The Power of the Yokes

By Carlton Foster

The Power of The Yoke tackles head-on the importance of starting off children the right way during the early years of life. The things that happen to children whether good or bad during the early years will have a significant impact later throughout the rest of their lives. The book deals with issues that could yoke people and prevent them from fulfilling their destiny. The yoke is not for the present but it is for the future. The yoke is a symbol of servitude.

The book helps you to recognize the competing forces and voices that that will prevent you from becoming all that God has planned for your life. You are equipped to recognize the abundance of yokes. You are reminded that your life has worth and exposes the many snares that Satan sets to enslave you, causing you to live life short of What God destined you to become.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728344836

Carlton Foster

I was born in Jamaica and migrated to Canada, May 1981. I was sexually abused at a very early age, 4 or 5 years old. I was exposed to an explicit sexual lifestyle until the age of 12 when I became a born again believer. The memory of being abused was locked away and forgotten until the age of 32 when I had an awakening. That revelation explains the sexual struggles that I had during my early years as a teenager and young adult and episode of depression and withdrawal. I serve as an ordained minister in, Church of God of Prophecy, in Ontario Canada. I married to Sharline for 25 years and blessed with 4 children: Danielle, Joshua, James, and David. God used the struggles of sexual abuse to pave out a path for me to equip the body of Christ and the world to overcome struggles that would yoke them to a life of servitude.

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© 2020 Carlton Foster. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/24/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-4484-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-4483-6 (e)

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

1: Yoke Free Foundation

The Early Years

Love the Greatest Commandment

The Ten Commandments

2: Purpose Of The Yoke

What is a Yoke

Do Not be Yoked

The Rich Fool

3: The Power Of Voices

Bondage by Ignorance

His Voice Makes the Difference

You Are Not a Fool Just Foolish

Get Behind the Steering Wheel

Good-bad Parenting

Two Hats

4: The Power Of Love

You are valued

Pause the Send Button

Life Transformation

Protective Layer

The battle of the mind

The Invisible Church

Young is not too young

Global Family

5: The Power Of One Generation

Generation Who

What’s in a Name

Bob Who

Above the stigma

Misfits Fitting in

6: Diamonds In The Rough

A Diamond in the Making

You Are One of Them

Ferris Wheel

Waiting in a Balance

When Pain Hurts

One Piece of Puzzle is Not The Picture

7: Recognizing The Yoke

Jesus the Yoke Breaker

Theology of The Gospel

Psychology of The Gospel

The Buck Stops Here

All Have Come Short

Sex, Sex, and More Sex

Where is God in all this

God of Covenant

8: Abundance Of Yokes

A Conceited Yoke

Two Yokes

The Yoke of Sexual Immoralities

Oral, Anal Sex do or not do

Areas of Attacks

Psychological

Physical

Spiritual

The First Yoke

9: Importance Of Virginity

Your Virginity

Sinning Against Your Body

Sexual Sin is Demonic

Sex and Marriage

The Whisperer

Covenantal Relationship

A light yoke

BeanBoozled Spinner Jelly Bean Game

10: Know The Spirits

The Spirit of Deception

Silence the Enemy

Do Not Judge a Man by His Statue

The Law of First Mention

Your Spiritual DNA

Predetermined Cure

The Curse of The Yoke

11: The Power Of Sexual Immoralities

Science 101

The Power of Agreement

Purpose of Sex

Reproduction

Intimacy

Comfort

Pleasure

Demonic Curses of Sexual Sins

Demons Can Return

12: Giving Up Aad Giving In

Never Give in

A Life Well Lived

You Are Still His Child

God’s Standard

Just Run

Basic Math

God of Every Nations

13: Your Life Has Worth

Who Sinned

Character Builder

You Do Not Need The Rain

Your Jesus Story

14: Set The Baits

Embrace the Good and the Bad

You Are Royalty

Crafty Craftsman

Sex Sex and More Sex

Booze and Sex

Swallow the Smoke

Airbag, Bungee Chord, and Parachute

Airbags

Bungee Cord

Parachute

Not a Banzai Skydiving God

15: The Spirit of Python

Source of All Evil

Piggyback Ride

The Fisherman’s Net

Where is Your World

Python

Spirit of Python

The Worst Kind of Thief

A Matter of Perspective

There is a Seed in You

Identify With Christ

DEDICATION

H e who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord (Pro. 18:22 NIV).

