The Yoke of Heaven

Okay, welcome back, good to see you. And today we are going to continue our lesson from the sign of the Son of Man. We've been studying the sign and different things that it shows.

And today we'll talk about the yoke of heaven. You'll understand more why I chose that title. First of all, what is a yoke? More specifically, something you put on what? On animals.

Like, okay, we don't, but older people back in the day, ancient times, they did. Here are a pair of oxen and they have a yoke. Let's see if this will work.

There you see, it's just a few seconds, but you see they're tied together with the yoke and they would use that to pull a plow to till the ground. So a yoke was a symbol, it became a symbol of bondage because those oxen with the yoke on their necks became servants. They just did what their master told them to do.

They would go and pull the plow through the field. To illustrate that, let's look at what the Bible says in Leviticus chapter 26. Okay, so let's look at Leviticus 26 verse 13.

God uses this symbol of the yoke. He says, I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen. So he's referring back to the Exodus, like we've been studying, and he says, and I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you go upright.

So a yoke, usually they would be in bondage with the yoke on their neck, with a burden that they would carry, and this uses this symbol of bondage and relates it to the Exodus. So, we look at the sign of the Son of Man, and we have been talking about each point along the path from the 10th plague at midnight and their Exodus to the Red Sea, and then coming to this next point, the crossing of the two comets. We've talked about that some already.

What point in the history of the Exodus does this refer to? The giving of the law, and why? Moses went up Mount Sinai, and what about this point in the sign of the Son of Man refers to that time when Moses went up the mountain? We see the symbol of the 10, referring to the X, the Roman numeral 10, for the Ten Commandments, and it was at Pentecost. The date of the crossing of the comets was Pentecost, and it was in 2023, and it was at Pentecost in Moses' time, the same holiday, that same day when he received the Ten Commandments from God written in stone. Now, there were two times that Moses received the Ten Commandments.

This was the first time, and what was the second time? At Yom Kippur, which was in 2023, when the comet was right at the tip. So we have both points when Moses received the Ten Commandments marked in the clock. Now, what was the difference between the two? That's what we're going to spend a little bit of time looking at today.

If we look at Deuteronomy chapter 9 and verse 9, Moses says, When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights. I neither did eat bread nor drink water. And the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God, and on them was written according to all the words which the Lord spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

So God wrote the Ten Commandments and gave them to Moses. So where did those tablets of stone come from? From God. God gave them to Moses.

Moses, when he went up the mountain, he had nothing. He went there, and God gave him the tables of stone which he had written the commandments in. Now, you know the story how then later, in verse 11, I'll just read it here, it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant, and the Lord said to me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence, for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

They are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them. They have made them a molten image. So they made the golden calf, and what did Moses do when he went down? He took those tables of stone, and he threw them on the ground, and they broke.

Okay, now these things are all symbols, and when we compare that with the second time that Moses received the Ten Commandments, some interesting things come to light. Looking at the next chapter, Deuteronomy 10, Moses is in Deuteronomy, he's telling the story of their experience in the wilderness, and he says, at that time, after their sin, and he had broken the commandments, the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. So, now, where do the Ten Commandments come from? Where do the tables of stone come from? But Moses hewed out the stone.

So he cut a piece of stone, and he took that two pieces, two tables of stone, empty, and he took those into the mountain, and then later God wrote in them again the Ten Commandments, the same Ten Commandments. If we continue in verse 2, Deuteronomy 10, verse 2, God says, And I will write on the tables the words that were written in the first tables, which thou breakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. So it was in this second time, when Moses received the commandments from God, that he put them in this ark of, what was it made out of? It was made out of wood, and later in Exodus, in the story, it describes that they were to overlay it with gold.

So what do these things mean? The first pair of tables of stone, the commandments, God carved them out of the stone, not Moses. Because Moses just went there and received them from God's hand, all prepared and finished. But the second tables, second pair, Moses had to carve them out.

