THERE was once a boy who went to Sunday school and learned many verses of Scripture by memory just as many of our readers do today. One verse he learned was Isaiah 1:33The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. (Isaiah 1:3): “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider.”
However, this boy did not turn to the Lord as he ought to have done, but as he grew older he became very careless and indifferent. He cared little for the God who had created Him, who loved him and had given His Son to die for his sins. He thought little about the need of his never-dying soul.
When he was a man, one day he stood in one of his fields and his favorite cow came and licked his hand. Suddenly there flashed into his mind the verse he had learned long before when a boy. “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider.” Why, he thought, my cow is more intelligent that I am. She knows me well enough, and yet here I have been living all these years without God who has only sought my good and blessing. He was both humbled and sorry at what he had done, and turning to the Lord in repentance, he found pardon and peace in Jesus, who is the sinner’s Friend.
But oh, to think of those wasted years! How much better it had been if he had taken the Lord as his Saour when just a boy, and lived for Him all those years.
ML-06/24/1962