The Disciple's Guide to Revelation: With a Special Message to the Sons of Jacob

By Stephen Wood

The pace of global events in 2012 are quickening toward the imminent return of Christ. Believers are thirsty for a headline based study guide to prophecy and the Book of Revelation which presents the full Biblical picture to entry level readers, with application to the world stage of 2012 and beyond. This chapter and verse commentary with cross references to Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Hebrews, and other books of the Bible, will educate and enlighten students of prophecy with full application to contemporary history.

As a student and preacher of Eschatology for 25 years I can tell you that Steve Wood has captured a fresh and contemporary approach to understanding revelation in the 21st century. This work is absolutely essential for those who want a clear and concise understanding of the days in which we live and those to come!
Dr. Dwain Miller
Senior Pastor, Cross Life Church
El Dorado, AR

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449737184

Stephen Wood

Stephen L. Wood was born on a farm in eastern Colorado. He was the third of four boys and is the father of five sons himself, all of whom are happily married. Now retired, he and his wife, Jan, live happily in their dream home in the Colorado Rockies.

Book preview

THE DISCIPLE’S GUIDE

TO REVELATION

WITH A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO THE SONS OF JACOB

Stephen Wood

A.D. 2012

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Copyright © 2012 by Stephen Wood.

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cover graphics by Michael Hildebrand, Overland Park, Kansas

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-3719-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3720-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3718-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012900823

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/01/2012

Contents

FROM THE AUTHOR

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 ALPHA AND OMEGA

CHAPTER 2 CHRIST EXHORTETH THE CHURCHES

CHAPTER 3 I STAND AT THE DOOR

CHAPTER 4 THE HEAVENLY TABERNACLE

CHAPTER 5 THE LAMB CORONATED

CHAPTER 6 THE SEAL JUDGMENTS GALLOP FORTH

CHAPTER 7 144,000 SEALED SONS OF JACOB

CHAPTER 8 TRUMPET JUDGMENTS

CHAPTER 9 AN ARMY OF 200 MILLION

CHAPTER 10 GLOBAL PROCLAMATION

CHAPTER 11 TWO WITNESSES FROM THE TEMPLE

CHAPTER 12 THE REMNANT SEED OF THE WOMAN

CHAPTER 13 THE UNHOLY TRINITY

CHAPTER 14 ZION’S 144,000

CHAPTER 15 THE NEW SONG OF MOSES

CHAPTER 16 DRUMS OF WAR: ARMAGEDDON

CHAPTER 17 MOTHER OF HARLOTS, MYSTERY BABYLON

CHAPTER 18 COMMERCIAL BABYLON BEWAILED

CHAPTER 19 HE COMETH WITH CLOUDS

CHAPTER 20 CHRIST RULETH FROM THE THRONE OF DAVID

CHAPTER 21 A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH

CHAPTER 22 THERE IS A RIVER

FROM THE AUTHOR

God blessed me with holy parents who nurtured their three children in biblical truth from our earliest days. One day as a boy of eleven years, during the opening Sunday school assembly at Belmont Heights Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, which some would call the buckle of the Bible Belt, I chanced to scan over to the last book in the Bible and was totally stupefied by the incredible images: beasts, angels, hell fire, judgments, trumpets, more angels, streets of pure gold in heaven, and stars falling from heaven. It scared the wits out of me.

During those days, I distinctly remember going through one phase while in the sixth grade at Burton Elementary School. On each and every day, particularly in times of overcast skies and low-hanging, darkened clouds, I would gaze skyward and wonder, in fear and awe, if perhaps today could be the day Jesus would come back, and then the judgment day!

Gradually, through some prodigal years followed by undergraduate and graduate studies, God placed servants in my path who were adept in the study of prophecy. This included my own father, who was both an expositor and an artist. He etched some sixty-five paintings from Revelation, Daniel, and books of the Old Testament and taught Revelation in no less than half a dozen church bodies in middle Tennessee for twenty-two years. Giants in the world of prophetic teaching, such as Clarence Larkin, Hal Lindsey, and J. Vernon McGee, were studied with exhaustive resolve so as to learn the canons of eschatology.

My first ordination into the ministry was in 1988, in Repalle, south India, near Madras. That mission along the eastern seaboard of India was actually my second mission trip to India. The first happened two years prior, in which our team, India Gospel Outreach (IGO), brought the Word in New Delhi, Trivandrum, Varanasi, Kuhmbanahd, and the nation of Nepal, near Mount Everest. During those journeys in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh states, vast numbers of people were beheld living with the Hindu tradition and worshiping their thousands of gods and goddesses. During those same missions, multitudes received the gospel of Jesus Christ with eagerness.

When my beloved father, Clarence Wood, passed on to paradise on June 18, 1989, he left me his Revelation paintings, which were used in my subsequent teaching of the books of Revelation and Daniel in six Midwestern churches and then later in Maui, Hawaii. Teaching the prophetic word unto evangelism in these varied venues has spanned a period from 1991 through the present day of January, 2012. In 1992, the first edition of The Disciple’s Guide to Revelation was completed in conjunction with my twelve week radio teaching series on The book of Revelation, through KXEN Praise Radio in St. Louis, Missouri. The first edition reached a large distribution, including Davao City, Philippines, where, as a guest expositor, I met my beloved wife Ana. For twenty years she has been a faithful and ever-loving companion and mother of our two children, Grace and Nathan.

Since the turn of this twenty-first century, many days and ever-growing numbers of end time signs have been clearly manifested, including the emerging trends within numerous mediums by which apostasy is being promulgated around the world with new age progenitors and authors embolden to challenge the voracity and authority of God’s Word, the Holy Bible. Nowhere was this more evident than during our four years on Maui, Hawaii from ’99 through 2003. Throughout that tenure of ministry, there were stark recollections of witnessing classic Hinduism firsthand during the two terms of mission travels in south India in the late 80’s, and with the same pervasive spirit of westernized Hinduism, i.e. New Age thought and practices, which were prevalent in several areas on Maui. The combination of these and numerous fulfillments of prophecy which have burgeoned during the previous decade, lead to a heartfelt yearning to seek God’s will regarding the updating of Disciple’s Guide to Revelation from its original edition as first published in the fall of ’92.

And so, dear reader, as 2012 opens and new signs from above are ever increasing which point to the imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ, many converging factors came together through fervent prayer to confirm and solidify the work in your hand, including a special mission in November of 2011 to Nicaragua to bring the prophetic word to more than 2,000 attendees at Bible prophecy conferences there, sponsored through Central America Hope, (www.centralamericahope.org) Mike Hulsey, Founder. This second edition was published in Spanish in advance of the November Nicaragua mission. The response from local churches in and around Leon, (second largest city in Nicaragua), was an overwhelming experience. Our intention is to have Disciple’s Guide to Revelation translated into as many languages as is the will of God.

This second edition is deeper, wider, and hopefully richer than the first, with, as the cover suggests, a special message to the sons of Jacob—Jewish brethren who may or may not have yet received Jesus—Yeshua—into their hearts and lives but who are thirsty for biblical truth about their future. The book of Revelation, which you are about to study, contains very specific references and cross references from the Old Testament about how God will bring about a miraculous restoration of the Jews in their homeland of Israel in the latter days and how many will be brought into the eternal kingdom of God through His Son, Jesus Christ, the true Messiah, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, who, upon His return with His saints, will reign for a thousand years from the throne of David in Jerusalem and beyond for all eternity in heaven, which is named the New Jerusalem.

So welcome, brothers and sisters of all peoples, kindreds, tribes, and congregations. Be prepared to receive a real and profound blessing from God, as promised to those who read and abide by the prophecies within the book of Revelation! We look skyward for the return of the Lord, whether we are alive at the time or have passed from this earth, as did the beloved Bible expositor of over forty years, M. R. DeHaan, whose gravestone simply says: Perhaps today. Those two words perhaps today resound daily as they did even as a boy in the sixth grade… may we be ready and found blameless at His coming!

Blessed are they that read and abide by the prophecies which are written in this book (Rev. 1:3).