We'll see what that means. But first, let's look a little bit more at the sign of the Son of Man, because we've seen many things in this sign, and now we have in focus, more or less in the very middle of the sign, the Ten Commandments. This is pointing to that time when Moses first received them.

And we've talked about how this points also to the blotting out of God's enemies. The constellation of Lepus was anciently recognized as a throne, and so it's like Orion's throne, or his footstool, and the Bible speaks about his enemies becoming his footstool. And we have the blotting out of God's enemies.

But in the context of the law, the commandments, the covenant of God, and in the story of the Exodus, this is referring to when they set up the golden calf. They broke the covenant very quickly. And in this sign, not just there, this points to that time and that event, but in the sign as a whole, we can see the Ten Commandments represented.

And we've already talked about at least one, or two, in the past. The Horologium, several weeks ago, we talked about entering God's rest, and how the Horologium represents that rest of God. That points to the Sabbath commandment, the fourth commandment, and that was on the first table of stone, where the first four commandments point to our relationship with God, and how it should be governed.

So that was one. And we also talked about the Caelum, which was originally called the Sculptor's Chisel, about carving an image. And we mentioned how in the context of the baptism, it's about God shaping us into His image.

What commandment would that refer to? That's the second commandment. Thou shalt not make unto you any graven image, because we're not to do that, God does that. He makes the image.

So starting with the fourth commandment, if we follow the comet, the next place we come is the baptismal scene. And when we're baptized into Christ, we're baptized into what? Into the Spirit, yes? It says, Jesus said in Matthew 28, He commanded us to baptize in the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What does that call to mind from the commandments? Exactly, the third commandment, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

So we see already three commandments there, the fourth, the third, the second. And if we extend that one more, the first commandment we see in the dove, because the dove represents the Spirit of God. The first commandment, thou shalt not have any other gods before me.

So there we see the first table of stone, the first four commandments represented in the different constellations of the sign, following the path of this comet here. And at this point, it's the entire baptismal scene that is represented there, representing those three commandments, with the horologium, the first four commandments. So if we continue, we have more or less a circle, where on this comet we have the first four, and then the other comet crosses here and continues with the second table of stone, the last six commandments.

And at this point, we see both of the comets crossing, and that illustrates the fifth commandment, which is, you shall honor your father and your mother, two people that come together and produce offspring, which rabbits are known for, and honoring your father and your mother. It was also commanded to Israel that they should keep the covenant. And this is the time when the covenant was given, that time of Pentecost.

So after the fifth commandment, next in line is the sixth commandment, which is, thou shalt not kill. And following the example from the first, where we're following the course of the comet, from the horologium to the river with the baptismal scene, then we come to the other comet, and we follow from the fifth, then the sixth commandment would be represented in the dog, and that's how do dogs represent murder can be seen when we look at Revelation chapter 22, and verse 15, yes, verse 15, for without, that is outside the city, are dogs. So connecting that with our dog in the heavens, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

So here we have a list of several different categories of people who are without the city. They're outside God's city in the end, led by the dog. So the dog represents that whole set of people, including the murderers, and that is, it's actually the proper translation, thou shalt not murder for the commandment, and so that points to the sixth commandment, and then the seventh commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery, is represented in the church ship.

I say the church ship because if you recall from several weeks ago, when we talked about the seven churches of Revelation, we saw in Revelation chapter 2, at the end of the chapter, where he talks about, rather he talks to the church of Thyatira, and he says in verse 20, Revelation chapter 2 verse 20, notwithstanding, because he talks about some good things that they do in that church, among them, but notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. So fornication was a sin that was noted of Thyatira, Thyatira was represented by the ship, and the Bible says of that church, that fornication was not only a problem, but it was even taught. They had Jezebel, who was symbolically a prostitute, teaching fornication in that church, and so that is representing the seventh commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery.

Now the eighth commandment is what? Thou shalt not steal, and that corresponds with the pictor, that's the easel, the artist's easel, where a painting is portrayed, and every Christian should represent who? Christ. We are to be a picture of Christ, but if we steal ideas from others around us who are not Christian, and we paint them into our picture, then we have a problem. We break the commandment.

