Well, good evening, everyone. We are here tonight to continue our study through the life of Joseph. And let me just do a quick review of our last study. We're at a point in the story here where Jacob's life is nearing its end. And he has begun the transition of patriarch responsibilities from himself to Joseph. And in our last study, he expressed to Joseph his desire for his own burial arrangements. He wants to be buried in Canaan, not in Egypt, where they are currently living. And this had to do primarily with covenant continuity. He wanted to be placed, he wanted to be buried in the place where the Lord had directed him to be buried. And, you know, part of our focus in the last study was that, you know, Jacob's foremost concern is God's covenant. And he wants to ensure that the new patriarch of the family, Joseph, understood the importance that he placed on the covenant and that he would continue once Jacob is gone, that Joseph would continue and make it his top priority. This was expressed in Jacob's request to Joseph to make a solemn oath to him to bury his body in a way that would clearly demonstrate for all to see the priority that both Jacob and Joseph placed on God's covenant. Now, in what Jacob recognizes as what will most likely be, we know it is, it's his final moments with his beloved son. What we saw is Jacob displaying the spiritual strength of a man whose heart is close to God, very, very close to God. And although he is, at this point in time, he's physically weak, physically at his weakest, He is spiritually very, very strong, really spiritually at his strongest ever. He recounts to Joseph his meeting with the Lord when the Lord made covenant with him. That's what was on his mind. This is, you know, he's basically on his deathbed with his son, and this is what's on his mind. And this is expressing to Joseph, demonstrating to Joseph Jacob's concern for the continuity of God's covenant even after he's gone. In essence, he's saying, once I'm gone, you are in control of this. And I want you to know how important this is and how important it is to me. And I want it to be that important to you, the continuity of God's covenant. What did Jacob pass on to Joseph on his deathbed? If you remember from our last study, we talked about some of the things that the people today pass on to their children. But what did Jacob pass on to Joseph there on his deathbed? He passed on God's purpose for his and his son's lives as they go forward. He passed on to him what their part in the covenant with God is going to be, is and is going to be. He passed on to him a legacy, what I call the testimony of faithfulness to God. Jacob's life story is a story of faithfulness. He has lived his life faithfully, not perfectly, but faithfully. And in these last scenes of his life, we see his faithfulness to God increasing, not diminishing. And then at the tail end of our study, we began looking at what Jacob is doing with two of Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And he's actually adopting them. And we talked, I'm not going to go over it in detail, but we talked about last time the difference between what our culture recognizes as adoption, how we practice adoption, and what it means to us in our culture and society, and the difference that it means to them. And we're going to get into a little bit more detail about that tonight. But this adoption, is an act of faith that God would fulfill his promise. What Jacob is about to do is to bestow onto Joseph the double portion blessing. And he's doing this by elevating his sons, Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim to the rank of heirs. He's he's adopting them at he's adopting his grandsons as his own sons, exalting them, bringing them to the level of becoming his heirs. And of course, what that does is that adoption, when he adopts him, that will give Manasseh and Ephraim a portion of the promised land. They become tribes of Israel. They get an actual portion of the promised land. Now, this is far in the future, 400 years in the future, but they will receive a portion of land. See, now Joseph is receiving that portion. Joseph actually becomes a tribe of Israel, okay? But history records not a tribe of Joseph, but a tribe of Manasseh and Ephraim. Joseph actually becomes two tribes of Israel. He gets a double portion of that blessing of that inheritance. And that's what Jacob is doing right here. Like I said, this in the actual inheritance is not happening right now. Jacob doesn't have land. He doesn't own the promised land. Okay, but he's raising Manasseh and Ephraim to this status of his sons to become his heirs to what God has promised to him. That is an act of faith. He trusts God to fulfill the promise that he made to him. Praise God. Okay, let's pick up now in Genesis chapter 48. We left off in verse 5, but I want to reread verse 5 and then tonight we'll cover verses 5 all the way through verse 22. So let's begin in verse 5. And now 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. And the children that you fathered after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. As for me, when I came from Paddan to my sorrow, Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath. and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem. When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, who are these? 