The Ephraim and Manasseh Blessing [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

As he hung upon the cross, it was as if the father took his right hand off of his son and he crossed it over and he put that strong right hand of blessing upon you and me, the second born. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear today's message in a series titled The Power of Blessing as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

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That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching in the series, Praying with Power.

Here is Alan Wright. Who needs to follow after an idol or be driven by a particular lust or some besetting sin? If you know that you know that you know that you're absolutely blessed, your soul doesn't hunger and thirst to try to satisfy itself with lesser things. And but most of all, it means this to me, that when I know myself to be blessed, that is then it is in the spirit of that blessedness, that everything within me is energized.

I mean energized, passionately, powerfully energized to fulfill the calling of God on my life. In other words, you are so much more likely to succeed and live the victorious Christian life when you simply know how blessed you are. And therefore, if even one shred of what I am now saying is true, it would therefore be incumbent and wise for every single Christian to cultivate the craft of blessing other people. Because the people in your life who you want to see prosper, who you want to see be whole and to be a blessing to others, your children, your spouses, your co-workers, your friends, and even your enemies, to these, the most powerful force of change that God has given you is a spiritual principle that is the power of blessing.

And in coming weeks, we're going to learn all about this. We're going to learn about what it means to bless. We're going to learn about how we release the blessing, how we receive that blessing. We're going to learn how it is so powerful, even when people have opposed you and persecuted how we are invited to speak blessing over them.

Because in the beginning, God blessed Adam and Eve, and then he said, be fruitful and multiply. When he called Abraham, what did his call consist of? Abraham, I am going to bless you and you're going to be a blessing.

When he came to Moses and began to speak about how they are to interact with the people, he said, I want your brother Aaron as a priest and all the priests that every time the people of God get together, I want you to lift up your hands and say a blessing. The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you.

The Lord be kind and gracious to you. And so we see the patriarchs who learn how to bless their children. And we watch the great leaders like David as they bless their households. And then Jesus is born. And when baby Jesus is born, there's something so important about the spoken blessing that God appoints a prophetic man named Simeon to come and lift up Jesus and speak a blessing over the baby who is the son of God and is already blessed. He's already blessed. But when he was baptized at Galilee and the spirit came down like a dove, the father of heaven spoke a blessing over his son.

This is my son in whom I'm well pleased because he was getting ready to face fierce temptation. And the way that you make it through temptation is the affirmation of the blessedness of your life. And do you know that Jesus began his ministry by speaking out about blessings? Blessed are the poor in spirit. The very last thing that Jesus did when he was leaving earth and the last words he had with his disciples, we're just told as he was ascending, he lifted up his hands and he blessed the disciples. Peter and Paul both tell us that when you're persecuted and you have enemies, the secret, the giant secret of the Christian is to bless them. And so on this day when they were bringing these little children to Jesus, they just wanted him to touch them. You know, there's a great rabbi who's here.

I want him to lay his hands on my children because they understood the power of blessing. And I think Jesus began by saying, may the Lord make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. And it's a strange thing that this would be the very blessing that Israel was told to speak over all of the children. Why not something about people we know something about? I mean, who are Ephraim and Manasseh?

Well, why not? May the Lord make you like Abraham and Moses, or may the Lord make you like David and Solomon, or may the Lord make you like Isaiah and Jeremiah or Elijah and Elisha, but may the Lord make you like Ephraim and Manasseh? This is the blessing of Israel. Well to understand it is not to understand so much about Ephraim and Manasseh, but to understand about Jacob. Jacob, his whole life is a story of a man who was already predestined to be blessed beyond his imagination, but it took him his whole life to figure it out. And so he lived his whole life until his old age as if he were not blessed. And it seemed like it began even before he was born because the Bible says that there was a tossing about to these two twins inside of Rebekah's womb.

They were in there wrestling. I think Jacob's in there wrestling Esau before they're even born. And it's symbolized by the fact that Esau was born first.

And the customs of primogeniture always meant the firstborn was going to get an extra special affection from all of the culture, was going to get a double portion of the inheritance, was going to run the family farm or the family business, and was going to receive upon his father's deathbed, would receive a special spoken blessing from his father. So everybody wanted to be the firstborn son. And it's almost funny because as Jacob is being born, he's coming in second place, but he's grabbed hold of Esau's heel. It's always like he didn't know what he was doing, but he's trying to pull himself into first place. And his whole life he lived like this. He lived like, man, I've got to do something if I'm going to be blessed.