This also goes back to the representation of the seven churches, because the next church in line was the church of Pergamos, and in Jesus's letter to the church of Pergamos, he says a few things, but I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So they had the beginnings of what was exemplified more distinctly in the church of Thyatira that we just looked at, but here you'll notice it talks about Balaam and Balak. Now were they among the children of Israel? Were they Israelites? No, they weren't of Israel, and yet they had in Pergamos them that held this doctrine that was not from Israel.

They stole that, if you will, from Balaam and Balak, and they learned from them to put a stumbling block in front of their own people, because it was not in Israel to do these things, to sacrifice things to idols or to commit fornication. They had laws against that, but the nations around them, of which Balak was king of one, they stole those ideas from those neighboring nations, and therefore they painted a picture that was not from God. It didn't reflect Christ, because they stole their imagery, even the images of the idols.

All right, so that's the eighth commandment. Then the ninth commandment is, thou shalt not bear false witness, and this points to the church of Smyrna. The church has helped us a lot in understanding how the ten commandments relate.

So if we go back to Jesus's message to the church of Smyrna, we remember that this was one of the two churches that Jesus had nothing bad to say about them. They stood as a witness for him. Notice what Jesus tells them in verse 10.

Jesus speaks to Smyrna, and he says, Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

So Jesus encourages them to be faithful, to be a faithful witness, and not a false witness. They were to bear a true witness, and that is what we see in the church of Smyrna and in the ninth commandment, not bearing false witness. So that leaves us with the tenth commandment relating to that constellation of the reticulum, which is a net.

It's a network, comes from the same word, has the same meaning, and we've talked about before how that can relate to like a fisherman's net where you catch fish, for example. But a net can catch anything. And what is the tenth commandment? Thou shalt not covet.

And when we covet something, you want to take something for yourself. So we see the concept of coveting like grabbing and pulling something toward yourself just as you would casting out a net and gathering something to yourself. So there we see in the sign of the Son of Man is represented both tables of stone.

The first table with its first four commandments and the second table following the course, the path of the second comet with the six commandments relating to our relationship with our fellow man. And you'll see that in the left part of the sign, the body of the whale, that all of the constellations are accounted for. Ten constellations for the ten commandments.

Now whose commandments are they? They're God's commandments, right? And when we look back here, we see the representation in Orion of the Son of God, of Christ. And he's as though standing on top of the law, just like we see in the Ark of the Covenant in the most holy place of the sanctuary, where they put the wooden ark, where Moses had the ten commandments. That was in the most holy place of the sanctuary.

And on top of that, there was a mercy seat. And that was the throne of God, where the Shekinah glory was shining above it. And there were two angels on either side of the ark.

So we see the same thing where Jesus, as Orion, is sitting on the ark where the law serves as the foundation, sitting under the throne. Amen. Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law, not to destroy it.

So why then did Moses destroy the law? That's what this part of the sign points to, when Moses broke the ten commandments, literally, physically broke the tables of the ten commandments. Why did he do that? Because Israel sinned. And because Israel sinned, Moses broke the stone.

Does that make sense? Yeah, it's symbolic. And so he was showing them that what they broke, this was the covenant that God had written with his own finger in those tables of stone, and they broke the covenant. So he showed them in front of their eyes what they did.

They broke the covenant that came from God. But here we see whose covenant it really is. It's Christ who came to fulfill the law.

Now, who was Christ? He described himself as, and others, when he asked Peter, who do you say that I am? He said, you're the son of God. Is that related to the commandments that Moses received from God? I think it is. We have the first pair of commandments represented Christ, the son of God.

God produced those tables of stone, and they were broken, just like Christ was broken. Why was Christ broken? Why was he crucified on the cross? For our sin, just like the commandments were broken for the sin of Israel. So we see that the 10 commandments actually that Moses had, they actually represent the person of Christ, because Christ died for the broken law, and he was the son of God and the son of man.

