So this notion of like, we die and go to heaven and live in heaven forever. That's not in scripture, by the way. You won't find a single verse in the Bible that says you will die and go to heaven. Not one. It's quite fascinating.

Welcome to Seek, go Create. This is episode three of what we're calling Revelation Revealed with my guest Leo d Sequeira. And you know, revelation ends with a final battle. We've been talking about Revelation, and we're gonna be looking at Revelation 20 through 22 here ends with a final battle, a dragon, a lake of fire, and then something we rarely talk about, a garden, a city, a wedding. So here's some questions we're gonna dive into. Are we in the millennium? Is Satan bound or released? What's coming next and what's already here? In this final episode, Leo and I are gonna talk about where we are in the story. He wrote about this in his book, revelation Dawn of Eternity. Which we've been going through roughly. He's got a lot more detail, his three-part series on Revelation. Highly recommend that you get this. He's an author. He's just got so many things going on, but, I appreciate him being here. We're just gonna look at where we might be in relation to all of eternity. Just a light topic that we'll have fun with discussing. This is part three of my conversation with Leo the Sequeira. If you've been with us this whole time, you've seen just how different revelation can be when you let context, language, and Jesus reshape the narrative. Today we finish the journey. Welcome back, Leo.

Happy to be here.

We have covered some stuff and we're kind of powering through, trying to separate it out so people can digest it. anything you want to mention about some things we discussed in the previous two episodes before we dive into Revelation 2021 and 22?

Just a, quick recap. book one is looking at the words of Jesus, the prophecies of Jesus, the context, the first century world, audience, what would they have heard when they heard the words of Jesus? The second book, revelation one to 11, Going through line by line. The writings of John up until chapter 11. So introducing Jesus as the high priest, the one who was about to bring about the accomplishment of the prophetic words that he himself uttered years earlier. And then we see the unfolding, the unraveling of the consequences for. The breach of the mosaic covenant, right? And all the calamities that befall the holy land 66 to 70 ad, which culminated the destruction of the temple, the same temple that Jesus taught in the same temple where his his disciples said, Jesus. Look at how beautiful and magnificent these structures are. And Jesus said, A time is coming where not will, not one stone will be left. On top of another. that is where Revelation starts to illustrate prophetically what events took place historically from 66 to 70 ad.

That's good. Great, great summary. That really helps, if someone's just jumping in on this episode, jump back to the others and make sure you get the books. I gotta tell ya, Leo, it's very rare for me as I'm reading through books or things like that. Where I start getting, I'm trying to think of the right words here. Anxious isn't the right word. I don't feel a lot of anxiety about things. But in your third book. There was an anticipation, that might be a better word. You started teasing a little bit early on, and I'm gonna use the big word of reconciliation. You started throwing the word reconciliation in, and I may be getting it off a little bit, but this is how I, digested the. And I started sensing as I was getting towards the end of Revelation that it was going to be a big aha moment for me that was going to create some things with the paradigms that I had had, and I was correct, by the way. It's one of the reasons why when I kind of finished it, I go, man, I'd love to get him on the podcast just to talk about some of this. talk about the word reconciliation before we dive into Revelation 2021 and 22 and what's really, or what we believe is going on there, because I think that's the bigger message here. Is that accurate?

Yeah, absolutely. As it relates to God and mankind. You know, Paul talks about this. We've been given the ministry of reconciliation, God not holding their trespasses against them. Very, very powerful, right? That we've been entrusted with this ministry of reconciling and, and mankind is creation. That's a central theme in the God story throughout the scriptures. Secondary not by terms of significance, but I would say alongside that is the theme of restoration. restoring creation. reconciliation happens between the people of God and God. And restoration happens with creation itself. I mean, it's as evident as early as Abraham being called to the land of Canaan. If you'll recall, Canaan was cursed. It was a cursed land. And isn't it fascinating that God sends Abraham to a place that was cursed in order for it to become a place of blessing? That's thematically what takes place throughout the history of mankind and creation.

All right. Having, I guess, maybe put that as a foundation as we move out of Revelation 19 that we discussed in the last episode. Things sort of start looking different when we get to Revelation 20,

Mm-hmm.

21 and 22, but tell us a little bit of what's going on in 20 and then we'll look at 21 and 22.