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 he could not see. So Joseph brought them near and he kissed them and 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. Joseph took them both Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel's left hand and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel's right hand and brought them near him and Israel stretched out his right hand and 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 and said, the God before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil bless the boys and in them let my name be carried on and the name of my fathers abraham and isaac let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth 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 his father refused and said, I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people. He also shall be 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 as Manasseh. Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh. Then Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I am about to die. but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given to you rather than to your brothers one mountain slope that I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow. Amen. Okay, now this is a continuation of the conversation between Jacob and Joseph. So it's a continuation of what we studied last month. It's been a month since we've been there, but for them, it's seamless. This is one conversation. And in this passage, what we just read, Joseph presents to Jacob Manasseh and Ephraim to be blessed. And Jacob blesses them. And we're going to be looking at this in a little bit more detail. But what he does in the way he blesses them, he is really sealing his adoption of them. He lays hands on them to bless them, thus sealing his adoption of them as his own sons. And in so doing, he's bestowing upon Joseph The double portion blessing they were his grandsons They are now his adopted sons and he's blessing the two of them giving Joseph through them the double portion blessing Now, in this passage, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but I don't want to leave it out and just gloss over it, there are tucked away in this passage two displays of the emotional bond between Jacob and Joseph. The first one, Jacob recounts to Joseph Rachel's death and burial, says it almost in passing. Like I said, it's just kind of tucked away in the passage. And the second one is that for just a moment, Jacob reminisces how at one point in time, he never expected to see Joseph again in this life. Then he goes on to say that God has blessed him not just by allowing him to see Joseph, but to see Joseph's offspring, his children, Jacob's grandchildren. And both of these, it's a tender moment between a father and a son. And I believe that it's there to remind us of the bond of love that they had as father and son. I mean, we've been studying the life of Joseph for a long time. We've looked at a lot of detail. We've learned a lot about Jacob along the way. And they are, you know, we tend to look at them as pillars, as stones, right, as patriarchs. But I think that we are meant to remember that they are father and son and they have this incredible bond of love between them. Now, this passage, Chronologically, this passage is the account of Joseph receiving the double portion blessing, the end of Jacob's life, and he is naturally going to pass on the birthright to what would normally be his firstborn, but it's going to Joseph. And he's doing this by way of adopting his his two sons, giving him the double portion blessing. Jacob is blessing Manasseh and Ephraim, including them with his own sons in the inheritance of the promised land. But at a deeper spiritual level, this passage is an account and an example of God's sovereignty in all things, in everything. What we're looking at tonight, what God is doing in this passage is He's directing and He's redirecting the channel of birthright in redemptive history. I want to put a diagram up here for you to better understand this. I'm going to go over five generations quickly. Let's start with Abraham. Okay, who was Abraham's firstborn? No, that would have been Ishmael, was his firstborn, right? Ishmael, okay. But somebody mentioned Isaac. Who received the birthright? It was Isaac, not the firstborn. God redirected, okay? So now let's go, let's follow Isaac. Who was Isaac's firstborn? Would have been Esau, right? But who received birthright? That was Jacob. Once again, God sovereignly redirects the firstborn birthright, the double blessing. OK, now, in all these that we're going to look at here, the circumstances are are different. OK, but God is at work here. And that's the point. OK, now, Jacob, who's Jacob's firstborn? That would have been Reuben. Right. But Reuben is not receiving the. OK, here we go. Reuben is not receiving the birthright, the double portion blessing, Joseph is, right? Once again, God at work here, sovereignly redirecting the birthright in redemptive history. Okay, now Joseph, now we've got Joseph's first born is Manasseh. Is that correct? Okay. And then we've got Ephraim, who was his second born. And what happens? We're going to see God is once again redirecting the