The Ephraim and Manasseh Blessing [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

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. 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.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

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. Well, I felt sorry for the minister. The same things happened to me. He was on his way to preach a funeral of somebody he didn't even know. It was in a place. He didn't know where he was going out in the middle of the country. And he got lost.

And that happened to me one time. He got lost on the way to do a gravesite service. He got lost. He couldn't find it. You know, it was so late.

Probably people would have even dispersed. He didn't know. But then he saw out in the field, he saw some loose dirt, saw some men with shovels. And he saw them out there. And he said, oh, this was the spot, I guess. So he got out there. The only people left were the, they'd already, you know, closed in the dirt.

The guys over, the workmen are over there sitting under the shade of a tree. He said, well, I'm going to go ahead and just preach, you know. And he said, Lord, didn't know this man, but Lord, I just thank you.

I just thank you for mine. They just, and they began just to preach the gospel. And before you know it, the workmen, they got up and they were standing up and some of them started amen-ing. And pastor, he just preached his heart out right there next to that loose dirt and said, amen.

And went over and shook the hands of all the people and left. And when he did, one workman looked at the other and he said, man, I never seen anything like that. Have you? And the other fellow said, no. He said, and I've been putting septic tanks in for 17 years.

I've never seen anything. Are you ready for some good news? The Lord has made you like Ephraim and Manasseh. We're starting today a new series on the power of blessing.

And I want to start with one of the greatest stories ever told. And we begin with a verse or two in Matthew chapter 10, and then we're going to be turning back to Genesis. Matthew 10 and verse 13, I'm sorry, Mark 10 and verse 13. They were bringing children to him that he might touch them and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, let the children come to me. Do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

So Mark's very clear here. What Jesus was doing is love the little kids. And as they brought them to Jesus, he was blessing them. And we don't know what all he was saying as he laid his hands on them and bless them.

But he was he was speaking a positive future over their life. But one of the things that I feel almost certain that Jesus spoke over these children, because this was the custom in Israel, was that he probably began his blessing by saying, may you be as Ephraim and Manasseh. Now, in order to understand that, this is going to require us to look back at a story in Genesis that's absolutely amazing. And I want to turn you first to Genesis, chapter 41, to tell you about who Ephraim and Manasseh are. And we pick up reading in the story of Joseph, who, as many of you may know the story, had been sold into slavery by his brothers, but by the providence of God had been raised up to second command of all of Egypt and had overseen a time in which they were aware there was going to be a season of plenty for seven years, and they saved up their grain, and then there was going to be a season of famine.

And here we are, Genesis 41, verse 49, and Joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured. Before the year famine came, two sons were born to Joseph, verse 51. Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, for he said, God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house. And the name of the second he called Ephraim, for God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. So Joseph, who has been thought dead by his family and has been through so much affliction, is now blessed with these two boys, the firstborn Manasseh, the second born Ephraim. And the name Manasseh comes from a root that sounds like to forget. So it's like I forgot all that pain because God's so good to me.

So that's about healing. And the name of the second is Ephraim, which sounds like a word to be made fruitful, or some would say it means twice fruitful. So that really is about the hope that he has. And we don't learn much else about Ephraim and Manasseh because it's not really their character that is the important thing. Instead, it's what happens with the blessing that gets spoken over them. And so we pick up the story seven chapters later in Genesis chapter 48. And this is after Joseph has been reunited with his brothers and with his father. And now his father has grown old. And this is what happens in Genesis 48, verse 1.

After this, Jesus was told, behold, your father is ill. So he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And it was told to Jacob, your son Joseph has come to you. Then Israel, that's Jacob's new name. So Israel and Jacob, interchangeable names.

Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed. And Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz and the land of Canaan and blessed me and said to me, behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you and I will make of you a company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession. And now your two sons, your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are mine.

Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine as Reuben and Simeon are. So what he's saying here is Jacob had 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel. But what Jacob is saying here to Joseph, he says, your two boys, Ephraim and Manasseh, I'm adopting them also. It is going to be as though they are my children, not my grandchildren.

The father loves you as his own, not his grandchildren, not as removed from him, but his absolute own. The story continues at verse 8, Israel, that's Jacob, Saul, Joseph's sons, he said, who are these? And Joseph said to his father, they are my sons whom God has given me here. And he said, bring them to me please that I may bless them.

Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age so that you could not see. So Joseph brought them near him and kissed them, embraced them. And Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face and behold God has let me see your offspring also.

Then Joseph removed them from his knees and he bowed himself with his face to the earth. And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel's left and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel's right hand and brought them near him. And Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands. For Manasseh was the firstborn and he blessed Joseph. Verse 17, when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him and he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head. And Joseph said to his father, not this way my father since this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head. But the father refused and said, I know my son, I know he shall also become a people and he shall also become great. Nevertheless his younger brother shall be greater than he and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations. So he blessed them that day saying, by you Israel will pronounce blessings saying, God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh.

Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh. Just to make sure they understand what's happening here is that Joseph has brought his two sons to their dying grandfather Jacob. And the custom was that the primary and powerful blessing would be spoken over the firstborn and the symbol of that special power, that special affirmation is in the right hand. The right hand symbolized the strength. So the greater blessing was in the right hand and so custom would have it that the right hand would be on the firstborn who was Manasseh and the left one would be on Ephraim and that's the way Joseph had positioned them under Jacob's hands. But instead what happened here was that Jacob took his hands and he crossed them like this and Joseph tried to correct him and said, no you know you're confused father. And Jacob said, no I know what I am doing.

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 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. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright.

I would suggest to you, if you ask yourself that question, you are asking the primary gospel question and it would be a good measuring rod for you to know the vitality of your spiritual health. When Abigail, our daughter, was just a little bitty and, you know, she was sitting at the dinner table with the family and I remember looking across the table there. She's sitting in her little booster seat over there and she was so cute.

She was just so cute and that little blonde hair whispering all over the place and the little eyes just sparkling and it was that time at dinner where often I just speak blessing over the family and I just looked at Abby and I just tried to just put it best I could in her at a two-year-old level. Abby, you are so cute. You are so sweet. You are so beautiful. I just love you so much, Abigail Wright. You are the most wonderful little girl in the whole world. I think you are the cutest thing I have ever seen and she's just looking at me, you know, and she's just kind of like taking it like this and it was like, it was like she was a little cup you could just, you know, it's just in the spiritual just like it's being filled up like this and I kept going until finally she just turned over to Ann and blurred out and she said, I love you mommy. I don't think that's the way it is with life, you know.

It's like just a little cup and it just filled up, up, up, up, up until it just had to spill over. I just find this if I am convinced and experiencing the blessedness and the love of God to that sort of extent, it causes me to be able to love others without even trying. Nobody needs to say, oh, are you living a Christian life? Nobody needs to say that because if you know yourself blessed, it just happens, doesn't it? And it also means resistance to temptation because if you know yourself to be that profoundly blessed, then what temptation can ensnare you? Who needs to covet when you already know you're blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ?

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. And 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 through 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, you know, 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 in, 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 this 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 he 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. They 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.

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 Wright's 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.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Alan, as we're kicking off this series, The Power of Blessing, one thing that really sticks out is the fact that he loved us at our worst. So that right there is assurance that he loves us today. He'll love us forever, right? Well, there are going to be so many listeners that this is going to rock your world if you begin to think about the way that God brings transformation in our life is he doesn't wait until you improve yourself and then bless you. He blesses you with a positive vision over your life so then you can grow into it. It's absolutely counter-cultural, Daniel, and I'm just so excited to be launching this series, one of the most important messages that we have. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.