That's why we see these things in the sign of the son of man. But he was divinity in human flesh, and therefore it was the commandments formed by God's hand that he carved out of stone, if you will. It doesn't say that, but they were given to Moses, and Moses didn't carve them out of the stone, just as Jesus said his father was in heaven.

So what about the second table of stone? Who does that represent? Because, not the second table of stone, but the second set of tables that Moses carved out of the stone, that must not be Christ, right? Because Christ, okay, Christ was also the son of man. So it could show the two aspects, the son of God on the one hand, the commandments that God gave to Moses, and on the other hand, he was the son of man, he was a descendant from the lineage of Adam, and that would be represented in the tables of stone that Moses carved out of the stone. But that happened at this point up here on Yom Kippur, symbolized in the sign at this point, and if Jesus was the son of man, and he is our example, then who else can live in the same way? Who else does that second table of stone relate to, the second pair of tables? Who else does that relate to? To the people, it relates to the people, and it first, we have the stony heart, yes, but these tables of stone were written with the finger of God just the same.

Exactly, just as the Spirit, representing the first commandment, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, you shall have no other gods before me, right there at the heart of the Ten Commandments is the sign of the author, I am the Lord your God, and he writes those Ten Commandments, not just in Christ, but also in our hearts. If we look in the Bible, let's look at Galatians chapter 4, verse, let's start with verse 22. Galatians chapter 4 verse 22, for it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, and the other by a free woman.

But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Then he says in verse 24, which things are an allegory, for these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children.

So, looking at the sign, our map, Paul says of Mount Sinai, where the law was given, that this points to bondage. Israel was under the bondage of the law. That's the yoke, if you will, and they quickly broke the law, because it wasn't in their heart to keep it.

So, but Paul mentions in verse 24, these are the two covenants. There's not just one, but there are two, and he says one is from Sinai. That one connects with Hagar, whereas the other covenant is with Sarah, Isaac's mother, and he mentions that here in verse 26, after relating Hagar to Jerusalem, who was in bondage because they rejected Christ, he says in verse 26, but Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all, and that was Sarah, the mother of Isaac.

So, Paul speaks of two covenants, one being the covenant of bondage at Sinai, when the Ten Commandments were given in God's loud, booming voice, and they broke that covenant. But what is the second covenant? This comes from the book of Jeremiah in verse 31, chapter 31 and verse 31. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break.

So, which one is that talking about? The covenant at Sinai with Hagar, although I was in unto them, saith the Lord, but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law. So, are we talking about anything different here? It's my law, just like it was with Moses, the first law of the Ten Commandments, he broke, representing what Israel did in breaking the law.

But then the second pair of tables had the same law written in them. It said that God wrote in them the same words that were in the first. And so, the second covenant, the Lord says, I will put my law, the same law, in their inward parts and write it in their hearts.

And I will be their God and they shall be my people. So now, instead of the law being written somewhere else in tables of stone, it's written in the heart of his people. This is the second covenant that Paul is talking about.

And that is what we see in the sign of the Son of Man, where we have two points that represent the receiving of the Ten Commandments. First, with Hagar and then with Sarah. First one, they broke, then God said, I will make a new covenant with them and I will write my law in their hearts.

The first set, Moses broke, representing the time when Christ, it points forward to Christ being broken for us. He was the Son of God and he had God's law written in his heart. He had the tables of stone in his heart already, but he was broken for the sin of Israel and God made a new covenant with Israel.

New tables and whose heart would they be written into? Into Israel, into the heart of God's people. Now, when we look at the sign, you'll notice we have Christ represented by Orion and he sits on the throne where the Ten Commandments are, just like they were put inside a box, which was a throne. So, Christ sits on the throne, but up here we have this representation of the law being written in our hearts and that is in the constellation of the monoceros, which simply means the unicorn, one horn.