birthright. Okay. And that we're going to be looking at in a little bit more detail. But the point here is that God is in control. God is sovereign. God is directing, even going against the natural or the fleshly birthright. God, to serve his own purposes, redirects this through history. Now, ultimately, of course, this is all pointing where? It's pointing us to Christ. Okay. And, and, and even Christ, I mean, if we follow this through, okay, does it end here? Does, does the Messiah come through the tribe of Ephraim? No, God, once again, redirects. Okay. Sovereignly redirects. So the point of this is that God is sovereign and God is in control. Now, okay, so let's take a look at the passage in some detail. First thing that happens here is that Joseph presents Manasseh and Ephraim to Jacob. And what does Jacob say? His two sons, Joseph's sons are there in the room and Jacob sees them and he asks, who are these? Who are these young men who are standing here? What we have to remember is Jacob is old and frail, and his eyes are dim. He sees the two young men that he has just told Joseph that he's going to adopt. He sees them there, but his eyesight is so bad that he doesn't recognize them, his physical eyes. were so dim that he didn't recognize them. He had to ask, who are these? But what we're going to see is that his spiritual eyes are 20-20. He couldn't recognize them physically, but he saw spiritually how God wants to bestow his blessing on these two young men. Now Joseph understands, understanding his father's physical condition, old, frail, weak, can hardly see. So what he does is he places Manasseh and Ephraim in front of Jacob to greet him. They're grandsons. He wants to greet them. He wants to embrace them, to show his love to them. So Joseph places them in front of him, and the passage tells us that Jacob embraces them, warmly embraces them. They're his grandsons. Now this scene, what's happening is that Jacob is about to bestow onto Joseph, a blessing, a very, very special blessing. And this blessing is coming under God's direction. Jacob is spiritually adopting Manasseh and Ephraim as his own sons, which is what that's doing is placing Joseph in the position of the first born in the family, right? Jacob to Joseph. Joseph isn't the first born in a fleshly sense, but now spiritually he's being placed in that position by the Lord. Technically, of course, Reuben was the firstborn. Joseph's double portion blessing as the firstborn, his birth right now, is coming by way of his two sons. This is the double portion blessing that Joseph is receiving from Jacob. Each of them will receive a portion of the promised land. OK, now, at this point, Joseph now, he knows that the blessing is coming. Joseph shows Jacob the customary respect and honor that a son would show his father in this situation. Now, the passage says, there's a line in the passage that I want to spend just a moment to explain because it's surrounded by a lot of misunderstanding. It says he removes Manasseh and Ephraim from his knees. And many people have a picture of this scene as Jacob sitting in front of Joseph, they're facing each other, and Manasseh and Ephraim on Joseph's knees. And then the verse says that he removes them from his knees and bows himself to show honor to his father. Okay, what we got to remember is that Manasseh and Ephraim are young men. They're not infants. They're not toddlers. They're not little boys. They are somewhere in the general range of like, say, 18 to 21 years old, something in that range. So clearly they weren't sitting on their dad's knees. What the phrase actually means is not that he removed them from his own knees, but he removed them from Jacob's knees. He removed them from his knees. Joseph removed them from Jacob's knees. And in the original language, the verbiage certainly allows for a child, if it were children, the phrase allows for them to be set actually on his knees. But these were not children. These were grown men. The phrase also allows for, and this is customary, that they would be standing in front of Jacob, facing Jacob between his knees. They would be standing close to him for an embrace. Remember that Joseph had placed them in front of Jacob, being sensitive to Jacob's physical condition. He wasn't going to make Jacob get up and walk across the room to embrace his grandsons. Joseph took them and placed them between Jacob's knees for this grandfatherly love and embrace. Then he removed them Joseph removed them from between Jacob's knees. And that's when then he literally laid down on the face down on the ground to show honor to his father. Is this making sense? Okay. The reason that I wanted to take the time to explain this is so that there would be no misunderstanding or confusion about, wait a minute, last month you told us that they were late teens, early 20s. It doesn't make sense that they'd be sitting on their father's knees. So I just want you to understand that aspect. And to see this now, as the father of two boys, this speaks volumes to me What an incredible and excellent example that Joseph is showing here to his sons. I mean, just think about that for a minute. Just let that soak into you, especially if you're a father. You know, what is it that fathers today do as far as being examples to