Yeah. you know, revelation, we'll say five, four and five to 11 is, one narrative thrust, culminating in the destruction of the temple. And then all of a sudden revelation 12 to 19 is a secondary narrative thrust from a different vantage point. Also taking us to the destruction of the temple. So if you wanted to have a really simplistic breakdown of the book of Revelation, you can think to yourself four and five to 11 is one thrust with a climactic event parallel to it, not sequentially. It's not like, and then in the story, no, goes back again. And this is Revelation 12, all the way to 19 and has that same narrative thrust toward a climactic event. Then we get into Revelation 20, and the analogy that I used when I was writing is we go from John having sort of like a magnifying glass. he, he's looking at things that are close the descriptions are very vivid of these events, right? It's like the number of soldiers. That are coming and he's seeing like vessels and it's, it's very vivid, very descriptive language. lots and lots of prophetic footnotes. The hyperlinks going back to old Covenant. it's so rich and dense talking about this event that was before him. And then it's like in Revelation 20, John puts down the magnifying glass and he's given binoculars. I am a hunter. I use binoculars. And one thing that's very interesting with binoculars, it's like you're looking very far away and you see, you see things in general, but you're not seeing the minute details. So you, you can kind of say like, yeah, you know that deer is moving from here to there, or I see some brush there. I can't really give you much more than that when something's 300 yards away. And that's where we see even just from a, literary perspective, all of a sudden we go from hyper detail to John looking forward. And this is what begins to happen in Revelation 20. And he starts dropping one liners that are cataclysmic events. Where are the details, John? Where's the number of people? Like not there, right? So he's starting to look ahead and so you have, the releasing of Satan, which, you know, as a teaser, that's the time that we're in right now. You have, the holy city being surrounded. You have a fire of God that consumes. Right. You have this great resurrection, this throne room experience, but it's one verse, one verse, one verse moving on, and you're like, John, I need more detail. he is like, this is all I can see through the binoculars.

All, all the armies, all the world gathers. And then there's one sentence that says. Poof.

Yeah.

It's just like done and it's like, wait.

19,

Yeah.

when, the Harlett falls, which is Jerusalem, apostate Jerusalem, when the Harlett falls, it's like just. Old Testament quote, old Testament quote, oak, right? It's like chapters of one war and then one verse of another war, which by the way, features many more people like. We're chapter 17, 18, 19 is isolated, right? It's the Holy Land Jerusalem. You get three chapters worth of description and then, oh, but for humanity, you get one verse.

Alright, so something that comes up often, especially in some other dispensational, or I call it the rapture theory, is that we're all working towards being part of this millennial reign thousand years. Where we're gonna reign with Jesus

Mm-hmm.

is the millennial reign, past, present, or future, in your opinion, in your thoughts, in your studies.

It is current. we're in it. Right now. It's current. Yeah. And you know that dispensational thinking again, coming out of the, the. Scientific revolution, the age of enlightenment, the really poor approach to scripture, right line by line, as opposed to a broad corpus. you also have the cessationist mindset where there's no power, there's no gifts of the spirit. God isn't moving. Today, that all died with the apostles. That whole heresy was also prevalent in and around that time. To think that you're in a golden age, the age of Messiah, you'd have to accept the fact that you'd also have the working of the Holy Spirit, and the power of the gospel, Which Paul alludes to, right? It didn't come with you in eloquence of speech, but with power. Well, if you don't believe that that exists, you're gonna project all the good stuff to the future. So really what they're saying is if the millenniums in the future we're like in a sort of a purgatory intermediate state, and it's, it's blasphemous in a lot of ways, What, what's the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? It's like, here's the works of God. And I'm saying, no, I, I'm like literally shutting down the works of God. Now, I'm, I'm, I'm being a little facetious. I'm not making theological statements right now, but I'm just saying like, this is insanity. In a lot of ways, right? But we know emphatically that the kingdom of God is at hand. I mean, to quote Jesus, right? And the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, and so we're, thankfully we've seen the blossoming and the growth of that. And so part of this too is to like celebrate growth of our faith, the growth of the gospel going to the ends of the earth. and looking at times in the past where missionary movements were so prevalent and people going to unreached people groups, The Bible being translated in countless languages. I mean, that's all part of our story. This is all part of what Jesus prophesied. And so all that to say is we are most certainly in whether you want to call it the thousand year rain, which is figurative, by the way, as most numbers in Revelation were right. Figurative. And you know, I, I even mentioned this a little bit too in my third book that the significance of the thousand years of Jesus, who is the second Adam, is that it's the reversal of the thousand years of life that Adam should have had. Right? He, he died 30 years shy of that. But going from the first Adam. In that thousand year period, or figuratively Christ thousand year period as the new Adam, like there's a lot of symbolism in that golden age that we're in right now.

Right. And so one of the things that we like to do is we like to have. The linear timeframe where there's like a thousand year millennial reign Satan is released for a short period of time, which, you know, we could discuss what a short period of time mean, stop, and then something else happens. I was recently reading through, it might've been just this week, and I recognize that possibly this is where I think we could go into this. Satan has been released. The millennial reign is still ongoing. They're concurrent.