During courtship with my wife, she asked me this question, Are you willing to die for me? Well, let's just say, If I should be asked this question 25 years later, my answer would be very different. Yes, my darling! I am willing to die for you! The bible admonishes a wife to respect her husband. I thank God for my wife Sharline whose respect comes with bonus coverage of love.

Throughout our marriage, there were times when she had to go the extra mile outside of her vow to love the unlovable. Such love cannot be duplicated. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, John 15:13 NLT. How much more so the love of a wife to be honored by the ultimate sacrifice.

I give God thanks for you and I repent of the pain that I have caused you. You have endured more than you should have endured but you remain faithful and true to your vow. I thank God for putting a hedge around you during those dark lonely hours. Sometimes, the greatest stories are the untold ones.

You have been my rock that inspired me to greatness and shattering the ceilings of impossibilities. Thank you for inspiring me to a level of faith in God that causes me to achieve that which I thought was impossible. You have enriched my life with the fruit of your womb: Danielle, Joshua, James, David, and he who is absent in body but never forgotten in our hearts, Dominic.

Her husband can trust her, and she will greatly enrich his life, Pro. 31:11 NLT.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A ll praise glory and honor belong to Jesus Christ my Savior. With him, I can do all things. To my uniquely gifted family, Sharline the faithful, Danielle the gifted, Joshua the leader, James the maverick, and David the musician, you inspire me to set the bar high. Special thanks to my mom, Hazel Williams for me to Canada to escape the horror of life in the Caribbean and my father Earl. To my sister Donaire, my brother Merrick, my nephews Pastor Jerome, Joel, and Nathan, you are in my thought even when I do not see you.

To Bishop Caston Johnson and Pastor Elisa Gesse, thank you for being my family Spiritual and literal shelter! God will reward you for the love shown to my family! To Colton and Hazeline Brown, words cannot describe the gratitude that I have for you for the love shown to my family in the time of need; may God enriched you with long lives and may you lack nothing! My spiritual mom, Sillin Canegan, thank you for teaching me to turn on and off my first computer.

To Gilbert Estridge, a friend that is closer than a brother. You gave me biggest push when I need it most to start this journey! Bishop Levi Clarke, thank you for the word of prophecy; you are blessed and favoured by God! To Judy Collins, thank you for the logos investment. To the rest of my church family and friends that have left an everlasting impact on my life, God bless you.

1

YOKE FREE

FOUNDATION

THE EARLY YEARS

I t has been said many times, The children are the leaders of tomorrow! That is the truth! However, while you are waiting for the future to make children into leaders, Satan is busy working to prevent them from having a future. There is a huge cultural shift between children and parents and time is more precious than ever before. You cannot afford to wait for the future to be equipping children to lead the future. The future is fast upon you. The future is now.

You cannot live with your heads in the sand like ostriches and be blind to the world. While Satan’s agents are busy trying to keep prayers out of schools. Satan is busy pushing his agenda with the aid of social media, television, and music.

