Children’s Story – The Talking Buffalo

“And the kine took the straight way to the way of Bethshemesh … and turned not aside to the right or to the left.”

I Samuel 6:12

Who ever heard of two cows going away from their calves and taking the right road to Bethshemesh? Elder R. S. Watts tells of another miracle the living God performed with a dumb animal, this time with a water buffalo! A certain farmer had been planting rice all day in his paddy field on the island of Lubang in the Philippines. Just as he was ready to go home three water buffaloes came wandering into his paddy field. He tried to drive them away. Two of them left, but one refused to go. It turned right toward the farmer, opened its mouth, and spoke! “Prepare to meet God. He is coming soon. You must keep the Sabbath to be ready.” After this the buffalo went away, and the farmer, astonished beyond description, ran back to his village and excitedly told his family and his neighbors about this strange experience with a talking buffalo!

Soon after this experience a relative of the farmer, Brother Faustino Tardeo, who was a Seventh-day Adventist, came to this village to spend his vacation, for this was his former home. He was soon giving Bible studies, and when they studied about the Sabbath, the farmer told again about this experience with the talking buffalo who told him he must keep the Sabbath to get ready for Christ’s soon coming. It was such a striking coincidence that they believed God’s hand was in it all, and the farmer and a number of his neighbors began to keep the Sabbath. … Now there is quite a company of people who are studying the truth. No wonder Isaiah says that God’s name is “Wonderful” (Isaiah 9:6).

Paul declares that this wonderful God “hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen … to bring to nought things that are” (I Corinthians 1:27, 28).

This God—your God—may do something wonderful for you or some of your friends someday to bring them to the truth. [Emphasis author’s.]

Make God First, Elder R. S. Watts/Eric B. Hare, 94.