Yeah.

I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but I know you and I, I think maybe your book was the first time that I started having the seed planted of the Satan being released for a short period of time. So talk about those timeframes and then that'll get us into the, the Satan being released discussion, which I would love to have.

Yeah, I mean, first epic seasons overlap, right? And so we know this, for instance, when the Mosaic Age and the Messianic age overlapped. And we also know that, there was a short season at the end of the Mosaic age where Satan wreaked havoc as well. And so that is illustrated both in Revelation 12, where you have the dragon pursuing the woman, right? and that whole drama that happens in Revelation 12 is illustrating the first short season that Satan had before being bound. Look at when Jesus is tempted by Satan. Right What was the third and final temptation? I will grant you all the kingdoms of the world because they have been given to me. We understand that Satan used facts in order to try to entice Jesus. There wasn't a lie in the words of Satan per se. It was a misuse, of facts, right? How did he win kingdom of the Earth? Well, he usurped them all the way back in the garden. what had been entrusted to us. He usurped and so in fact, yes, the kingdoms of the world were his to give to Jesus. The short season was coming to an end, and so there was a binding of Satan at the end of the mosaic age, right? then, he wreaked havoc, And that's why you have the slaughtering of infants. Trying to find Jesus to be one of those infants, the mass persecution against the early Christians. That whole thing. And then all of a sudden, and again, this is a mystery. Well, how does this work and why? Why was he bound? Then only to be released. Now, this is where I say we have to be comfortable with mystery,

which

is what I, you know, it's just humility. understanding like, God, I don't really understand, but I trust you. That's where we incorporate mystery into our theology. I don't understand, but I trust you and I trust in your goodness to work all things together for the good of those who love you. For whatever reason, at the end of the Messianic age, Satan is given legal permission to bring mass deception. Again, I argue in my third book that. That has already been in place, at least for the past a hundred years. And I just, you know, for me it was just looking at the absurdity of events that we've experienced, that we've normalized in a lot of ways. going all the way back to, you know, the genocides of Arminian Christians who were the first people group declare Christianity to be the. Religion of their kingdom, going back home, you know, 1900 years. It's quite remarkable. and then you have, of course, the Jewish Holocaust, genocide of infants today, right? That happens with unborn children. world wars, no big deal. The entire planet going to war. I mean, when has that ever happened? The rise of the pers of persecution of Christians. I mean, we take Christian persecution for granted today, but historically, the measure of persecution that has been experienced in the last a hundred years is unprecedented other than the first 300 years of the church. I find that all to be quite fascinating.

one thing that, I think you and I discussed when we talked briefly a few weeks ago. I think we look at those physical manifestations of horrible things, but there were a handful of events that occurred like in the 18 hundreds that, you know, we talk about the tragedy of people taking their eyes off Jesus, being deceived from the full gospel. I believe that Darby is that the whole bringing up of this rapture theory, 1830s or so, I believe that Joseph Smith's visions of Mormon and things like that. And then also, Darwin, you know, the evolution. I mean, there may be others, but I mean, is, is that. Into this also. I may have seen some of those in your book, to me, that seems like huge deceptions

Yeah.

that have led to a lot of what we're talking about.

yeah. I mean, you have the erosion of belief and faith. how do you get, from a handful of denominations to hundreds, and now I think we're even in the thousands. I mean, this is all part. this deception that's in play. Then you have, you know, what I talked to is like physical destruction, Going after the bodies, humans going after life, and all the different ways that we've experienced death and destruction in massacre, in the last 150 years. then the third thing now is, what is the enemy going after? It's going after the mind, the soul identity. So now the, the, the warfare and the tactics of the enemy is no longer to get people to slaughter themselves physically. no longer to even twist and distort scripture and belief. That's all already in place. Now. It's, you know, who am I, what am I? And, and, and that's the, the deception that's at place. So it's like, it's every, it's like faith. It's the, it's the body and then it's the soul, the identity. All of that is what he's been going after.

Yeah. And one of the things that we don't want to do is do what some other belief systems try to do, which is set timelines and things like that,

Yeah.

As we slide into Revelation 20 and or 21 and 22, as we leave 20, and let's just say that we are in that time of Satan being released, which I am, I'm in agreement with you. I think I'm about at 85% on that about right now, which might be about the most I can get to. Truthfully. I don't know if I could get verification beyond that.

Yeah.