But he didn't know there had already been a prophecy that said that the younger would be more blessed than the older. And so it was that he was always jockeying for position, always striving, always trying. So there was a day in which Jacob's out and he has fixed some lentil stew. And Esau was a hunter and an outdoorsman. And he'd been out hunting or something and he's all famished. And he came and he saw this great nice smelling stew that Jacob had fixed. And Esau said, give me some of that stew. And Jacob said, I'm going to give you any of that stew. He said, you got to pay for this. Because that's the way you think if you think you're un-blessed, you never really have much to give to anybody.

Every human relationship becomes about what can I get from you? That's the way Jacob was. And he said to Esau, sell me your birthright. And Esau said, what use is my birthright when I'm famished like I am now? And so he swore his birthright to Jacob and got some stew. Well, this is the way Jacob just lived his life until it reached this moment where Jacob realizes it's that special time of impartation from their father Isaac that's going to be spoken over the firstborn Esau. And Jacob, who is favored by his mother Rebecca, he comes up with a plan wherein he is going to pretend to be Esau. And so they put some animal skins on him because Esau was hairy and Jacob was not.

And they put some of Esau's clothing that would smell like Esau and put it on Jacob. And he went into his blind father Isaac and he lied to him and he said, it is I, it is your firstborn Esau. You see, when you don't know that you're blessed, you just don't know what you're doing because, I mean, what he's doing here now is he has essentially come full circle to the point where essentially what Jacob is saying is I can't be blessed unless I'm somebody else. I would just say this is one of the preeminent lies of hell is that you have to do something, you have to make yourself something, you have to measure up, you have to make yourself presentable if you're ever really going to be blessed to the point that you really can't be blessed for who you are. And there's no greater lie because of course the truth of the gospel is that Christ died for the ungodly while they were still in their sin. He came for us when we were at our worst so you can be assured that at every single moment the love and the affection of God set upon you in Christ will never change. And so it was that there's Jacob tricking his father and finally Isaac believes him and he blesses him. And Jacob leaves and Esau comes in and Esau says I've come to receive my blessing and the father says who was it then that just came in here and blessed him and Esau said that must have been my brother Jacob that liar the conniver he's now deceived me these two times. He said you know but go ahead and bless me father and the interesting thing here is in western culture where we don't make much of words this culture in which we say sticks and stones may break my bones but your words will never hurt me that is whoever said that was a fool and so we just say well just take back your words but that's not a Hebrew patriarch understood that's not the way it is. Words have power. The world was created by God speaking words. He had spoken this blessing and so the bible said that Isaac trembled violently and he said I have blessed him and indeed he will be blessed because when the blessing was imparted it was like it was like something spiritual had taken place in the cosmos there was something that couldn't be taken back and and here's a beautiful thing believers as a curse it can be revoked by the blood of the Lord Jesus but when blessing is spoken it has irrevocable power and Esau wept and he said you have not a blessing for me also and and and you you see Esau grieve and Jacob runs for his life because Esau is conspiring in his in his heart to to murder Jacob and Jacob goes on and Jacob just doesn't know what he's doing he doesn't know he's doing he's still striving to be blessed now he's had the blessing spoken over him but he still doesn't feel blessed and anyway and one of the big things happens in the Jacob's life is then he he falls in love with a woman and uh her name is Rachel and he falls in love he doesn't even know her he falls in love with the image of Rachel he falls in love with what love could be he falls in love with with all you know if I would marry Rachel then I'll be blessed and and and he he's in love with Rachel and the father of Rachel says if you're going to marry my daughter you got to work seven years and Jacob was just fine with that because that's what you do when you live out of a sense of law and entitlement and fear and you don't feel blessed you always feel like I got to do something in order to earn some love and so he worked for seven years and it seemed as a day to him but somehow in a way that I can't ever understand um he got tricked the the the conniver the deceiver got deceived and what happened was Laban instead of giving his daughter Rachel uh to to Jacob uh somehow I don't know you figure this out he slipped in Leah and Jacob woke up in the morning and he realized he'd married the wrong woman and then Laban came to him and said you got to work another seven years if you're going to have Rachel so now he's got 14 years that he works in order for love this is a symbol of Jacob's life he doesn't know he's doing he didn't know he's doing because when you when you don't know yourself blessed you'll always be vulnerable to feeling as though you got to work and strive in your relationship that's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series