Genesis 8:9-12

But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot and she returned unto him into the ark

The dove’s return to the ark

I. LOOK AT THE DOVE SETTING OUT UPON HER VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. Why did she fly away?

1. Because she had wings. Natural instinct. So it is with us. Our soul has many thoughts and many powers which make the spirit restless. If we were without imagination, we might be content with the few plain truths which we have so well known and proved; but having an imagination, we are often dazzled by it, and we pant to know whether certain things which look like solid verities really are so. If we had no reason, but could abide entirely in a state of pure and simple faith, we might not be exposed to much of the restlessness which now afflicts us, but reason will draw conclusions, ask questions, suggest problems, raise inquiries, and vex us with difficulties. Therefore, because our souls are moved by so vast a variety of thoughts, and possess so many powers which are all restless and active, it is readily to be understood, that while we are here in our imperfect state, our spirits should be tempted to excursions of research and voyages of discovery, as though we sought after some other object of love besides the one who still is dearer to us than all the world besides.

2. Possibly there was another reason. This dove was once lodged in a dovecote. Yes, the dovecote still has its attraction. The best of men have still within them the seeds of those sins which make the worst of men so vile. I marvel not that the dove flew away from the ark when she recollected her dovecote, and I do not wonder that at seasons, the old remembrances get the upper hand with our spirit, and we forget the Lord we love, and have a hankering after sin.

3. Yet it would not be fair to forget that this dove was sent out by Noah; so that whatever may have been the particular motives which ruled the creature, there was a higher motive which ruled Noah who sent her out. Even so there are times when the Lord permits His people to endure temptation.

II. Now MARK THE DOVE AS SHE FINDS NO REST. No rest outside of Christ for intellect, heart, conscience

III. WHY THE DOVE COULD FIND NO REST FOR THE SOLE OF HER FOOT.

1. The dove had a will to find rest for the sole of her foot, but she could not. It is not from want of will that I am compelled to say I cannot find anything beneath these stars, nor within the compass of the skies, that can satisfy my soul’s desires; I must get my God and have Him to fill my large expectations, or I shall not be content. I mention these things because people are apt to suppose that Christians are all a set of melancholy dyspeptics, who put up with religion because there is nothing else that helps to make them to be so happily miserable, and therefore they take to it as congenial with their melancholy disposition; but it is not so; we are a cheerful, genial race, and yet for all that we are not resting the sole of our foot anywhere in earthly things.

2. Again, the reason why the dove could find no rest, was not because she had no eye to see. I know not how far a dove’s eye can discern, but it must be a very vast distance, perfectly incredible I should think. We see the dove sometimes mount aloft: we can see nothing, and yet she perceives her dovecote, and darts towards it. I know many Christians who are as quick in apprehension as refined in taste, and as ready to appreciate anything that is pleasurable as other men, and yet these men who are not fanatics, who are not shut up to a narrow range of things, but whose vision can take in the whole circle of sublunary delights, these men who have not only seen but even tasted, yet bear their witness that like the dove they can find no rest for the sole of their foot.

3. Moreover, the reason why the dove found no rest, was not because she had no wings to reach it. So the Christian has power to enter into the enjoyments of the world if he liked. Now, what was the reason then? It was not want of will, it was not want of eye, nor was it want of wing--what was it? The reason lay in this, that she was a dove. If she had been a raven, she would have found plenty of rest for the sole of her foot. It was her nature that made her unresting, and the reason why the Christian cannot find satisfaction in worldly things is because there is a new nature within him that cannot rest. “Up! up! up!” cries the new heart, “what hast thou to do here?”

IV. Being disappointed, WHAT DID THE DOVE THEN DO? When she found there was no contentment elsewhere, what then? She flew back to the ark. Josephus tells us that the dove came back to Noah, with her wings and feet all wet and muddy. Some of you have grown wet and muddy. You have been trying to find rest in the world, Christian, and you have got mired with it.

