Acts 15
Easy Yoke vs. Heavy Yokes!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, July 22.
A biblical agricultural image for salvation is being in the yoke of God’s covenant love.
Listen to Acts 15:8-11, “And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
The earliest church council rejected circumcision, dietary laws, and Levitical Law adherence for a person to be saved and to be a part of the earliest church. So, what did they say saved a person?
Was it any kind of action a person must take? Was it baptism? Was it speaking in tongues? Was it a sacramental act of the church? No, in fact they refuted such ideas by saying, “why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples.” The yoke they were specifically referencing the Levitical Law observance, and the principle applies to any form of religious legalism or self-righteous spirituality.
We have been saved by God’s grace—the easy yoke of Jesus Christ (Matthew 11:28-30)!
Listen to Paul in Galatians 5:1, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
Seize the moment and get in the only yoke that brings rest to your soul. You will know because the burden of His yoke is light, whereas, the burden of any other yoke is heavy!