before God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful he blessed them before God called Abraham to father a nation he blessed him before God released his son into ministry he blessed him why because blessing is God's secret strategy to empower you to be all he made you to be when others affirm you most of the time it's because you've proven your worth maybe you did well on a test accomplished a goal or proved yourself competent such affirmation is nice but it's not the way of God God's strategy is to declare your worth before you have done anything to prove it in the kingdom of God blessing is the fuel for your productivity not the reward for it maybe you need your heart to be healed from old wounds caused by others withholding their blessing or maybe you're ready to shatter that invisible ceiling that keeps you from soaring either way Pastor Alan writes the power of blessing will change your life change how you interact with others as you discover the ancient skill of the Hebrew patriarchs as they bless their children learn how to tune your heart to accept blessing and reject curse most of all drink in the unquenchable blessing of God in Jesus Christ get motivated God's way with Allen Wright's seven message CD album the power of blessing when you make your gift to Allen Wright ministries today we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastorallen.org today's teaching now continues here once again is Allen Wright but God meant it for good saw in his life the thread that wove it all together was God's favor and blessing despite all the evidence to the contrary and there was Jacob spending all these years of his life and he was just grieving for the son that he'd lost he was inconsolable I imagine he just held on to the relic of Job's bloodied Joseph's bloodied robe and the famine came since there was no other choice he said to his sons go to Egypt get us some grain buy us some grain or else we'll starve and so he sends 10 sons in the meantime Rachel had had another boy his name was Benjamin and he wouldn't send Benjamin he lost Rachel's firstborn he's not going to lose the second he sends these 10 sons they come to Joseph and Joseph recognizes him but they don't recognize Joseph and he decides that he's going to test them and he learns that they have a a new brother Joseph realizes he's got a full baby brother that he's never met and he realizes that his father is alive and so he says I'm going to keep one of you he keeps Simeon he says the rest of you you go you come back and you bring back your baby brother and that's how you'll be able to get this also your brother out of incarceration and I'll let him go and they come back and they tell Jacob and they say they say this this this is what has happened with they think that we're spies and and now we've got to go back and he says we must take our baby brother back with us and Jacob says you will not do it I've lost Joseph I'm not going to lose Benjamin also and then he gets mad at them he blames them it's almost comical he says why did you tell him you have a another brother haven't I taught you anything don't tell people the truth in this world it won't go well with you but then they get so hungry they have no choice and finally it's just this moment of surrender you know for some people this is the moment of surrender in their lives it's like I've just got no other choice I'm going to starve to death so just I surrender go on he said if I'm bereaved I'm bereaved but we're going to starve if you don't go and he sends Benjamin they go off you take him they come before Joseph and then the seam of incredible passion and pathos Joseph reveals himself to his brother said it is I Joseph he falls upon his baby brother's shoulders and he weeps and he weeps then he tells his brothers he says you do not need to be afraid he said you meant it for evil God meant it for good and it is so that I could take care of you what a reunion but there was no reunion that was sweeter than this when the brothers go back and tell their father that Joseph lives and they bring him to Egypt and the Bible just says simply that when Joseph saw his father Jacob he just fell upon his shoulders and he just wept and Jacob who his whole life had thought himself unblessed was having his entire view unraveled because everything that he had thought had been a conspiracy against him to have a doomed life instead he realized he had been blessed all along so as Jacob is coming near to his time of death and he is full of peace Joseph when he gets word that Jacob is dying the first thing he wants to do he doesn't need to rush to his side and make sure that they have told each other that they love each other and forgiven each other or any of that doesn't need to rush and make sure the last will and testament is in order that's not what was on his mind the one thing's on his mind is I've got to get my two boys Ephraim and Manasseh I've got to get them to Jacob so that their grandfather can bless them because the blessing is the most important thing in life and so he comes and and and here is Jacob he is now named Israel he's nearly blind and Joseph comes and he brings the first born Manasseh and puts him under the strong right hand of Jacob and he puts Ephraim the second born under the left hand as it should be the one who's entitled to the blessing gets the strong right hand the second born who's not entitled to the special blessing gets the left hand and here is Jacob and and all of a sudden Jacob's an old man and he can't even really see but he takes his hands and he crosses them over and he puts his strong right hand on the younger one