Satan may not know your appointed time and season to fulfill your destiny, but he knows destiny is piggybacking on you. He knows everyone that God placed on this earth has the destiny to fulfill and he is threatened by you. It is believed that the Windows of Opportunity for learning occur in a very short period that will permanently impact a child’s life. The first four years are the most important time in a child’s life! According to Wendy Pellant, it is believed that the Windows of Opportunity for learning occurs in these time frames:¹

Skill Optimal Window Time for Strengthening:

• Early sounds 4 - 8 months Birth to five years

• Emotional Intelligence 0 -2 years 2 - 5 years

• Motor development 0 - 2 years 2 - 5 years

• Vision development 0 - 2 years 2 - 5 years

• Music 0 - 3 years 3 - 10 years

• Thinking skills 0 - 4 years 4 – 10 Years

• Language Acquisition 0 - 10 years

It is estimated that over a trillion synapse sites, connections in learning could be lost after a child is four years old. Therefore, the ages of 0 - 4 are the most critical time in your children’s lives! This is when you have the greatest opportunity to impact their lives. You cannot take this responsibility lightly! This is the time that you help them to develop their personalities, ethics, ability to communicate, empathize, and think.

Your time investment will impact every aspect of their future lives. When all the right pieces are aligned at a child’s early life, such as no diagnosed mental or physical developmental problems, and no socio-psychological barriers, the sky is the limit for that child to attain success, and to fulfill his God’s intended destiny.

Cultural attitudes, emotions, status, source of communication, inattentiveness, poor retention, unsolicited communication are some of the socio-psychological barriers that will prevent a child from striving at a very early age. This is not new research data that has been compiled by psychologists. It is a biblical principle!

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it" (Pro. 22:6 NIV).

The Bible clearly instructs you to start a child the right way. Even if that child should go astray, there is a much greater chance that he will return to the right path because the foundation had been laid. It is not a question of whether children will make bad choices or go astray. It is inevitable that their lives will be shaped by one failure after another. The ideal question is this. What tools are given to children to help them pick themselves up when they fall?

You do not need to google, How to be a good parent, or how to equip your children to bounce back from failures? You can be sure of one thing; you will hear a lot of voices on this topic. It will probably be more stressful, going through the abundance of information than it is to equip your children to survive beyond the comfort of your roof.

This world is changing at a rate much faster than children’s minds are developing. The challenge that parents face is that their children are much technologically smarter than them. Parents and grandparents are not just a few steps behind.

They are constantly being separated every day by the technological intuitions of their children and them as caregivers, limited knowledge of technology. This makes parenting to be challenging to filter the many different voices that children are hearing that you are hearing.

Children are very resourceful smarter; they know how to go and seek out information. The challenge that they face is that they do not know how to filter the abundances of voices whispering in their ears. The only voice that they need to hear whispering in their ears, above all other voices are the voice of their parents. Parents living in the same house do not have different voices; they speak with one voice. They both speak the same language. They speak as one, as a team. Keeping it simple is the best way to equip your children to survive in this fast-changing world. They do not need an abundance of quantitative information. they already have enough going on in their heads. They need quality information.

LOVE THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT

The tool that stood the test of time for equipping your children is very simple. God gave Moses ten commandments, but Jesus was asked by the Pharisees, What is the greatest commandment?

Jesus summarized the ten commandments with one word, Love! How can one word, love, be the tool to equip a generation of children, to navigate through a hostile world filled with unprecedented peer pressure, media, and social pressure.

Even within the church community, no one is exempted from pressure. The church needs to be careful, not to pressure children with a doom and gloom gospel.

Instead, the church needs to promote an interpersonal relationship with Jesus. Children need to be taught from a very young age to love God. Do not set a holiness bar that is set so high that they need a ladder to reach it. It is like trying to walk up a descending escalator.

What will happen is that they will eventually become slaves to the thing that supposed to give them liberty. This kind of pursuit of holiness will become a yoke. They will try so hard to be holy and, in the process, they will only fail. When you tell a person to, Love God! You are equipping that person to succeed, experience the fullness of God and live an abundant life.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

1. Thou shall have no other gods before me!

2. Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image!

3. Thou shall not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them!

4. Thou shall not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain!

5. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy!

