–39). That fits the premillennial picture much better than amillennial or postmillennial views, where history slowly transitions into the Kingdom. Daniel 9–12 and Matthew 24 show a pattern: a series of crises → the great tribulation → Messiah’s decisive parousia. The Kingdom does not emerge from history; the Kingdom will break into human history by God’s direct word, not by any man or nation.
Scripture also shows that sin itself is part of God’s judgment. Romans 1 is the clearest example: because people rejected God and worshiped creation, “God gave them over” to their desires (Rom. 1:24–28). So the moral collapse of a society can itself be a form of judgment. In that sense, increasing disorder, pride, and rebellion in a culture can certainly be part of God allowing humanity to reap what it has sown. As Paul warns in 2 Tim. 3:13, “evil people and charlatans will get worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” But even then, that is still judgment within history. The final judgment and the arrival of the Kingdom are different, according to Jesus in Matthew 24, when the Son of Man appears and brings to an to this present evil age that leads to the age to come.
Postmillennialism (and often amillennialism in practice) can drift toward a “baptized Babel”—a confidence that history will slowly “become” the Kingdom through human events and industrial–technological advances. But Jesus and Daniel show that the Kingdom finally arrives by God’s intervention—sudden, disruptive, and unstoppable—at the parousia. Meanwhile, Christians are commanded to preach, to endure, and to remain faithful, but we are not called to help engineer the age to come. We are not to be part of the political–military–industrial complex that seeks to bring this about. Only God the Father, by his set times and seasons, will bring the Kingdom through his Son, who will establish the Kingdom on a renewed earth.
In Acts 1, just before his final ascension, the apostles asked Jesus:
“Lord, is this the time when you are going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?”
Jesus replied:
“It is not for you to know times or periods which the Father has set by His own authority.”
Later Peter warns:
"The Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that Day the heavens will pass away with a terrific noise, the heavenly bodies will melt in intense fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be laid bare. Since all these things are to melt in this way, what sort of people should you be in holy and godly living, as you look out for and hasten the coming of the Day of God? That Day will cause the burning heavens to be dissolved, and the heavenly bodies to melt with intense fire. But, according to His promise, we are expectantly waiting for new heavens and a new earth, where uprightness will live." (2 Peter 3:10-13)
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