Brave Levites! Who can help admiring them, to carry that Ark right into
the stream; for the waters were not divided till their feet dipped in the
water (ver. 15.) God had not promised aught else. This is what is
needed--what Jabez Bunting was wont to call "Obstinate faith," that the
PROMISE sees and "looks to that alone." You can fancy how the people
would watch these holy men march on, and some of the by-standers would be
saying, "You would not catch me running the risk. Why, man, the ark will
be carried away?" Not so, "the priests stood firm on dry ground."
We must not overlook the fact that Faith on our part helps God to carry
out His plans. "Come up to the help of the Lord." The Ark had staves
for the shoulders. Even the Ark did not move of itself, it was carried.
When God is the architect, men are the masons and labourers. Faith
assists God. It can stop the mouth of lions and quench the violence of
fire. It yet honours God, and God honours it. O for this faith that
will go on, leaving God to fulfil His promise when He sees fit! Fellow-
Levites, let us shoulder our load, and do not let us look as if we were
carrying God's coffin. It is the Ark of the living God. Sing as you
march towards the flood.
These stones we can see, remind us of other stones we cannot see (verse
9.) "And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the
place where the feet of the priests which bare the Ark of the Covenant
stood, and they are there unto this day." Will these stones ever be
found? More unlikely things have happened. Any way, they serve us as a
lesson. There are things unseen as real as things we look on every day.