The Israelites are going to cross over the Jordan River and begin their conquest to take the land given to them.
They are to watch for the priests. The priests will go first. When they set out with the Ark of the Covenant, then they are all to set out to follow the priests.
The people are given the command to stay back, to not get too close to the ark because they need to be able to see it to know which way to go. They hadn’t gone that way before, but God knows the way.
The ark is God’s presence among the Israelites. He has to pass before them. He would show them the way. God knows the way because He is the way.
Jesus said, “I am the way.”
My grandmother told us about a mental picture Jesus had given her of it. It was a picture of brambles and briars, thick and impassable. There was no way to walk through it. That is, except with Jesus. He was in the middle of it and in Him the thorns didn’t poke or stick, the brambles didn’t trip or entangle. He walked through because He was the way.
He’s our path through any circumstance. Our job is to remain in Him, to abide.
Psalm 91 says that no evil will come to us if we dwell in the secret place, if we make God our dwelling place, our place of rest, our place of security, our place of provision; if we make the Lord Most High our God.
We can be hidden in Christ. Psalm 27 says that He will hide us in the secret place of His tabernacle. His tabernacle, that’s where His presence dwells. If you have received the Holy Spirit, then you are His tabernacle. He dwells in you; you dwell in Him.
It is no longer we who live; we are dead, having been crucified with Christ. But Christ is resurrected in us so that we can live our life by faith in the Son of God.
We live by faith, that’s our knowing. We don’t need to know the road ahead. We just need to know The Way.