their sons? You know, let's be manly men, right? You know, teach them how to throw a football and, you know, do manly kind of stuff, right? Well here, Joseph is paying honor to his father. What an incredible example he is showing to his sons. This is what it means to be a man. Let me lay down face down on the floor to honor my father. You know what he's teaching them is how to honor God. because that's what he's doing. His father in his life is God's representative. He is God's representative in his son's life. And he's giving them this tremendous example. I just, I love that. Okay, now I'm gonna have to draw another picture up here. Now we're told that Joseph positions Manasseh and Ephraim in front of Jacob. And in the passage, we see a series of lefts and rights. OK, so I do want to draw a diagram. I'm not an artist. OK, so bear with me. And, you know, you probably already understand exactly what's going on. But just to make sure, I think this will make it a little bit easier. Here's what we've got. We've got Joseph. and he is facing Jacob. And he places Manasseh over here. And this is on his left, on Jacob's right. OK. He places Ephraim over here on his right, on Jacob's left. Do I have everything right? OK. That looks correct. OK. I don't know if you can see that. Does that make sense as far as the positioning goes? OK. Jacob, excuse me, Joseph places everybody like this. Undoubtedly, out of concern for his father's physical condition, his frailty, his failing eyesight. Once again, he wants to do as much as he possibly can for his father to make this as easy as possible physically. But there's also a concern here for the right order of blessing. And these two concerns kind of go hand in hand. Joseph wants to make sure, do everything that he can possibly do to make sure that the blessing from his father is administered appropriately and properly. And this is the customary position of blessing. As far as the one who is actually doing the blessing, okay, the eldest would be to his right. The right hand is simply symbolic to the greatest blessing. Whomever you lay the right hand on is receiving the greatest blessing, symbolically. And then, of course, the younger goes to the left. All right, so here's our scene. Everybody's in proper position for the blessing. Manasseh to the right, Ephraim to the left. Everything's in order. Everybody's happy. Now the blessing takes place. And of course, something very unexpected happens, right? Jacob, now, okay. All Jacob has to do, and Joseph has made sure of this, all Jacob has to do is stretch out his arms. That's it. Joseph has made this as easy, as simple as possible. This is what Jacob, okay. So, but Jacob pulls an unexpected twist right at the end as he's stretching out his hands, he crosses them, okay? Crisscross. Right? Okay. Now, what's important to understand about this is that this was no mistake on Jacob's part. This is not a feeble, frail, old man in a moment of confusion or disorientation. This is not a result of failing eyesight. It's not an error. Jacob crossed his hands intentionally. And he did so to make it evident that although his eyes, his physical eyes, were failing him, he might not have been able to recognize his grandsons. But his spiritual eyes, like I said before, are 20-20. He knows exactly what's going on. Physically, maybe he couldn't recognize him so well. But spiritually, he could clearly see the future that God had marked out for both Ephraim and Manasseh. Jacob was acting by the direction of the Lord. I'm 100% convinced of this. If he was not, he would have complied with Joseph's objection. And we're going to look at that in just a little bit. This is the Lord here at work. This is the Lord redirecting in history. Exactly, okay. The Lord at work through Jacob. The Lord at work in Ephraim, Manasseh, and Joseph's lives. the Lord at work in history, and the Lord at work in redemption. Once again, the point is, I'm trying to drive this point home, God is sovereign. God is sovereign and God is in control. Now, in this situation and in these types of situations, even in our lives, there's always two perspectives going on here. And this is a classic example of this. Two perspectives, our perspective and God's perspective. There's always those two perspectives. Our perspective. What is our perspective? Most of the time, our perspective is, I know what I want, which is really more like, I want what I want. Right? And now sometimes, even us, we seek our own desire and we just ignore God. Right? And in those cases, what's happening is that when I seek my own desire, all I see is what I want. That's it. I've got tunnel vision. All I see is what I want. But, and hopefully, You know, as time goes on and we're sanctified, more and more we're not seeking our own desires. Hopefully we are seeking God's desires. I would say certainly Joseph was a man who was characterized by seeking God's desire. But even when we do, sometimes we miss it. Sometimes we just miss the mark. Sometimes it's deception. We can be deceived. We can be deceived by the enemy. We can be deceived by other people, by bad teaching, what have you. Sometimes it's a blind spot. We've talked about blind spots before. You guys know what I'm talking about when I say a blind spot, a spiritual blind spot. Sometimes