This little donkey has been giving his master a ride along the narrow street of Jerusalem. Now he is having a drink from a pail, while his kind master rests on a doorstep.
The ass that talked, of which we wish to tell you, did not have a kind master at all. In fact, his master was in such a temper that he wanted to kill the poor little beast; but we must begin our story at the beginning.
Balaam was promised a good reward from the king if he would curse God’s people. Now Balaam wanted this reward very much, and he was ready to go right away to do the king’s bidding if only God would let him.
Balaam, however, kept on asking, and God finally said that he might go, but he could not speak anything there except the words God’s gave him.
So Balaam saddled his ass and set out very willingly to please the wicked. king. But the ass would not go straight. First she went off into a field; then, as they were traveling along a narrow place like the one in our picture, she walked sideways and crushed her master’s foot against the wall. Finally, in another narrow place, she sat down under him.
Balaam was angry. This was poor speed to reach his promised reward, and he did not see the warning hand of God in it all, but the ass had seen the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his sword drawn in his hand. Balaam struck the ass furiously, but God opened her mouth and she said, “What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?”
Balaam only wished for a sword that he might kill her right there. Then the Lord opened his eyes also, and he saw the angel, and found how narrowly he had escaped death at his hand.
Did he change his ways then? Not a bit. He tried hard to earn the wages of unrighteousness, but he did not realize that “the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23).
Sinner, do you know that you must die some day? Balaam knew that too, and he wanted to die the death of the righteous, but he wanted to go on in his own way while he lived. He despised the warnings of God, as far as we know, and he died as he had lived.
God is warning you now. You cannot see the angel with the drawn sword, but you can hear, and perhaps feel, God’s warnings, even as Balaam felt his injured foot. Oh, turn now from your own way and listen to our God, who always warns before He judges.
ML 03/04/1951