6. Honor thy father and thy mother!

7. Thou shall not kill!

8. Thou shall not commit adultery!

9. Thou shall not steal!

10. Thou shall not covet!

When you closely look at the ten commandments, you can understand why Jesus summarized them with one word, Love! You do not need to have the ten commandments written down in the palm of your hands and do a checklist daily to determine where you came up short.

When you walk in love you will realize that you fulfill all ten commandments without being yoked to them. When you walk in love it makes everything becomes easy. When you love God and love your neighbor you fulfill the ten commandments.

Parenting is a deliberate daily full-time job. You are building on this foundation daily to give your children a chance of survival in this world. Satan has many devices to yoke your children, causing them to live a life of servitude.

However, when your children know that you love them unconditionally, despite their failures or achievements, they will be more comfortable in taking on challenges. They will be lest concern about failing and focus more on trying to achieve their goals. When children know that they are not judged by their failures, but they are judged by their lack of trying, they are being equipped to achieve greatness.

Failures are not something just common to poverty-driven communities. Children from affluent families, successful parents, attended the best schools, well educated, and have no notable barriers are not immune to failure and became an ignominy to their families and society!

2

PURPOSE OF

THE YOKE

E verything that happens in your life as a child affects your adult life and carries through to the rest of your life. Not is nit just good enough to recognize a fragmented early beginning!

It is incumbent of you not to dissimulate yourself from every early childhood trauma that could cast a yoke on you.

As parents, if you dissimulate yourself from early childhood trauma you are giving your children an unfair disadvantage.

Everything that your children become is an image of who you are. Your children are looking at you. They see failure and they see success, also.

The greatest disservice that you can do to your children is to give them an unnecessary yoke to carry. A yoke just not just go away. It lingers around and it has a multiplicity effect.

A yoke has the potential to alter the course of your life and affects every area of it. Like a stream, a yoke flows from the top downward. When parents’ lives are devasted by yolks, every generation after are affected by the yokes.

Other yokes attach themselves to the generations like a magnet to metal.

WHAT IS A YOKE

A yoke is usually attached in pairs. A yoke is a crosspiece of wood that is fastened over the neck of two animals. The yoke is attached to a plow or some other objects to be pulled. A yoke shackles you to someone or something. Before there were heavy machines available for farmers to plow the ground, men and or animals were used to plow the grounds. In many undeveloped countries, animals are still being yoked to plow the ground.

It is not smart to yoke a wild raging bull or any other undomesticated animal at an adult stage in life to plow. From birth or a few weeks after birth, yokes are placed on animals. Before the animals were introduced to grazing pastures, they were introduced to the yokes. Quite often oxen were used for plowing because of their lower center and gravity and brute strength. As the oxen grew all that they were familiar with was having yokes attached to them, which appeared to be a normal thing.

The yoke is adjusted so that it is not too loose to come off their necks and not too tight to suffocate them. It was not unusual for the farmer to have the paired animals parade along the field, periodically. That made the animals become familiar with the path that would one day shape their destiny.

At the appointed time for the animals to start plowing the field, a plow is attached to the yoke without them being aware. When they think that they are just leisurely walking the field, they are plowing it.

The yoke has connotations of subservience and toiling; in some ancient cultures, it was traditional to force a vanquished enemy to pass beneath a symbolic yoke of spears or swords. The yoke may be a metaphor for something oppressive or burdensome. The metaphor can also refer to the state of being linked or chained together by contract or marriage, similar to a pair of oxen. The yoke is frequently used metaphorically in the Bible, first in Genesis regarding Esau.²

The animals that were yoked together did not realize that they were being groomed for a lifetime of servitude! A yoke is never intended for the present; it is always designed for the future and is a symbol of servitude. A yoke is not bondage, but it is a means by which you are taken into bondage.

DO NOT BE YOKED

Stop becoming unevenly yoked with unbelievers. What partnership can righteousness have with lawlessness? What fellowship can light have with darkness (2 Cor. 6:14)?

When the Bible says to, "stop