it can be that we're not paying attention or close enough attention to the situation and to what's going on, what's really going on. But I believe also sometimes, not always, but sometimes God can and does hide it from us. for the purpose or to serve a greater purpose, to serve His purpose. And I believe that that is what's at work here. And I'm going to explain. The bottom line is, the point here is that we can never, ever, ever trust our own perspective, independent from God. Certainly as we are being sanctified, hopefully our perspective is actually being transformed more and more and more into God's perspective. But it always comes down to no matter how much I'm transformed, I am not going to trust my own perspective outside of God. I'm always going to look at my perspective, compare it to God's, and wherever there's a difference, I want to change mine. Okay, so what is, we're talking perspectives, what is God's perspective? Okay, in a general sense, God chooses to bless. are God's blessings, because we're talking about blessings here, are God's blessings ever earned or deserved? No, they're never earned or deserved. In fact, we don't want from God what we deserve or what we have earned, right? Okay, so God's blessings are always earned. His choice. He chooses to bless. And He chooses whom He blesses. And that's why there's a variety of blessings. We're not all blessed exactly the same. He chooses whom to bless. He blesses according to His purpose for each one of us. Again, that's why even just in this room, the few people that are here, He has blessed each one of us differently for His own purpose in each of our lives. Again, the bottom line, what does this mean? What's the point of all this? That God's choices are sovereign because God is sovereign. God's choices are always the best. They are always just. They're always perfect, God's choices. Okay, now Joseph has a particular reaction to what Jacob does here. And we're going to look at that, but in just a moment, before we look at that, I want to look at the blessing, because what happens is Jacob crosses his hands and he actually begins the blessing. And Joseph, out of respect, he holds his objection back for a moment while Jacob is speaking the words of blessing. So I want to look at the actual blessing. Jacob begins by giving an account. He's speaking to Joseph and he begins by giving a brief account of his relationship with the Lord throughout his life. Now, at this point in time, Jacob is 147 years old. He's lived a long life. He's had many, many experiences throughout that 147 years. And in all of these and each of these experiences, he has not always leaned on the Lord. Especially in his younger days. He hasn't always leaned on the Lord, but he's grown He's grown incredibly and now on his deathbed as he is speaking his last words to his beloved son What he does is he? He boils his relationship with the Lord down to three specific and very, very potent elements of that relationship. And what he expresses to Joseph is that these elements he's recognizing, Jacob is recognizing and sharing with Joseph, these elements have overshadowed his entire life. He recognizes and is communicating to Joseph right now that the Lord has always watched over him, always, even when he was not cooperating with the Lord, even when he didn't realize the Lord was watching over him. He's recognizing now that he always has, as a good shepherd, always watches his sheep, even when they're not aware of it. Right? At night, when the sheep go to sleep, what is the shepherd doing? The shepherd is watching over them. He's guarding them, even though they're not aware of it. They're sound asleep. They have no idea, but the shepherd is watching and protecting. And Jacob is communicating this to Joseph, that he, at this point in his life, the end of his life, he's looking back and he recognizes the Lord has always always looked over and watched over me. This account is a testimony. Jacob has not always leaned on the Lord, but now at the end of his life, he is a man who leans on the Lord and leans on the Lord alone. He leans on no one else, not even himself anymore. I used this analogy last month and I'll use it again tonight. I believe the Lord gave Jacob and us this analogy just for this point. But years ago when Jacob wrestled with God and God ended up touching him in a way that injured him, He carried that injury with him to this day that we're looking at right now. And from that point to this point, Jacob walked with a cane. And literally every step that he took, he had to lean on that cane to take every physical step that he took for the rest of his life. And that was to remind him to lean on the Lord. for every spiritual step that he took through his life. And that's what he's learned. And that's where Jacob is right here, right now. He's a man who leans on the Lord and no one else. Now, he gives this account to Joseph. Then he does the actual blessing. And he blesses Ephraim and Manasseh in the form of a prayer and prophecy. And what he does is he is here, he's connecting their blessing, the blessing that they are receiving, he's connecting with the covenant of God. the blessing that he's giving them, and the laying on of hands. Because as he's doing this, he's got his hands laid on