V. I want you now to turn your eye for a moment to THE VERY BEAUTIFUL SCENE, So it seems to me to be, at the end of her return journey. Noah has been looking out for his dove all day long. Mark that: “pulled her in unto him.” It seems to me to imply that she did not fly right in herself, but was too fearful, or too weary. Did you ever feel that blessed gracious pull, when your heart has been desiring to get near to Christ? Lord! pull me in. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

The homebound dove--a lesson of faith

God has designed but one resting place for the soul, and that is the restoration of peace between it and Himself. On Jesus’ breast we may lay our weary heads. Here at last the dove finds a sure perch.

I. AS IT WANDERED TO AND FRO, IT COULD FIND REST NOWHERE SAVE BY RETURNING TO THE ARK. There, and only there, was rest. Oh, weary soul, have you Bet come to that point? You will not come until you give up all confidence in your self-power.

II. “When the dove came back, IT CAME WITHOUT ANYTHING. Bring no excuse.

III. God had provided but ONE ARK. Only one name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

IV. That ark had only ONE WINDOW AND THAT WINDOW WAS OPEN. A woman, who was striving to find rest for her soul, was sitting in her summer house, when in through an open door flew a bird. It was alarmed, and flew up toward the roof, and tried to get out at this window and at that. It flew from side to side until it panted with fright and weariness. The woman said, “Poor bird, why do you not come down lower, then you would see this open door, and you could fly out easily?” But the bird kept wounding itself against the closed windows and at every crevice. At last its wings grew tired, and it flew lower and lower until it was on a level with the open door, when quickly it escaped, and soon its song was heard in the trees of the churchyard near by. A new light dawned upon the mind of the woman: “I, like that poor bird, through my pride and self-sufficiency, have been flying too high to see the door which stands wide open.” Her heart was humbled, and soon she too was singing songs of gladness. (T. L.Cuyler, D. D.)

If we, cannot be as we would, we must be as we can

The ark to the dove was like a prison, a place of restraint, and not according to her kind, which was to fly abroad; yet, finding no rest, rather than she will perish, she returneth to the same again. It may teach us this, that better is a mischief than an inconvenience, if we cannot as we would, we must as we can. I speak it against all heathenish and unchristian like impatience. The heathens, rather than they would serve, they would kill themselves. And many in these days, rather than they will suffer what God imposeth, will do what God detesteth. Let it not be so. If we cannot be abroad and at liberty, because God’s judgment against sin hath taken away our footing in such or such sort, whilst it shall please Him let us be content; return, as the clove did, to the place appointed, and thank Him for mercy even in that, that yet there we live, and are not destroyed as others have been. (Bishop Babington.)

A quaint epitaph

The following quaint epitaph has reference to a little girl buried at the age of five months: “But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark.” (Old Testament Anecdotes.)

An olive leaf

The olive leaf

I. Let us look at the profound, far-reaching SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GREEN LEAF in the mouth of the dove, as the first production of a new and regenerated world.

1. In the first plaice, the green leaf is the great purifier of nature. This is one of the most important offices which it was created to fulfil. In the early ages of the earth, long before man came upon the scene, the atmosphere was foul with carbonic acid gases, so poisonous that a few inspirations of them would be sufficient to destroy life. These formed a dense covering which kept in the steaming warmth of the earth, and nourished a rank and luxuriant vegetation. Gigantic ferns, tree mosses, and reeds grew with extraordinary rapidity, and absorbed these noxious gases into their own structures, consolidating them into leaves, stems, and branches, which in the course of long ages grew and decayed, and by subtle chemical processes and mechanical arrangements were changed into coal beds under the earth. In this wonderful way two great results were accomplished at the same time and by the same means--the atmosphere was purified and made fit for the breathing of man, and animals useful to man, and vast stores of fuel were prepared to enable future generations to subdue the earth and spread over it the blessings of civilization. And what the green leaves of the early geological forests did for the primeval atmosphere of the world, the green leaves of our woods and fields are continually doing for our atmosphere still. They absorb the foul air caused by the processes of decay and combustion going on over the earth, and by the breathing of men and animals, and convert this noxious element into the useful and beautiful products of the vegetable kingdom. They preserve the air in a condition fit for human breathing. These considerations will show us how significant it was that the first object of the new world that was about to emerge from the flood should be a green leaf. It was a symbol, a token to Noah that the world would be purified from the pollution of those unnatural sins which had brought death and destruction upon it, and would once more be fitted to be the home of a peculiar people zealous of good works. What the green leaf is in nature the leaves of the tree of life are in the spiritual sphere. The gospel of Jesus Christ, which the Heavenly Dove carries to the homes and the hearts of men, is the great purifier of the world.

