The title for today’s message is “THE YOKES ON YOU.”
I prefaced todays message on my Facebook page yesterday this way: Tomorrows message - “The Yokes on you." From its smallest an Ox is placed in a yoke, the purpose to control it, to harness its energy for the owners use. We are no different. The only difference is whose Yoke you are wearing.
Since few if any here are farmers let me begin by explaining what a yoke is:
Yoke n.
a. A crossbar with two U-shaped pieces that encircle the necks of a pair of oxen or other draft animals working together.
b. A frame designed to be carried across a person's shoulders with equal loads suspended from each end.
c. Nautical A crossbar on a ship's rudder to which the steering cables are connected.
d. Its something that connects or joins together; by a bond or tie.
e. Any of various emblems of subjugation, under which conquered enemies of ancient Rome were forced to march in subjection.
f. The condition of being subjugated by a conqueror; bondage: example the yoke of drug addiction.
Synonyms - Hitch couple (picture like train cars) fasten (like a bolt and nut) tether (like two ropes of equal diameter) join or attach.
In those definitions I gave you several aspects of being Yoked. Some good and some bad.
It’s not the Yoke that is bad, it’s what are we yoked to.
1. Cross bar w Oxen – good picture, plowing a field pulling equally, same direction same goal.
2. Two people yoked, each pulling their equal weight. Marriage, work.
3. Nautical yoke – Controlling the entire direction a ship will travel.
4. And lastly Subjugation – bondage. Bad.
Isaiah 10:27 New King James Version - 27 It shall come to pass in that day That his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, And his yoke from your neck, And the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil.
Now to understand what the prophet was referring to I want to read that out of the amplified Bible which in essence give a clearer understanding as to what the Greek words spoke of.
Isaiah 10:27 -Amplified Bible
27 And it shall be in that day that the burden of [the Assyrian] shall depart from your shoulders, and his yoke from your neck. The yoke shall be destroyed because of fatness [which prevents it from going around your neck].
I want to talk about 2 things this morning First the Yoke, and secondly the Anointing.
You know you are not here by mistake this morning.
Most of you will never farm, but in the day we were reading about an OX was called a beast of burden.
The ground would get real hard, and they would need the OX to pull the pow that would turn over the soil.
But the ox wouldn’t do it willingly because the Yoke didn’t seem natural to them. So when they were very young the master would take it and put it on the baby’s neck, so that the OX grew older the only thing it knew was the Yoke. Because it was yoked so early it would obey.
And even thought it grew in size and age it would willingly take on the Yoke, in a later season.
Here is a Bible thought a long that line. – Train up a child in the way that they should go. THE YOKE. And when they are old they won’t depart from it.
It’s a picture of Deut 6 where the fathers are told to teach their children everywhere they were about God.
Since yokes are so rarely used anymore and unless you were raised on a farm you might think I’m talking about the eggs that you had for breakfast.
It the passage that I read to you this morning – The Yoke was bad. The Yoke was the Assyrians. Who had taken them captive.
And God is coming to the Israelites to let them know He is going to free them from that yoke!
They are in bondage right? Just like we can be in bondage to a slew of things.
Here is a little history for you from Israel’s captivities – When they were taken into captivity in Babylon, Josephus tells us that in the first generation several literally severed their thumbs so they wouldn’t be able to do the work required of them.
By the second generation, they had stopped doing that but begrudged being there, by the third generation they were not only ok with it, but when the Medes and Persians took over Babylon they made the transition to being their servants
We have all heard the illustration, the frog in the water.
But God is telling them, my power, my anointing, is going to break that yoke the enemy has placed on you. . Can I get an amen.
The Ox had a yoke and it was forced to pull a burden.
1. The evil is no different
2. What the enemy tries to do is to get something around you early, while its fun, so that another season of life, it becomes your burden
Young people, Your mothers and fathers, most of them are not going to tell you, because they are ashamed of it, but you know what were here doing here each week?
We’re trying to undo what we did when we were your age.
Because your age is the age where you involve yourself in something and you don’t understand that it’s an enemy slowly closing the noose around your neck. You are getting used to a yoke.
There are people in this room this morning who wonder where they could be today, if they had not got attached to a particular yoke when they were young.
• They wonder if they could have saved a marriage if they had not had that yoke
• People dream of the 8, 10 15 years they lost because of a yoke.
Because when the enemy yokes you early in life, what it does later in life is drive your passion your decisions, and you are not free to run your own life.
You’re not free to live the way you want
The yoke tells you what to do, it drives your passions, puts you around certain people themselves bound.
It was fine in this day but it’s horrible in another day.
Because what you do now with drugs, sex, money, to feel good in another season of life you will have to do to eat.