them. So the blessing and the laying on of the hands is the seal of his adoption of these two young men as his own sons. He's now from this point forward, they will be numbered or he will be numbering them with his own sons. And once again, this is the double portion blessing that he's bestowing on Joseph. Okay, Jacob has his hands laid on his grandsons. He is normally or customarily, he would be blessing, giving his blessing to his own son, the first born. OK, he has moved Joseph to that position and he's expressing the double portion blessing by blessing his two adopted sons. So the blessing to Joseph. to Ephraim and Manasseh, what I really want you to understand and to see here, what we need to understand and see, is that this blessing is not a blessing that is originating from Jacob, but from God himself. And that's what, in our last study, we talked about how do people today do this? How do people today pass on the blessing to the next generation. And it's usually in the form of materialism, right? What's happening here is Jacob is not himself personally blessing them or passing anything on to him. It's coming through Jacob directly from the Lord. Their blessing cannot be measured by any natural means. Their bank accounts have not grown. OK, there's no natural measurement here. Their blessing, the real blessing, the actual blessing that they're receiving is their covenant relationship with God. This is what Jacob is passing on to them. And of course, in a very specific way, but it's that covenant relationship that he's passing on to them. Okay, so that is the actual blessing. Now, Joseph has a reaction to this, all right? He's focused not so much on the words that Jacob has been speaking, but he's focused back here on these crossed arms, right? Joseph is momentarily blinded to everything that Jacob has been saying. And interestingly, and I want to just spend a little bit of time here, but we're seeing Joseph now differently than we've ever seen him before. We've been going through the life of Joseph once a month for the past couple of years. And we've looked at a lot of different situations Joseph's in and a lot of different scenarios. And I have said quite a few times that the Lord chose to present Joseph's life in a particular way. the presentation of his life, the record of his life, there's no sin. As we see with many of God's people in the record of their life, I'll just use King David as an example. King David, a man after God's own heart, but as you read the account of his life, you see the good, you see the bad, and you see the ugly. You see it all, right? Well, God chose to record Joseph's life in a different way, and we don't see any of his sin. So all of a sudden, this isn't sin, by the way, but we are seeing him differently. than we've ever seen him before. Joseph, at this point in time, he expected a particular thing. He expected a certain thing. He expected Jacob and God to work in a particular way. Right? Right hand on the oldest. Left hand on the younger. That's what he was expecting and anticipating. And, you know, just by way of reminder, we oftentimes do the same thing, don't we? Maybe I'm speaking for myself, but have you ever experienced, you know, in your own life where you're expecting God to do something in a particular way and it's just like a foregone conclusion? This is what God's going to do, okay? So we fall into that trap ourselves. But here, God chose to work in a different way, in an unconventional way. certainly in a way that was different from Joseph's perspective. Joseph had a particular perspective and it was in this account, it was his own perspective. So when he saw his father cross his arms this way, the passage says that he was displeased. And that word that we translate to displeased, in the original language it means, literally it means that it was evil in his sight. Now, Joseph did not interpret Jacob or his actions as being evil, as being intentionally or inherently evil. But what this is telling us is that Joseph's displeasure was rooted in a firm belief that the action, what his father was doing, was wrong. that it was incorrect. This was not a personal dissatisfaction. of Joseph's. Okay, and that's an important distinction to make. Joseph was seeing this and his displeasure was, wait a minute, this is wrong. You are doing this wrong. I want you to do it right. It wasn't simply or merely a personal dissatisfaction. What this was on Joseph's part, this was a failure of his. It was a failure in proper spiritual discernment, okay? All Joseph could see at this particular moment in time was his own perspective. And what was that perspective? His father's making a mistake. He's doing this wrong. He's old. He's feeble. He can't see. He's doing it wrong. And like I said, don't we often, or at least sometimes, fall into this same trap? Don't we sometimes forget that God's ways are not our ways? It's a difficulty. Isn't it difficult? At times, isn't it difficult? to understand that God's ways are not my ways because this just isn't making any sense at all. It is a difficulty, but the difficulty is natural and it's understandable. From God's perspective, it's natural and understandable. And you know, many times God's choices in our life situations, they just don't make sense to us. His