2. In the second place, the green leaf is the source of all the life of the world. It is by its agency alone that inert inorganic matter is changed into organic matter, which furnishes the starting point of all life. Nowhere else on the face of the earth does this most important process take place. Everything else consumes and destroys. The green leaf alone conserves and creates. In this light how suitable it was that an olive leaf freshly plucked should have been the first object brought to Noah in the ark! For just as the green leaf is the means in the natural world of counteracting all the destructive forces that are reducing its objects to dust and ashes, and clothing its surface with vegetable and animal life, so the olive leaf in the mouth of the dove spoke to Noah of the undoing of the work of destruction caused by the flood, and of the raising up of a new and fairer creation out of the universal wreck. And just as all this beautiful world of life and joy is the product of the work of the green leaf, so all that mankind has achieved and enjoyed since the flood--the great results of civilization and the still greater results of redemption--arose out of the work of grace whose dawning the green leaf intimated, and whose operation it typified. For sin and grace are in constant antagonism--like the force of the fire that burns everything to ashes, and the force of the green leaf that builds up life and beauty out of the ashes; and God has suffered sin to continue because He knows that grace can conquer it, strip its spoils, and convert its ruins into higher and nobler forms of life.

3. In the third place, the green leaf is the best conductor of electricity--that most powerful and destructive of all the forces of the earth. A twig covered with leaves, sharpened by nature’s exquisite workmanship, is said to be three times as effectual as the metallic points of the best constructed rod. And when we reflect how many thousands of these vegetable points every large tree directs to the sky, and consider what must be the efficacy of a single forest with its innumerable leaves, or of a single meadow with its countless blades of grass, we see how abundant the protection from the storm is, and with what care Providence has guarded us from the destructive force. And was not that green leaf which came to Noah in the ark God’s lightning conductor? Did it not bear down harmlessly the destructive power of heaven? Did it not assure Noah that the wrath of God was appeased, that the storm was over, and that peace and safety could once more be enjoyed upon the earth? And is not He to whose salvation that leaf pointed--who is Himself the “Branch”--God’s lightning conductor to us? He bore the full force of the Father’s wrath due to sin; He endured the penalty which we deserved; and having smitten the shepherd, the sheep for whom He laid down His life are deathless and unharmed. He is now our refuge from the storm; and under His shadow we are safe from all evil.

4. In the fourth place, the green leaf is the source of all the streams and rivers in the world. It is by the agency of the leaf that water circulates as the life blood of the globe. And how appropriately in this light did the green leaf come to Noah as the earnest and the instrument of the rearrangement of a world which had been reduced to a desert by the punishment of man’s sin! That leaf assured him that the old rivers would flow again; that the former fields would smile anew; that the forests would, as in previous times, cover the earth with their shadow; and that all the conditions of seed time and harvest, and of a pleasant and useful home for man, would be present as of yore. And is not the Heavenly Dove bringing to us in the ark of our salvation a leaf of the tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, as a token that beyond the destructive floods of earth, beyond the final conflagration in which all things shall be burned up, the river of life will flow again; and amid the green fields of the paradise restored the Lamb shall lead us to living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes?

5. In the fifth place, the green leaf is the type upon which the forms of all life are moulded, All organisms, whether animal or vegetable, are similar in their elementary structure and form; and the most complicated results are attained by the simplest conceivable means, and that without the slightest violation of the original plan of nature. Thoreau has said that the whole earth is but a gigantic leaf, in which the rivers and streams resemble the veins, and the mountains and plains the green parts: And did not He who sent the dove with the olive leaf to Noah thereby assure him that out of that leaf would be evolved the whole fair world of vegetable and animal life, which for a while had perished beneath the waters of the flood; that it would be reconstructed upon the old type and developed according to the old pattern? And did not He who developed this great world of life out of the single leaf develop all the great scheme of grace, all the wondrous history of redemption, out of the first simple promise to our first parents after their fall? Amid all the varying dispensations of His providence He has been without variableness or shadow of turning, unfolding more and more the germinating fulness of the same glorious plan of grace.