who doesn't deserve it and he puts the left hand on the firstborn's head and Joseph politely says no no no father now you you got it backwards and he takes his hand off of Ephraim's head and he brings it back over and he puts it gently on Manasseh said he said here here here's the firstborn Manasseh here he puts his left hand here is Ephraim he's the second born this is the way it should be and Jacob crosses his hands again and he said I know my son I know but I know what I'm doing I may not have known what I was doing my whole life but right now as I'm getting ready to die and I've got my hands upon these grandson's heads I know what I am doing right now I might not have known what I was doing when I was conniving and stealing Esau's blessing I might not have known when I was doing when I was working 14 years for love I might not have known what I was doing when all my wives and maid servants are trying to have babies I might not have known what I was doing when I didn't bless my 10 older sons and only blessed my younger I did not have known what I was doing when I wrestled with an angel I might not have known when I doing when I tried to have a reunion with Esau I might not have known what I was doing my whole life because I always felt unblessed I always felt unfavored I always felt like I had to do something I had to strive I had to connive I had to deceive I didn't understand that I had already been prophetically announced to be blessed my whole life I didn't know what I was doing but son if there ever been a time in my life where I know what I'm doing it's now let me cross my hands because this is what I have learned about our God and this is what I've learned about life you don't get what you deserve from God you get something better than you ever could have earned you get the grace of God and he switched his hands and he rejected a system of entitlement and law and fear and he embraced the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ because all of this prefigured what would happen some 1700 years later when there was a first born son named Jesus who was absolutely entitled to the strong right hand of the blessing of the father but who came and hung upon a cross and as he hung upon the cross it was as if the father took his right hand off of his son and he crossed it over and he put that strong right hand of blessing upon you and me the second born so as Jesus said my God my God why have you forsaken me there must have been a collection of angels and archangels who gathered around the throne and politely said Lord the right hand needs to go upon the firstborn and God must have said I know but I know what I'm doing know what I'm doing and the one who should have been blessed was cursed so that anyone who would receive Christ would be in Paul's words blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ and on the third day when he rose from the dead having defeated evil taken the curse and ushered in a blessing to everyone who would ever receive him by faith everyone knew God knew what he was doing he has made you like Ephraim and Manasseh and that's the gospel Alan Wright it's today's teaching in the series the power of blessing and we invite you to stay with us Alan is back here in just a moment with additional insight on today's teaching for your life and today's final word before God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful he blessed them before God called Abraham to father a nation he blessed him before God released his son into ministry he blessed him why because blessing is God's secret strategy to empower you to be all he made you to be when others affirm you most of the time it's because you've proven your worth maybe you did well on a test accomplished a goal or proved yourself competent such affirmation is nice but it's not the way of God God's strategy is to declare your worth before you have done anything to prove it in the kingdom of God blessing is the fuel for your productivity not the reward for it maybe you need your heart to be healed from old wounds caused by others withholding their blessing or maybe you're ready to shatter that invisible ceiling that keeps you from soaring either way pastor Alan writes the power of blessing will change your life change how you interact with others as you discover the ancient skill of the Hebrew patriarchs as they bless their children learn how to tune your heart to accept blessing and reject curse most of all drink in the unquenchable blessing of God in Jesus Christ get motivated God's way with Alan Wright's seven message CD album the power of blessing when you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today we'll send you pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor alan.org Alan do you find that folks really have a hard time and I could use the word we hear we have a hard time accepting a blessing receiving that well when you think of just how Jacob crosses his arms over and what's helped me so much is finally in his old days it's like Jacob says I get it and and now I know what I'm doing that grace goes first this is the way of God and if I can envision that in a real sense God crossed his arms with Jesus taking my place that's the way I begin to be able to really receive and so anybody's listening right now you know I but it's like you don't know what I've done you don't know how little I deserve the blessing and we want to say again it's not about your deserving it's about the sovereign choice that is generated by the love of God you can receive the blessing that should have been reserved only for Jesus today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries