Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #14 of Genesis, chapter 8 and we are going to be reading Genesis 8:8-12:

Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

I will stop reading there. As we have continued to look at this passage, we have really discovered quite a lot of spiritual meaning that the Bible is showing us. It all starts to come forth once we understand a few things. One thing we continue to see is that May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day and it follows the historical account of the flood. It is tied to the seventeenth day of the second month and God made a spiritual connection with His statement, “And yet seven days” with seven thousand years through 2Peter, chapter 3 where He spoke of the flood and said that “a day is as a thousand years.” The Lord would not have His people to be ignorant of this and God opened up the Biblical calendar of history and when we go seven thousand years from the flood it lands on May 21, 2011, the beginning of Judgment Day.

We have other Biblical calendar information that has opened to our eyes of understanding to the duration of the church age (1,955 years) and the date it would conclude on the day before Pentecost on May 21, 1988. God gave us the duration of the Great Tribulation period of 23 years or 8,400 days. God opened this information gradually over the course of many years, but knowledge began to grow and the Biblical calendar came together like pieces of a puzzle and locked into place.

We also understand that God brought His people into the Day of Judgment, maintaining the understanding of these things, only because we hear the voice of Christ. The people of God returned to the Bible to search things out after May 21, 2011 did not happen exactly as we thought it would and all the information continued to fit and we found no error in the timeline, and so forth. During this prolonged Day of Judgment God has continued to open the understanding of His people a little at a time. He gave us a solid understanding of the nature of spiritual judgment after May 21, 2011; when we looked at the language of the Bible in regard to the “cup of God’s wrath,” we found that it pointed, again, and again, to the spiritual judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane or it pointed to the spiritual judgment spoken of in Jeremiah, chapter 25, that historical parable of the judgment on Judah that, in turn, pictured the judgment on the corporate churches during the time of the Great Tribulation period.

In Jeremiah chapter 25 we saw that God first gave the cup of His wrath to the city called by His name. We fully understood that and we knew that well in advance of May 21, 2011. We knew the churches were drinking the cup of His wrath and we completely understand it was a spiritual pouring out of the wrath of God into the cup they were drinking. It was nothing anyone could see with their physical eyes. But our understanding was held back when it came to the transition of the judgment from the city called by His name to the world as described in Jeremiah 25 and we should have known that it would continue to be a spiritual judgment. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ was pleading with the Father that the “cup” might pass and one could not have seen anything visible or outward happening to Him. When God judged the corporate churches for 23 years one could not see the “man of sin” or “abomination of desolation” set up in the holy place. You could not see that with your eyes. You could not see that the Holy Spirit had departed out of the midst, because it was all spiritual. That is the nature of the spiritual cup of God’s wrath.

God began to open up things here and there, but we have “need of patience after ye have done the will of God.” The Bible locked in the start date for Judgment Day. The Bible locked in the spiritual judgment of the shut door of heaven and the putting out of the light of the Gospel and no more salvation. After completing the task of evangelism, there is another program for the believers to feed His sheep. God had saved the great multitude and they also need to be fed.

Now we are learning even more. We have learned that all the elect are making an appearance before the judgment seat of Christ and that this is the “baptism” that Jesus said we would be baptized with – it is baptism by the Holy Spirit. It is baptism with fire and fire points to judgment. This is the cup that Christ said that his disciples James and John would drink of, as Christ asked them, “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” Christ told them they would, indeed, drink of the cup. And this is the time that God’s people are drinking of that cup.

We have learned all these things and as we look at the flood account, we see the “five months” and the language the Lord used in regard to that concerning the destruction of all with the breath of life. Now there is a concentrated focus on the those within the ark, pointing to all that God saved.

We also learned about the “dove” that represents the Holy Spirit. We spent some time looking at the flood as the waters of baptism, according to 1Peter, chapter 3, as it referred to the eight souls that were saved by water. We are following the pattern or example of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was baptized, meaning He died at the foundation of the world and then He rose up, coming up out of the water and then God made the declaration, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” He was declared to be the Son of God. The Lord’s people are following that pattern, step by step, that will lead us to a like resurrection, but first we must go through the “baptism” and the deep waters. The people on the ark were going through the waters. Yes, they were protected by the ark, which represents the Lord Jesus Christ, but they were going through the waters. They were not raptured; they remained on the earth to go through the judgment. For anyone who thinks that because they were on board the ark it means they were raptured, you would not think our Navy men that are on a ship have been raptured because the sea is part of the earth.

The Holy Spirit appears after this “baptism,” just as the dove appeared and descended upon the Lord Jesus Christ when He came up out of the water. Now the waters have gone down and the tops of the mountains are seen and, suddenly, we read of a dove, as it says in Genesis 8:8-9:

Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.

In our last study we also saw in another “figure” that in the beginning when God created the world and the world was “without form, and void,” the Holy Spirit moved upon the face of the waters. Then we went to Psalm 104, where it declared that God sends forth His Spirit and it creates. Let us read that verse, again, in Psalm 104:30:

Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

There is a dual spiritual meaning when the Holy Spirit is going forth, coming out of the kingdom of heaven (the ark) and going upon the face of the waters. The world has essentially been returned now to a condition of being “without form, and void,” and “darkness” is upon the face of the deep, spiritually. We do not read in regard to the flood that God put out the sun, moon or stars, but we get that information from elsewhere in the Bible concerning the final judgment. The Bible says, “Immediately after the tribulation, the sun shall be darkened,” and so forth, so we understand that this is the condition, spiritually. There is “darkness” upon the face of the earth as it has been returned to its former state of “clay” to be molded and the judgment of God has brought the world back to that point and it is ready to be acted upon and recreated, in a sense. That is how God speaks of the new heaven and new earth. Yes, the Bible tells us that this present creation will be wiped out and gone forever, but the Bible also says, “The meek shall inherit the earth,” as God uses the earth as a type and figure of the earth that the elect will dwell in forever. In Romans, chapter 8 the Lord uses that kind of language concerning the creation, as He says it is groaning and travailing to be delivered from the bondage of corruption. It is as though the earth would be rejuvenated and regenerated just as God’s elect sinners were regenerated when our souls were resurrected and we will be regenerated when we receive our new spiritual bodies. The same type of language is used in regard to the creation, but that is not the actual case – it is a figure. God is using the earth that was subjected to the flood and He pictures it as if the dove is going forth to form the earth again into a new creation. We can prove this is the case with the language in Genesis 8:9:

But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot…

When we look up the word “sole,” it is Strong’s #3709 and it is a word that is translated many different ways, but when it is translated in relationship to a “foot” it is translated as “sole,” so the context determines how the word is to be translated. Sometimes, it is translated as “hand” or translated in some other ways. But, as far as I could tell, when the “foot” is in view, they translated it as “sole.” It is also translated that way in Deuteronomy 11:22-24:

For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love JEHOVAH your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; Then will JEHOVAH drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be.

Here, the Lord is speaking of driving out nations from before Israel and they will possess the land. Then He says that wherever the soles of their feet tread, it will be theirs and this is referring to the Promised Land. And the Promised Land represents the eternal kingdom of heaven. The promise given to Abraham was a land that would be an eternal possession. That is the language of Genesis, chapter 17 and that is why the physical land of Israel in the Middle East cannot be the land promised to Abraham because it is part of this world that will soon be destroyed. What it represents is an eternal habitation and that is the new heaven and the new earth wherein the elect of God (the spiritual seed of Abraham) will dwell for evermore. So where the “sole of your feet shall tread” points to the kingdom of God, our eternal habitation.

Let us also look at Joshua 1:1-4:

Now after the death of Moses the servant of JEHOVAH it came to pass, that JEHOVAH spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.

Here, we see the same phrase in verse 3 in the context of the crossing of Jordan on the way to the Promised Land and God is saying that the land will be theirs, even “every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon.”

It also says in Joshua 3:11:

Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan.

They have come to the Jordan River and God had told them that the priests were to carry the ark into the river Jordan and when they first went into the river they were stepping in water, but then the waters stand up and it dries up where the priests were standing and they were standing on dry ground. While the priests stood there, the people followed and they were told that there should be a space of about two thousand cubits between the people and the ark. We still need to do some study on that, but it could very well relate to Christ who “crossed Jordan” in his demonstration in 33AD and it could be that in the year 2,033 the people of God “cross Jordan” in their demonstration and they pass over on dry ground and, as it were, come out of the ark.

But, again it says in Joshua 3:11-15:

Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of JEHOVAH, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of JEHOVAH, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap.

I think this is interesting that at first when the priests carrying the ark went into the Jordan, they did dip their feet into the waters, just like the first time the dove went forth out of the ark and she found “no rest for the sole of her foot.” Did the dove try to find a place to stand? I think she probably did, as she flew here and there, and she would go down and see if there was any ground, but there was not. We do find that at first the priests feet were in the water, but then the waters stood as a heap and provided a pathway for the Israelites to cross Jordan.

Then it says in Joshua 3:17:

And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of JEHOVAH stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.

Again, as we saw in Deuteronomy, chapter 11 and in Joshua, chapter 1 God spoke of where the sole of your feet treads in the Promised Land will be your possession, so what is the spiritual setting in Genesis, chapter 8? It is Judgment Day. It is the end of this world. The flood has wiped out the kingdom of this world or the kingdom of Satan. It was destroyed in that “150 days,” but now the focus is shifting toward the world that is coming very soon. It is coming very shortly. It is just a matter of time and there has already been evidence of it. There has been a sighting of the mountain tops and the water had gone down, so the tops of the mountains could be seen and this is giving evidence that there is a “kingdom” or a new earth that is starting to emerge and it is approaching the time when it will be ready for the people on board the ark to disembark and to enter into it.

But it is a process. It is happening in stages and right now Noah is gathering evidence as He sends forth the dove. Initially, the dove had nowhere to rest the sole of her foot. The dove points to God Himself and we will have to wait until our next study, but there is another verse that mentions “soles of your feet” in relationship to the kingdom of heaven. We will see that the dove is really God’s Spirit looking for that eternal habitation wherein the Spirit of God will, likewise, dwell. It is not just the people of God that are looking for that eternal possession where we can set the sole of our feet, but God is also looking for that eternal possession.