21 and 22. Let's finish up with this. What are we looking at there? What is the hope, the hopeful eschatology? I love the term you use. It's not necessarily doom and gloom. There is some, you know, things being thrown in the lake of fire there earlier and things like that, but it's not as if there's this mass. Destruction it is. It is restoration and reconciliation. Let's finish giving people the hope of what we see at the end of Revelation.

Yeah. So what scripture tells us is some ways straightforward, in other ways, enigmatic. So what do we know from Revelation 21 and 22, and then at Ian, let's say like first Corinthians 15, right? Um, I mean even like Matthew 28, like go into all the world and preach. It's like there's like all of these things are culminating, but what we know is that there is a great resurrection. Everybody, whoever died is brought back to life. We know that all stand before the throne of God, and then we know that heaven and earth is made new and we dwell with God on a renewed earth in renewed bodies. So that's all very fascinating. So this notion of like, we die and go to heaven and live in heaven forever. That's not in scripture, by the way. You won't find a single verse in the Bible that says you will die and go to heaven. Not one. It's quite fascinating. But what we do have is a renewal of the cosmos, right A return to Eden. But not just the Eden of Old, it's a new Eden, it's an enhanced Eden. Everything is better. Everything is more amazing, and we in the image of Christ, in renewed bodies, walk with Christ on this earth. It's incredible. But then there's very enigmatic things as well. So for instance, the Sea of Fire and brimstone is very enigmatic. What is it? How is it that in, you know, revelation and 22, you have people, so again, Jerusalem, it's not a physical building, it's a corpus of people, right? The new Jerusalem is representing people that have been prepared. So you have the people of God with God, and then all of a sudden there's other people, kings. Coming in through the gates with gifts. Who are these guys? How were they not descending the bride prepared at first? How do you, where are they coming from? Who's letting them in? Fascinating stuff. We have to wrestle with these things, and so I love to wrestle with those things and I, and I'm like, well. What is all this stuff? first thing that I wrestled with was the Sea of Fire and linguistically and hermeneutically. It took me back to Ezekiel, and Ezekiel sees The Dead Sea, which was a symbol of the sea of fire. And in Ezekiel, 47 or 48, he sees it being renewed. Much like Revelation 22 and it's the waters of God. Go from the temple, right? Zeel 47, the waters of God go from the temple. It crosses the aba, which is the wilderness with Jesus was tried It cascades over the Jordan Riff Valley into the Dead Sea. And we know that the Dead Sea is, is like bitumen, spewed out of it. there's accounts of it being fire out of it. We know that that's the region where, you know, the cities that lot lived in Sodom and Gomorrah and there was three other cities, they're all said to be at the bottom of the Dead Sea, right at the time of lot. this is Ezekiel 16. At the time of lot, that whole region was like the Garden of Eden, and this is actually going back to Abraham and a lot. It says when Lot looked at, at that region, it said it was like the garden of the Lord. other words, the Sodom and Gamora Dead Sea area was like a Garden of Eden. And obviously it was not that until, and this is Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 47, that whole area is restored. And here's something fascinating. Ezekiel 16, he talks about the fact that Jerusalem goes off to be with other and kingdoms breaks God's heart, becomes a harlet. And then he talks about restoring Jerusalem. And then he says, and in the same way that I'm gonna restore you Jerusalem, I'm gonna restore Sodom And Gomorrah powerful. And then you go to e zko 47. That place where Saddo Ma Gomorrah was, that was like the Garden of Eden buried in in the Dead Sea, the sea of fire in bitumen. What is John C? He says, the rivers of God flowing into it and the waters become of life the trees are for the healing of the nations. echoes that in Revelation. It's incredible stuff. And so what is the sea of fire that John sees right? In Revelation 20 unto what? Now somebody might say, well that sounds very universalistic. Let's set aside our labels. What is the purpose of fire? What is the purpose of refining? Right? He will come as the refiner fire and the laundry soap. So the question is, if he comes to refine his fire to cleanse the soap. What is the intent? Is it to kill and destroy you? Is it to torture you or is it to extract from you all that you were never created to be? Is it to remove from you every trace and evidence of Adam so that you can be born again? the new Adam, right, which is our call. I propose these as questions and I invite the leader, the reader, to journey with God in pursuing the answers because W wisdom is held in tension. so I do believe that in the afterlife, let's say, you know, you take, like everybody uses Hitler as the example, so I'll use Hitler as the example. You know, Hitler dies and now what? I think there is a painful process. So we, we know this from Luke 15 Lazarus, right? There's this painful process. But what's fascinating is, and by the way, Lazarus was a religious leader because the parable begins with Jesus talking to religious yearly leaders. the great irony of, Luke 15 is that the religious leader who's accusing Jesus saying, you hang it with sinners, you're no good. She's like, actually, here's what it's gonna look like for you. And then he tells his parable. But the incredible thing is that Lazarus comes to this place of repentance when he is in that place of torment, he realizes his own ignorance he is like, I'm done for at least save my kinsman. And of course, we know from one Peter three and one Peter four. It says that the gospel was preached to those who are dead, right? It says that Jesus descended. The Aramaic says into Sheel, the Greek says prison, but it he Jesus descended into the realm of the dead to preach to those even there. This is one, Peter three, one Peter four, therefore one Peter four. Gospel is preached to those even who are dead, so that in the flesh they might die, but in the spirit they might be made alive unto God. There goes your soteriology that you grew up with, right? and this is why scripture has to be read as a corpus, not isolated verses you gotta put all this stuff together from Ezekiel the parables of Jesus, to the writings and the gospels, to John's vision. You gotta put it all together. 'cause they're all seeing glimpses of something greater.