And in the Bible, I changed the picture here from the default, which is the mythical unicorn, but I put what it is in the Bible, where in the King James, it talks about unicorns, several verses, but it's actually referring to the one-horned rhinoceros or rhinoceros in general. Also, some passages refer to the two-horned rhinoceros. But it's interesting, this animal, and we'll look at one passage in just a moment, but these are wild animals and they've never been tamed.

The rhinoceros is a big animal and they're known for being stubborn. You can't control a rhinoceros very well. We have elephants that work in the circus and they're even bigger than the rhinoceros, but the rhinoceros is a very stubborn animal.

And what was a characteristic of Israel? How often did God say, refer to them as stiff-necked because they were stubborn? Okay, so that's a fitting symbol for them, but notice what it says in the book of Job. Job chapter 39, and this is where God is speaking to Job out of the whirlwind, and he has a passage here where he talks about the unicorn. God asks Job, will the unicorn be willing to serve thee or abide by thy crib? This is Job 39 verse 9 and now 10.

Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow or will he harrow the valleys after thee? So God is asking Job, more or less setting him in his place, saying, will the rhinoceros, one-horned rhinoceros, can you put a band on him and make him plow your fields because he's not a tamable animal? And he says, wilt thou trust him because his strength is great? Indeed, the rhinoceros has great strength. Or wilt thou leave thy labor to him? Will thou believe him that he will bring home thy seed and gather it into thy barn? So he draws a contrast with and asks Job these questions that are leading questions. God doesn't do anything at random.

There's significance in what he says. And in this passage, he's talking about taking the rhinoceros, this wild, stubborn animal with great strength, and he's saying, hey, can you take that animal and make him plow your fields for you? Can you, in essence, make him, yoke him together and make him plow your fields and bring in your grain, the harvest of the fields? Now these things relate to this time in which we presently are living. Because as we've spoken before, the comet right now is here in the rhinoceros, and this is the time of the seventh trumpet.

We've seen that illustration before where it is like a trumpet. If we turn that on its side, and this is all in the constellation of the rhinoceros. It's pointing to that time, this time of the seventh trumpet, which is warning of the last battle, and it's connecting that with the rhinoceros, fulfilling that role of being a servant, of having the law written in their heart, as it's symbolized at this point of Yom Kippur, having the Ten Commandments written in the heart of God's people, being yoked together with Christ to bring in the final harvest of the earth.

Amen. I want to close with one promise that Jesus gives to the church of Laodicea. Revelation chapter 3 and verse 21.

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and I'm set down with my Father in his throne. So that is what we see here, sitting together with Christ on his throne, having his law written in our hearts as it was written in his heart. I'll leave it with that.

That is our desire. That is the second covenant. Many misunderstand the second covenant.

They think that it's doing away with the law, and now you're not under bondage, you're free from the law, but it's because the law, the same law, is now written in the heart, and then that's the sign that we have overcome. That's the horn of power, of strength, is the law written in the heart, the law of God, the same Ten Commandments written in the heart, and then we, with Christ, may sit on his throne together with him. Amen.

This is after the Alpha, like we've talked about before, and then the Omega in the second half, right at the last moments of history, when the last generation shines with the glory of God represented by the Ten Commandments being in the heart. Amen. Let's have a word of prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word, for your law, for your signs in the heavens that teach the principles of your Word and corroborate the things that are written there, and it shows us in visual language what you desire for us and what our role is in this last time of earth's history. We thank you for showing these things, for pointing out our errors, and correcting us that we may overcome in Christ's strength, just as it was still the finger of God that wrote the Ten Commandments, but this time on the fleshy tables of the heart, like Moses participated in producing. They're written in our humanity, just as Christ was also the Son of Man, and as he overcame and sat down with his Father on his throne, so we may overcome in Christ and sit down on his throne.

We thank you for that. We are not worthy of your grace to exalt us to such a position, but we praise you for your wonderful work and for writing your law in our hearts. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ and the wounded one of Orion, who represents the Son of God and the Son of Man.

Amen.