involvement in our lives, many times, comes through circumstances that we don't expect, or that we don't want, or that we don't like, that we don't enjoy. Do you agree? I do. I think I speak for everybody. I think everybody has experienced this at least once or twice in their lives. And sometimes in these situations, God will give us an explanation as to why He's doing what He's doing. And personally, I love it when He does that because it makes the whole situation just a whole lot easier for me. Even if it's a difficult situation, if I have some understanding of where God's going with this and why He's doing it, it just makes it easier for me to deal with. But you know, there are other times when God will do these things that we don't understand, that don't make any sense to us, that goes against conventions, and he gives us absolutely no explanation. Have you ever experienced it? I mean, I know that I have. I think most believers, if you've been in the Lord any time at all, you've probably experienced that, where God has just made a left turn somewhere, and it just makes absolutely no sense to you, and He gives you no explanation whatsoever. It's these times that our faith, our belief, and our trust in His sovereignty is really tested, right? I mean, we all know that God is sovereign. We know that He is sovereign. But when He takes us through those types of circumstances, difficult circumstances, circumstances that don't make sense to us, that we don't understand, and there's no explanation for it. Literally all we have to hold on to, the only thing that we have to hold on to is God is sovereign and God is in control. Those are difficult times and we need to evaluate ourselves and it's best to evaluate ourselves up front before we get into that situation. Ask ourselves some questions like Does our knowledge of His sovereignty satisfy us? We all know that God's sovereign, right? Anybody here struggle with the knowledge that God is sovereign? I don't think so. We know, know up here that God is sovereign. But does that satisfy us when that's all we have to hold on to in a situation? When he is taking us to a place where we might lose something that we don't want to lose. Where we might have to do something that we don't want to do. Is that enough for us? Is His sovereignty enough for us? You know, I've talked to people who have come right out and said, you know, they're in a situation, I'll interact with them, maybe in counseling, maybe just in conversation. And it's clear what's going on. And I've had the privilege to be able to explain it to them. and it's rooted in God's sovereignty. And I've had people say, that's just not enough for me. It's just not enough. You know, I need to know what's going on here. You know, if I'm going to put my life on the line, if I'm going to put my livelihood on the line, if I'm going to put my family on the line, I need more than just God as sovereign. Well, we need to ask ourselves these questions. In those situations, do we shift our perspective to His perspective? Do we? Or do we take matters as Joseph did at this particular moment in time? Do we take matters into our own hands? And this was the situation for Joseph, what I've just described here, because neither Jacob nor God ever gives Joseph an explanation as to why Ephraim is placed over Manasseh. He never gives him an explanation as to why. So I believe that Joseph's fault was not in objecting to the Lord's direction. Now, follow me with this. I don't think that his fault was in objecting to the Lord's direction. I believe that he did not recognize that what Jacob was doing was the Lord's direction. His fault here, Joseph's fault, was in not seeing, not remembering at that moment in time that God's in control, that God is in control. Not Jacob, not Joseph, but God. It was a momentary loss of focus. He, quote unquote, he took his eye off the ball. You know what that means to take your eye off the ball? What I really think is at work here. Is that. Of course, the Lord was was in control. I think that the Lord hid this from him. The Lord was working in Joseph's momentary loss of focus, in his taking his eye off the ball. But the Lord hid this from him, I believe, for our benefit. This was an exception to the rule. Would you agree? As far as Joseph's response, Joseph's reaction in this situation, an exception to the rule. Have we ever seen Joseph, in all the studying we've done through his life, have we ever seen him respond or react in this way? No. Joseph has always been, in every situation that we've looked at, throughout his life, Joseph has always been the most spiritually discerning person in the situation, every single time, except this one. So like I said, this is an exception to the rule, okay? But I think that in this case, I'm convinced that in this case, the exception proves the rule. And what do I mean by that? was a wise and discerning man. You agree? Where did that wisdom and discernment originate? Why are we studying Joseph's life? Why is Joseph's life recorded in the Bible? Was he just an incredible guy? And the Lord looked at him and said, wow, you are one wise and discerning man. I'm going to record you in my word so that everyone throughout history can benefit from your wisdom and discernment." No, Joseph's wisdom