Yeah. The incredible thing, and I know we need to wrap up here, but the incredible thing to me as I think about it is I realize how many people have. only two choices, heaven or hell and I think that messes with people when we start getting to 20 and 21, you know, 2021 and 22. Because if you look at, I think you even brought it up in your book, fire and brimstone is more purifying. It's not destructive.

Yeah.

And I think it's Colossians, I may not get the scripture right here, but you know that all things. All things are being reconciled

Yeah.

Christ that have been created and all that, which this is gonna mess with people, which includes the Hitlers. And the Satans and the others. Now, you know, their, their path could be a painful path. I'm not saying it's it's easy peasy or anything like that, but, so let, let's finish with this. I think there's a lot of fear out there, Leo, and one of the things that I believe we should see as we read this is hope. Finish up with just a short message of the hope that we have, and we will put a period or an exclamation point on this three part series. Tell us about hope. The hope that we have from Revelation.

Yeah. You know, it's fix your eyes on Jesus. Whatever you focus on, you magnify. And if we're focusing on what the enemy is doing, we will magnify the enemy and we will be filled with fear. There is no question on that revelation is to magnify sovereignty of Jesus Christ as Lord. But I would suggest that if you're spending just in Revelation, you're doing yourself a disservice because again, we talk about the corpus of scripture. So I'll take you back to the Isaiah and I'll say to the increase of his government and of his peace, there will be no end. Right. Like we have to have the God vision of the story of humanity, that he is seated on the throne. He is before all things, and by him, all things are held together, right? He's the express image of the invisible God. One Corinthians 15 says, talking of Jesus. He must continually reign until he has placed all enemies beneath his feet. And the final enemy to be defeated is death. So where is my vision? Where is my focus? Fix your eyes on Jesus, not on the enemy. That is the bait of the enemies to get you to focus. On what he is up to. So the enemy's got all the flashcards, all the flashing lights say, Hey, look at here, look at here, look at here. And Christians just zero in on that hook, line and sinker. And it's conspiracy theories and it's what the government's doing and it's what Israel's doing and what's happening, what Satan's, and you can live in that world so much. And Jesus on the throne is over there still raining. His peace is available to you, but if you turn your attention and your affection away from that, you actually come out of the grace, that peace. And so my invitation to anybody is be mindful of revelation, be studious of revelation, and understand it to settle teaching, to settle distortion of truth in your soul. But at all times, you're doing from this, from this place of being anchored and rooted, grounded in the fact that Jesus Christ continually reigns. He is preeminent, and gospel of the kingdom will be preached. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that he is Lord. mean, the stuff that we sing at Christmas, I wish we would sing year round. That's our best theology. Christmas and Easter. Those shouldn't be saved for those occasions. Those should be the norm because that is what we're rooting ourselves in. He is Lord, he is king. He is established. he wins any hand that he has dealt. He there is no such thing as defeat in his economy. So I'm either in that or I'm being deceived.

So good. Thank you, Leo. If this series has stirred something in you, this episode, or the last two, maybe shaken some assumptions or stirred new hope, that's a good thing. The next step I recommend you do is get Leo's books. They had significant impact on me. This is part three. Revelation dawn of eternity. I think I'm getting it to where it can be seen in the camera there. Great, great resources to continue this journey and I believe we're all on a journey. I think Leo would admit he's on a journey. I'm on a journey and we are just continuing that, just to. Push that deception out that he talked about and, understand more truth. Leo, I appreciate you. Thank you so much. maybe we can do this again sometime 'cause I could kinda like you, I could talk about this stuff for days thank you all for listening in on this. This has been quite the journey. I'm hopeful that these three episodes with Leo and others that we've been doing are helpful. Until next time, thank you for joining us here at Seek. Go Create.