To wake up, to make it through a day, to even be able to face others. To make a pay check, and if you make 400 hundred you owe someone 2 hundred
You used to hold the Yoke but now the Yoke holds you.
a) And while you play with this stuff there is an enemy behind it saying just a little more and I’ll have them for life.
b) Ill tear up their future, their marriage, make their children hate them pay support, I’ll make them hate themselves, I’ll make them look in the mirror and hate themselves.
That’s why we read Paul saying this to the church in 2 Corinthians 6:14
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.” 17 Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”
Now that passage is usually misunderstood one way or the other, but in its context it is telling us that our lives, our ways, our beliefs, and so on should not be yoked together with the beliefs of the world.
Some will use this to say that we are to run from everyone unsaved. But I say it’s what Jesus meant by what we learned in the six week study in Romans.
Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
An example of that would be what Rachel and I did Thur. Night. I had a pastors invite to an early showing of the movie Heaven is real. I was in a movie theater with other bad movies, but I was there to see a good movie.
If I had gone to see the latest Harry Potter Film, or the Twilight films I would have been yoked with the world. Why? Because those movies are in direct opposition to who Christ is and what He taught.
Pauls exhortation - re affirms John 15:19
19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
The phrase "unequally yoked together" is the translation of just one Greek word, heter o zugeo, which is a word that means, "to yoke up imbalanced; to associate discordantly; unequally yoke together." It is used but this one time in the Bible.
John 17:15 I pray not that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil.
And so Paul is telling the Corinthians congregation which was steeped in paganism and their cities peppered with pagan temples, that they should not be "unequally" yoked with those that practiced paganism or any works of darkness.
They were to avoid: " unrighteousness, darkness, Belial, and idols." They were to not partake in the things that the unbelievers did that were sinful.
Now let me refresh you to what the true purpose of the Yoke was. The purpose was to control it, to harness its energy for the owners use.
Bob Dylan wrote a song back in the early 80’s called you’ve got to serve somebody.
a) It may be the devil and it may be the Lord, but you have to serve somebody.
Joshua said that to the nation of Israel in Joshua 24:15
15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
You see we are yoked one way or the other.
Somebody is going to get the benefit of our strength.
But when God Yokes with us, He pulls the weight. His strength is made perfect in our weakness.
But when Satan yokes us, he yokes us to some horrible sin that looked or tasted good at first, but now it’s taking everything we have just to get up and face another day.
1. The Junkie, the girl dancing in the bar. The old man that as a kid started to drink for fun and party, but who now can’t go a day without tying one on.
2. The cigarette smoker, just like the one you see on TV with the throat piece.
3. The gambler, who saw themselves as slick as a young gun.
BUT ITS MORE THAN THAT – This unequal yoking.
Look at what Paul addresses. DON’T BE YOKED TOGETHER WITH AN UNBELIEVER.
We know that is applicable for marriage, and we have all heard it said.
But its applicable in so many other ways.
Its applicable to what I already said about movies, about where we go for fun. Kind of hard to go to the Sun Casino and also be a light. It's a bit hard to go out for drinks to the bar and be a light.
Awful hard to sit with those guys at work telling off color jokes and shine for Jesus.
All along the way the YOKE gets tighter and heavier.
Till one day – You wake up look in the mirror and you don’t even recognize the person that you are looking at.
We do have to thank God for his grace. Story of the pastor this week who confessed an earlier in life indiscretion, and then simply died, right there in church.
Friend, it doesn’t matter who it is – The Yoke can look like a designer yoke, but its purpose is one fold. That the one driving the team, is getting the benefit of our strength.
We’re going to see a very vivid picture of that as Pastor Ron Carpenter of Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville, SC, shares the story of one of his children. A son he loves very much.
PLAY THE VIDEO ( This video can be found on Youtube if you wish to use it. )
Church sometimes we don’t listen, sometimes others try to warn us. Moms, dads, friends.
But it all eventually comes crashing to an end. Things we do leave us in a place where family members or friends cant bail us out. Only God can save us.
For the past 2 years I have done everything I know how to, from pray to share loving the truth from my heart with our oldest son, but you know what.
Only God can turn that situation around and I’ve got to learn to be a good prodigal son’s father. Some of you know what I’m saying.
Some of you are the prodigal – Only God can save you.
Even though our parents play a part in it, the truth is the Yoke in our life comes down to us. Who or what will we allow ourselves to be yoked too.
I’m going to close with Jesus perspective on what we need to do, and then re-read the original vs. Matthew 11: 28-30
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Isaiah 10:27 -Amplified Bible
27 And it shall be in that day that the burden of [the Assyrian] shall depart from your shoulders, and his yoke from your neck. The yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.
The anointing of the Lord is here and it’s able to break the Yoke that you can’t.
But its you who must choose to have it removed.
Altar Call