II. Of all the green leaves of the earth it was MOST FITTING THAT THE OLIVE LEAF SHOULD HAVE BEEN SELECTED as the first product of the new restored world. The olive tree spreads over a large area of the earth; it combines in itself the flora of the hills and the plains. It clothes with shade and beauty and slopes where no other vegetation would grow. It extracts by a vegetable miracle nourishment and fatness from the driest air and the barest rock; on it may be seen at the same time opening and full-blown blossoms, and green and perfectly ripe fruit. Each bough is laden with a wealth of promise and fulfilment; beauty for the eye and bounty for the palate. No tree displays such a rich profusion and succession of flowers and fruits. It is the very picture of prosperity and abundance. Its very gleanings are more plentiful than the whole harvest of other trees. It strikingly illustrates, therefore, the overflowing goodness of the Lord, to whom belong the earth and the fulness thereof. What the olive leaf began in Noah’s case was consummated under the olive trees of Gethsemane. He who destroyed the antediluvian sinners by the flood endured the contradiction of greater and more aggravated sinners against Himself. He who sent the flood as a punishment for sin, now suffered it Himself in a more terrible form as an atonement for sin. The olive leaf of Noah’s dove showed that God’s strange work was done, and that He had returned to the essential element of His nature, and love shone forth again. The olive leaves of Gethsemane, that thrilled with the fear of the great agony that took place beneath them, tell us that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” What sweeter message, what dearer hope, could come to us in our sins and sorrows than this! (H. Macmillan, D. D.)

Lessons

1. God’s delay of answer and His saints waiting are fitly coupled.

2. God’s gracious ones are of a contented, waiting and hoping frame.

3. Faith will expect from seven to seven, from week to week, to receive answers of peace from God.

4. After waiting, faith will make trial of lawful means again and again. It will add messenger to messenger (Genesis 8:10).

5. Waiting believers shall receive some sweet return by use of means in God’s time.

6. He that sends out for God is most likely to have return from Him.

7. Visible tokens of God’s wrath ceasing sometimes He is pleased to vouchsafe to His.

8. It concerns God’s saints to consider His signal discoveries of grace, to know them, and gather hope and comfort from them. (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Servants good and bad

First, mark the often sending of the dove, when the raven goeth but once. It showeth the difference of a good servant and a bad. The first is often used, because he is faithful and true; the latter but once, because then he is found to be a raven, more heeding the carrions that his nature regardeth than performing his message which his sender desireth. The praise of these two fowls, how they differ in this place for their service we all see, and it should thus profit us as to prick us to the good and affray us from the evil. In some place or other we are all servants, as these fowls were, to God, to prince, to master, to some or other. Let us be doves, that they may often use us; let us not be ravens, that they may justly refuse us. Secondly, in the dove’s not returning any more let us mark a type of the saints of God, that having sundry times discharged the truth of their places, as the dove did, at last have their departure out of the ark--that is, out of this life and Church militant--and, finding rest for their foot in God’s blessed kingdom, return no more to the ark again, but there continue and abide forever. (Bp. Babington.)

The returning dove

Noah stayed upon this seven days, and then sent out the dove again, saith the text, which returned to him in the evening, bringing in her mouth an olive leaf which she had plucked, whereby Noah knew the waters were abated. This dove may note the preachers also of the Word again, who bring in their mouths some good tidings to the ark--that is, to the Church; and every good news may be compared also to an olive leaf, and the tellers to doves. That good news that the women brought to the disciples, that Christ was risen, was like an olive leaf in their mouths, and they like this dove in this place. So all others. Read 2 Kings 7:1, of the good news of the lepers, and 2 Samuel 18:27. “He is a good man,” saith David, “and cometh with good tidings.” So good men and women have words of comfort in their mouths, when others have the poison of asps under their tongues; they have olive leaves to cheer up Noah and his company withal, when others have wormwood and gall to make their hearts ache with the bitterness thereof. Such does God make us evermore, and if this be regarded of us, we will endeavour it. (Bp. Babington.)