Jesus Wins | Revelation 19–20

On this episode of the Sermon Notes Podcast, host Jay Strother and Brian Ball pick up Revelation 19 where Sunday’s sermon left off, then go somewhere the series didn’t have time to go: Revelation 20 and the millennium. Chapter 19 opens with heaven standing open, and this time it stays open. With Babylon fallen, heaven erupts in the only hallelujahs in the New Testament, an echo of the psalms God’s people sang as they remembered the Exodus. Jay and Brian are careful to point out that these aren’t celebrations of anyone’s suffering. They are worship of a just God who promised to rid His world of evil, who has been patient so that as many as possible may be saved, and whose grace outlasts our sin.

Then the scene shifts to a wedding. The bride has made herself ready, but she was given her fine linen, bright and pure. Brian calls it a gift before it’s ever worn: the righteousness of Christ counted to us by faith, then lived out in righteous deeds. Compare that with the prostitute of chapters 17 and 18, who bought her look. The world’s beauty is purchased and fading, but the bride’s beauty is a gift that will never fade. So our holiness isn’t an attempt to earn God’s favor. It’s our response to the One who first gave it to us. And the groom doesn’t show up in a tux. He rides out on a white horse with a name no one knows but Himself, called the Word of God, with a sword coming from His mouth. The same Word that spoke creation into being now speaks, and His enemies fall. The battle is over almost before it starts, because, as Jay puts it, the last battle was already fought and won on the cross. Everything after is an outworking of the cross.

Revelation 20 brings the question so many people ask about this book. Jay walks through the three major views of the millennium (amillennial, postmillennial, and premillennial) and shows how each has shaped the way Christians live, from revival movements to social reform to a sense of urgency about Christ’s return. As Brentwood Baptist, we hold to The Baptist Faith and Message, which affirms that Jesus will return personally and visibly in glory but takes no position on the millennium. Jay shares that he holds his own view loosely and calls us to hermeneutical humility: submitting to Scripture rather than forcing Scripture into a system. He also points to a compelling idea from one commentator, a cruciform millennialism. Christ’s present reign is hidden, expressed not by domination but through mission to the nations and the faithful witness of His people, who conquer “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11).

So what do we do with all this? Jay and Brian return to two words: obedience and watchfulness. Our watchfulness isn’t fear. It’s hope, rooted in fearing the Lord rather than the world. Jesus is coming back as the groom for His bride, we don’t earn it, and He will win the last battle because He has already won it on the cross. Whatever your view of the millennium, Jesus reigns, and the best is yet to come. Listen to the full conversation, and sit with the question at the heart of this passage: Is your name written in the book of life?