O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your dwelling places.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God.

Psalm 43:3-4

One of the latest news headlines in our nation is the one concerning the Colorado woman who lured a pregnant woman to her home under the guise of purchasing things for her unborn baby and then cut the baby out of the mother’s womb. The baby died, but the mother of the baby survived, and therefore the courts will NOT charge the woman with murder because supposedly the “fetus” was not a living person yet.

However at the same time our nation has laws that incarcerate a mother and puts her baby under the authority of the state if it is discovered that she used drugs during her pregnancy. Colorado being one of those: page two.

So according to the law in Colorado a perfect stranger can attack a mother and cut her child from the safety and life sustaining support of her womb and kill it with no repercussions, but had this same mother taken drugs during her pregnancy she would have been charged with child abuse forced into a rehab and had her child placed under the authority of the state. However, had this same mother went into a clinic and had her own child killed within her womb she would have been hailed as pro-choice advocate and a testimony to the reality of our modern day realization of women’s rights for medical treatment.

Am I the only one that sees the insanity in this?

God’s Word is pretty clear about the unborn…

For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made

Psalm 139:13-14

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Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you

Jeremiah 1:5

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If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life…

Exodus 21:22-23

To God, we are a living being before He even begins forming us in the womb of the woman in which we would be formed. Our every intricate detail and purpose already known to Him and if any man, even if by “accident” were to destroy that life, he was accountable life for life.

Yet, we in our nation have so muddled the truth that we can’t even prosecute murder and attempted murder because it would make us have to admit that a law, “a right” we have been openly practicing and promoting, not only in our nation, but pushing worldwide is in fact genocide.

As I continue in my study of Jeremiah I have made into Jeremiah 28. In Jeremiah 28 there is a prophet showdown. Jeremiah the prophet stands before Hananiah the prophet and they stand before the king, the priests, and the people both claiming to have a message from God, yet they are completely opposite messages.

When two messages are presented with completely opposite directions… only one can be truth.

Hananiah’s message sounded better. Hananiah was very passionate about his message. The people sure did like it, and so did the other priest, and the king especially thought it sounded good.

Jeremiah came before them with bonds and a yoke around his neck, proclaiming that the nation that served Babylon would live, because God had given authority to Nebuchednezzer for seventy years. Yet, the nation that rebelled against him, those within that land would be removed from their land by sword, famine, and pestilence. Hananiah, I am sure, in his best charismatic, passionate, and confident voice and presence stood up to Jeremiah and grabbed the yoke that was around his neck and broke it, pronouncing that just as he had broke that yoke, so God would break the yoke of Nebuchednezzer within two full years.

Anyone who has ever studied world history knows that the word of Jeremiah was truth.

God had a message for Hananiah… the yoke around Jeremiah’s neck was wood, and yes he had broken that wood yoke, but he did not bring freedom by doing so, instead he made it a yoke of iron.

Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand…

Deuteronomy 28:47-49

A yoke represents many things. It can represent oppression and bondage. It can represent defeat. It can represent a joining together. It can represent a tool that helps bring balance. It can represent a tool that helps keep one in the right direction and on the right path. 

I believe that yoke around Jeremiah’s neck represented the Word of God. The Word of God comes with a yoke. It comes with a yoke that is meant to hook us up to Him, to be led and guided by Him and by His commands…

if you obey the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.

Deuteronomy 30:10-11

Yes, it’s a yoke… but it is a yoke of wood. It is not heavy. It is not too difficult to carry… and you don’t carry it alone. His yoke comes with a Partner that carries it with you and for you…

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 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. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

But if we choose to break this yoke of wood, that is around our neck… it is replaced with a yoke of iron. A yoke of iron that keeps us from holding up our head and seeing where we are going and where we are being led. A yoke of iron that gets heavier and heavier with each step. A yoke of iron that we can not throw off and that we cannot break free of… no matter how hard we try.

Hananiah was able to convince the people to trust in lies, possibly lies that he himself believed, because he, nor the priest, nor the people, nor the king knew the Word of God for themselves. The light and the truth that was to lead them was no longer being taught in the land because the priests and the prophets taught their own dreams and their own imaginations instead. The people were so far from the Word of God they did not even recognize it when it was right their in front of them.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

Oh, beloved of God, it is a very terrifying thing when we can’t see…