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The book of Revelation is the crown jewel of God’s Word. It is the sixty-sixth book of the Bible, which contains some of the most holy visages and passages of inspiration found anywhere in heaven or earth.

Many volumes have been written on the subject of the apocalypse and the second coming of Christ which are revealed in the book of Revelation. Great, profound expositors such as Clarence Larkin, J. Vernon McGee, and Hal Lindsey have been genuine sources of inspirational knowledge and keen insight to many, although frequently the actual study exercise has become exhaustive to multitudes of God-fearing souls within the body of Christ who possess limited biblical backgrounds and thus throw in the towel with their study of Revelation and fail to finish the journey.

Thus, in compiling this guide for all twenty-two chapters of Revelation and the verses contained within those chapters, I have kept the average pilgrim in mind, attempting to provide you with a Bible-based compass that will gird the text with appropriate supplemental passages from both the Old and the New Testaments. This will add depth and greater spiritual meaning to some of the symbols you will see, keeping in mind that all of us who embark upon this colossal journey are under a protective, beatitude covering as found in the third verse of the very first chapter of Revelation: Blessed is he that readeth and abideth by the prophecies written in this book.

Even with this holy covering, some of the contents of the twenty-two chapters in Revelation remain mysterious to the extent that full consensus among authors is virtually nonexistent. Subjects such as the precise juncture at which the translation of the saints—commonly referred to as the rapture—will occur are addressed at appropriate scriptural junctures yet without an absolute conclusion. Jesus clearly teaches, No man knoweth the day nor the hour in which the son of man will appear (Matt. 24:36).

You should know, however, that the perspective utilized within this book is undeniably futurist i.e., events presented in Revelation, commencing with chapter 4, all pertain to the final consummation victory of God’s kingdom over the enemy of old, Satan, the fallen angel and are yet to transpire in the course of history as it is unfolding before our eyes today in 2012. Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, is indeed a fitting description of the divine authorship of the Word of the Lord, with much of the omega aspect pertaining to the end-time prophecies that are described fully for the reader in Revelation.

Before beginning this journey, you should have a general knowledge of the Old and New Testaments in the Bible and the purpose of the first coming of Jesus, separate and apart from the sensational aspects of His second coming. Some in past times have utilized Revelation as a venue for the sensational, all the while overlooking the tremendous spiritual manna available to those who seek with the proper attitude and contrition of mind. We must behold these tremendous utterances and judgments from the throne of God while still hearing the still, small voice that even unto the end will beckon men to, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28).

You need to plan your study of this book. It contains twenty-two chapters which correspond to the twenty-two chapters in Revelation. Each of the twenty-two chapters contains intervals or thought blocks. These are identified for you by way of subdividing the chapter into verses, which contain these well-defined thought blocks. These verses will be labeled alongside the commentary and cross references in Scripture, so you can follow things clearly.

Do not attempt to go straight through the book in two or three sittings. Plan to read maybe two or three chapters each day. Chapters 6, 11, 12, and 13 are long chapters, and you may need to read them more than once to grasp the material therein. Begin each study session with prayer and then read the chapter’s text from the Bible. Begin with the chapter and verses you finished with in the previous session. By so doing, you will have Bible in hand together with your study guide, further subdivided by blocks of verses identified for you, which will facilitate your path.

Organizing your study will enhance your understanding so your framework will emerge clearly. The Holy Spirit will fill in the spaces in our day as the giant wheels of prophecy continue to unfold with galloping speed. Let us heed the words of Paul the apostle, who instructed his beloved brother in the Lord, Timothy, Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15).

Finally, brethren: our enemy, the Devil, is a master craftsman in the art of distraction, as well as cunning deception. If he cannot succeed in preempting or diverting your study of prophecy at the outset, he will surely use every means under the sun to defuse, divert, subvert, delay, parlay, and lead you astray during your study so that six months from now, you’ll be saying, Oh yes, I started the study of Revelation, but stopped around the sixth chapter, etc. Thus you would never finish what you have started. If you get tired, stop for a while and pick up the next day. If you become confused by a certain point or theme, consult a good concordance or other Christ-centered commentator, like your pastor, priest, or Messianic rabbi, or a fellow member within your church body who is seasoned in eschatology… but don’t quit!

Remember, Blessed are they that read and abide by the prophecies which are written in this book (Rev. 1:3). May the Lord indeed be with you all as you start this life-changing sojourn. Amen.

A STUDY OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION

INTRODUCTION

Of what relevance in 2012 and beyond are texts that were written 1,916 years ago by an aged Jewish disciple of Jesus Christ while imprisoned on the Greek isle of Patmos? To you, the reader who is prepared to embark upon a biblical sojourn replete with unsearchable blessings and truth—and who is equally resolute to finish what you will very soon commence—your life will permanently change as you reap the bounty of God’s prophetic word. It is unfolding today with unquestionable inertia toward the climax of history—the return of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The truths expounded herein are indeed most relevant in revealing God’s plan for the consummation, before the final events occur, yet keeping in mind that as in the days of Noah before the great flood, we are seeing warnings of coming judgment with each passing day.

As a starting point or prelude to the journey before us, consider the following five biblical principles, which are pertinent toward fertilizing your prophetic mindset and which will, along with your prayers for discernment and guidance through these waters, better equip your background of understanding.

I. The flagstaff before us

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and have all knowledge… and have not love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13:2).

The purpose of this study is to enrich the believer’s daily life toward soul-winning for the kingdom of God through His Son Jesus Christ, to whom the book of Revelation and this study is dedicated.

May the wisdom of prophetic insights gained through this study quicken your witness with the love of Christ, who loves us and gave Himself for us. Though the hairs of every head are numbered (Luke 12:7), let us expand our vision to the omega (ending) of history through Revelation.

II. Things that must shortly come to pass (Rev.1:1).

"The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens; and His Kingdom ruleth over all" (Ps.103:9).

Amen! Revelation provides the servant of God with the chronological template by which God will proclaim judgments toward the final elimination of Satan and all who have followed his rebellion—both angels and human beings. All such divine proclamations will in fact issue from His throne and will be carried out for the establishment of His eternal Kingdom, with His Son Jesus Christ on the throne as King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Dan. 7:14, 18; Matt. 25:31). All would-be kingdoms past, present, and future are temporal—finite.

As the psalmist proclaimed above, God almighty rules over all of heaven and earth and above all created beings, including the adversary. Among many other truths, the book of Revelation describes with omnipotent clarity that good triumphs over evil, and in the end and at God’s appointed time and provision, His eternal kingdom will be established, free from any abominable forces from within or without (Rev. 21:27).

III. Lucifer, the fallen angel—now Satan—would establish his kingdom

Once one of the angelic heavenly creatures living in joy, in service, and in an exalted capacity (Job 38:4-7, Ezek. 28:14-17), Lucifer’s heart was lifted in pride because of his beauty. He rebelled against God, desired to be as God (Isa. 14:13,14), and was ejected from his position, along with one-third of the angels, because they were coconspirators who kept not their first estate (Jude 6, Rev. 12:4). Jesus beheld Satan as lightning cast from heaven (Luke 10:18) before the earth was created… but he was not yet destroyed.

Why did God not destroy Satan when first he rebelled? This is the mystery of iniquity at work today, but it shall be finished at God’s appointed time, never again to return (2 Thess. 2:7; Rev. 10:7). As a created being, Lucifer, the anointed cherub in the heavenly host during eternity alpha—that is, the span of time prior to creation of the earth—was a highly exalted angel of incredible beauty, talent, and enthusiasm. He was the consummate worship leader in the heavenly tabernacle. He was also, as were all of the other angels, a free moral agent, able to choose. For an untold amount of time, as God pointed out to Job in Job 38:47, all of the angelic host sang with joy before the triune God (Job 38:7), Lucifer being one of them and in an exalted capacity, perhaps as the leader of praise and music.

Then, in the course of the advancement of God’s revelations to the angelic beings regarding His plans for the universe, Lucifer’s pride swelled because of his beauty, and his countenance became corrupted (Ezek. 28:17). He became envious of Jesus Christ in particular and believed himself worthy to be equal with the Godhead (Isa. 14:14). This envy evolved into open rebellion and an attempt by him and his minion angels, which were one-third of the entire host (Rev. 12:4), to literally overthrow the Godhead.

Of course, the attempt was utterly foolish from its outset. The penalty was Satan’s eternal ouster from heaven and eventual destruction. Yet the question remains: why didn’t God summarily destroy Lucifer and his coconspirators immediately after their open rebellion? The answer is determined by returning to the free moral agency status of the angels who had witnessed the rebellion yet remained loyal to the Godhead. Had God, in essence, brought swift destruction upon Lucifer and his followers, there would have remained an ever-so-subtle impression that the faithful angelic host were little more than mechanized robots who could and would be vaporized on the spot should they ever misstep or waver ever so slightly.

Instead of summary destruction, God chose instead to maintain the free moral agency status of the faithful angels and allow them to observe fully the breadth and dimension of Lucifer’s rebellious character. He was renamed Satan, meaning adversary. The angelic host was tested as to their own resolve once they witnessed the full thrust of Satan’s rebellion against God, whereupon they became fully aware of the opposite of obedience—disobedience—and the existence of something they were previously naïve to—evil. God would allow this character to be fully exposed, along with its ever-widening scope of ensuing penalty while solidifying the righteous in heaven and in the earth.

This same principle of residual free moral agency passed onto man when he commenced with his stewardship of the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were given free access to cultivate this stunning garden and were placed in dominion over all beasts, cattle, fish, and fowl. They had only one restriction: to not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In essence, mankind, being created from the dust of the earth with free moral agency, quickly learned that there was, as with the angelic host, accountability to his creator unto obedience.

Man was able to choose the path of obedience or disobedience. Man chose disobedience when he listened to the enticing voice of Satan through the serpent and ate of the forbidden fruit. Since that juncture in his existence, man has been in a state of probation with his Creator, his days abiding under the curse of sin and death. He is able to choose right versus wrong and knows that his inner being can be accessed by both God and Satan. They both can guide him, either in the paths of righteousness or tempt him toward destruction through continued rebellion. By violating God’s authority, men—as had the angels in eternity alpha—learned that evil existed and that it carried with it a scepter of penalty. The state of perfection in heaven and in earth was breached and needed repair. Such will indeed come to be with the closing of history and the establishment of the eternal kingdom of Heaven. Stay tuned.

After his hideous ouster from heaven but not yet being destroyed, Satan’s quest has been, and is today, to create havoc and destruction in God’s kingdom, thinking that if he can remove good from the world altogether, he can somehow claim the planet for his own as the first step toward a renewed attempt at becoming like unto the most high. Through the centuries since creation, he has come close to succeeding, as during the days before the flood, during which only one man on the earth was righteous—Noah. Satan failed then, and he will never succeed. His eternal doom is certain and fully articulated in Scriptures, many such references being in the book of Revelation, which you are about to study.

Because of man’s disobedience and fall from grace, he proceeded out of his original state of perfection and fellowship with God. Thus there was a need for something called sacrifice or a substitute for man’s transgressions. There needed to be a means to forgive and restore what was abandoned by free moral choice. Only a blood sacrifice would be acceptable to God, which for centuries was manifested through the sacrifice of lambs and goats being offered upon altars. Man’s means to be restored into full fellowship with his Creator would ultimately be met by the Son of God, Jesus Christ, coming down from heaven to the earth and becoming the living sacrifice for man’s sins, the Lamb of God (John 1:29), shedding of His own blood on the cross of Calvary as atonement for the sins of all.

This pronouncement on the occasion of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was recorded in Genesis 3:15, as God pronounced to the serpent that He (God) would put enmity between the seed of the woman (which would become the nation of Israel, out of which Jesus Christ would be born) and the seed of Satan (which would include all persons, nations, tribes, and peoples who would choose to heed his voice and follow the path of rebellion and doom). God prophesied that the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, would bruise the head of the serpent, a reference to the sealing of his doom and the curse of death when Jesus arose from the dead after His crucifixion as our sacrifice for sin.

And so, brethren, the Holy Bible provides this account of the original fall of Lucifer, the fall of mankind, and the plan by which men may be restored unto fellowship and hope of everlasting life, which was first lost with humankind’s rebellion. This plan included Jesus coming to the earth and first—before His sacrifice on the cross—leading a perfect, spotless life without sin so His sacrificial death would be without blemish, lest the enemy claim such as a basis for flaw in God’s plan. Consider the applicable Scriptures:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not made anything that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and darkness comprehended it not… . and the Word became flesh and dwelt among men. He came unto his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God (John 1:1-12).

Jesus’ act of total obedience in going to the cross for you and for me was in stark contrast to the total disobedience by which Lucifer rebelled and likewise you and me, as with Adam. Yet because Jesus finished His sacrificial work on the cross through death, we have the free moral agency to choose to receive Him into our hearts or to not receive Him: "To as many as received him, gave he them power to be the sons of God" (John 1:12)

Satan is alive and on the prowl in 2012, ever bent upon his twisted purpose of defeating God’s people and setting up his own rule and being worshiped. Even so, the clock is ticking ever so steadily toward his demise and his systematic defeat at the second coming of Jesus Christ. The giant wheels of prophecy are likewise on the move in this day and hour, with multitudes coming to the cross at Calvary and sensing deep within that the times are indeed advancing toward a climactic showdown in the history of the world.

The second coming of Christ involves a direct intervention of God almighty to alter the course of history, but this will not be the first such direct intervention. Consider the following past and future divine interventions and their basis in the Holy Bible.

IV. Seven historical mountain peaks where God intervened directly to ebb the tide of Satan’s strategy toward the establishment of his kingdom.

1. Eden

In Eden, the curse of death through sin was passed on to man. God interceded on the curse and directly intervened to thwart Satan’s efforts through the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), who shall bruise the head of the serpent. This was a prophecy about the coming of His Son, Jesus, who, through His death and resurrection, would fully thwart Satan’s plan and seal his doom, which is to be consigned to the lake of fire to be consciously tormented forever (Rev, 20:10), relegated to the sides of the pit (Isa. 14:15), and looked upon narrowly by those who behold him (Isa. 14:16).

And thus Satan’s sordid sojourn toward dominion in the newly created earth with the establishment of recorded time commenced this trail of the serpent (Satan) in the garden of Eden, with God’s first created humans, Adam and Eve, with the seed of the woman to pass down through seventy-six successive generations (Luke 3:23-38) until Messiah, Jesus Christ, was born in Bethlehem in AD 1 (Micah 5:2; Luke 2:11).

God’s intervention with man’s ouster from Eden included a means by which they would also experience His mercy, which allowed them to continue as living beings although the certainty of death loomed within their respective futures. God provided skins from slain animals to cover their nakedness and shame (Gen. 3:21). This gesture was a precursor to and foreshadowing of blood sacrifice for the atonement of sin, which in the course of time would manifest itself in its purest form: the shed blood of Jesus Christ upon the cross.

For without the shedding of blood there can be no remission for sin (Heb. 9:22).

He poured out his soul unto death… (Isa. 53:3).

He became sin who knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21).

Blotting out the ordinances of sin that were against us, taking them out of the way, nailing them to the cross… (Col. 2:14).

Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood he entered in once in the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us (Heb. 9:12).

2. The Flood

The flood is spoken about in Genesis 6:5-8 and 7:1-24. God repented that He had created man because of man’s profligate wickedness upon the earth. God directly intervened to alter the course of history with the great flood, which would drown the earth and all that was in it. At the time, there was only one righteous man found in the whole earth: Noah. God interceded through the flood to destroy wicked humanity and save Noah, his wife, and his three sons, Shem, Japeth, and Ham, plus the male and female from all species of animals. God covenants never again to destroy the world via water (Gen. 9:15). Through this, righteousness remained in the earth through the faithful acts of Noah, again impeding Satan’s thrust toward world dominion. What a testimony of faithfulness and obedience practiced by Noah. Let us strive to be as faithful as was Noah, particularly in our day, 2012 and beyond, as warnings of judgments are