303. Break the yoke
Ezekiel 34:27 And tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them.
These promises about fruit and increase and safety are the results of the great promise, which is the cause of good things, that the Lord will break the bands of our yoke, and He has delivered us out of the hands of those who seek to take advantage of us for their own profit. When the yoke is broken all kinds of good things that come from God’s goodness can happen to us.
We are all born under the yoke of sin and death, and Satan has the control of our lives to destroy us. However, Satan has his limits set by the Lord, and the Spirit of God in the world, the invisible church, restrains his activity. But once the blood of Christ forgives our sin, Satan has no more authority over us and he cannot serve himself through us. And Death has lost its hold on us, for without sin we will live forever.
We attribute “the yoke” to many causes. We know we are weighed down, but we are prone to blame others instead of taking responsibility for the cause of our problems. We cannot lift the yoke or lighten the load ourselves, so Jesus calls us to “Come unto me….Take my yoke upon you.” The promise of the Gospel is that we can exchange yokes. “Give Me your yoke, and you take mine. He says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” We do not have a choice about wearing a yoke or not; the choice is: Which Yoke? The heavy one or the light one? When we are yoked with Jesus He is like the lead ox, the strong and experienced one, who pulls the heavy load and we just follow along with ease. When we strain at the yoke of Jesus it hurts the neck. We do make it difficult by straining at the narrow way, but it is still much better than being yoked to the Evil One.
Our Lord breaks the bands of the yoke and delivers us from the Evil One. If we could plainly see the broken bands of the old yoke, and believe this promise, we would gladly and joyfully proclaim: “Deliver us from evil,” and declare, “It is done.”