by Pat Franklin
This is just priceless! There was hilarity in our house when this item came through!
It came from an ex-Catholic, who unearthed it amongst a long list of Catholic errors and lies. Apparently in the year 1710 A.D. a church in Italy put a stuffed donkey on display, claiming it was the actual donkey on which 17 centuries earlier the Lord Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday.
Oh, how we would love to visit that church and get a picture of that monstrosity. We couldn't discover if it still exists in some dank crypt somewhere, but what a hoot! We can just imagine some cleric dreaming up the scam. Perhaps he came across a dead donkey and the idea suddenly came to him. ow all he had to do was get the thing stuffed, pay the taxidermist to keep his mouth shut, and then announce the wonderful relic to the adoring pilgrims, who would fill his coffers with coins.
As if the Christians of Jesus' day had nothing better to do than cart round some old donkey skin. They were being disowned by their families, thrown out of their synogogues, having their houses confiscated; they were being flogged by the Pharisees and later executed by Rome.
They were on a mission to tell the rest of the world that the Messiah had come and shed His blood for the sins of the world. And they should carefully preserve a stinky old donkey skin?
Anyway, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that we must have NO IDOLS - nothing at all in this world should be an object of worship.
The story reminds me of the ancient Israelites in the wilderness. God at one stage was so angry at their griping about manna, the food He sent them every day, that to punish them, He sent snakes among them, and those who were bitten were dying. When Moses prayed for the people, God told him to make a brass snake and put it on a pole, and anyone who looked at it would live. (Numbers 21:5-9)
The odd thing is that someone kept that brass snake, and hundreds of years later, it was being worshipped in Jerusalem! King Hezekiah, one of the best kings of Judah, was so disgusted that he broke the thing into pieces (2Kings 18:4). He disdainfully called it: 'Nehustan!' (A thing of brass). I can practically hear Hezekiah spitting out the word: 'Nehushtan!' The children of God were foolishly worshipping a thing of brass.
Jump about 2500 years into the future and see the Catholics of 1710 A.D. gaping at a stuffed donkey.
The Catholic Church has a lot to answer for. The dead donkey must have been quietly removed at some stage, but there are plenty of statues and relics of all descriptions still scattered about the world in Catholic and Easter Orthodox churches, revered by the Catholics as 'holy'. Rubbish! They are rubbish. Nehustan!
Get rid of them, if you have any such 'holy' junk in your house - or garden. You can do it yourself now, or God will do it at some stage Himself, when He comes to judge the earth. Personally, we took care of all our offensive junk ourselves, when we came to know the Lord Jesus as our Saviour. Any 'holy' objects we had have long ago been smashed and trashed and gone as landfill. Nehushtan!