and discernment has always been from the Lord. It's the Lord's wisdom and the Lord's discernment. It has never come from Joseph. In fact, that is exactly why Joseph has always been the most discerning person in any situation, because the wisdom and the discernment comes from the Lord, not from him. And this, for us, and I'm sure for Joseph, is a reminder of that. It's a reminder for us to keep our eye on the ball, to keep our eye on the Lord. and to remember in our lives that any wisdom that we have and any right discernment that we have comes from the Lord. So the lesson for us here? We always need to lean on the Lord, not our own understanding. And even as believers, even as mature believers, we cannot be presumptuous with the wisdom and the knowledge and the discernment that the Lord gives to us. And what I mean by that is, As we go through our lives and the Lord gives us wisdom, and we use his wisdom, and this is how we begin to be characterized in our lives, that's a good thing. But the danger is that we can begin attributing his wisdom to ourselves. and we can leave him out of the equation when we have decisions to make. I'll use myself as an example. I'm teaching right now. Now, the Lord gives me grace as I study his word, as I prepare notes to teach, and as I stand up here and teach. And if my teaching benefits anyone, I'm blessed by that. And Lord willing, if I continue teaching and my teaching continues to bless people and maybe even blesses more people in deeper ways, The danger is that at some point in time, I stop relying on the Lord's grace to study and to prepare and to teach, and I ascribe it to myself. We cannot be presumptuous with the wisdom and the knowledge and the discernment that the Lord gives to us. We also need to recognize There's moments in our lives, unique moments, what I would refer to as crossroad moments in our lives. Certainly not every moment in our lives, but some. This was a crossroads moment for Jacob and for Joseph. And do you know what I mean when I say a crossroads moment? All right, for Jacob, It was the moment he stretched out his hands, and he could go one of two directions. He could say, you know, this is convention. The right goes to the oldest, and the left goes to the younger, and that's how I'm going to do it. Or he can follow God's direction, and God was directing him to bless the other way. He gave no explanation. We're not told that Jacob knew why God was doing this. Joseph knew why God was doing this. It was just a direction from the Lord and he followed that. That was a crossroads moment. After Jacob's explanation, do we see in this passage or in any subsequent passages Joseph arguing with his father about how he blessed them? No, we don't. He presented his displeasure. He received an explanation, which we're going to talk about in a moment, and that satisfied him. That was it. So we need to recognize these moments in our lives. Like I said, not every moment. And I've known people who have taken this to an extreme. They don't take one step without prayerfully considering, Lord, do you want me to go to the right or to the left? It's not what I'm talking about. There are particular moments in our lives that are these crossroad moments. When we discern that we are approaching one of those, we need to stop and we need to understand the importance of the decision that we're about to make as they did. the importance of going the Lord's direction and not our own, the importance of changing our perspective to the Lord's perspective and not hanging on to our own. Joseph understood the importance and the significance of this particular moment in time. His displeasure was not an act of like rudeness or dishonor or lack of respect for his father. Quite on the contrary, it was just the opposite of that. It was a sign, his displeasure was a sign of his utmost regard for his father and for his father's blessing. He placed such a high value on his father's blessing that he wanted to make sure that it was applied appropriately. That's how important it was to him. So he was, Joseph was, was upset. He was displeased because he felt, honestly felt, that his father was making a mistake. And this was a big mistake, if it was not a mistake. But from Joseph's perspective, his father's making a mistake, and this is a big one. Why? Because it's reaching into the next generation. Okay, this is not just this moment, but if Jacob blesses Ephraim as the eldest, if he puts his right hand on Ephraim's head, what does this mean to Joseph? It means that later on when Joseph is giving the birthright to his firstborn, who does it go to? It goes to Ephraim, not Manasseh. OK, this is a shift in covenantal blessing and flowing. And Joseph recognizes that. No, you're doing it wrong. So Jacob's actions here actually bind Joseph to direct the double portion blessing and the passing on of the patriarchal responsibility to Ephraim, not Manasseh. The natural perspective, who is, from a natural perspective, who is Joseph planning on passing on the patriarchal responsibility, the double honor, or the double blessing? Who's he planning on passing it on to? His firstborn, Manasseh. What Jacob is doing right here is that's changing that. Now, years down the road, Joseph is going to have to reverse this the same way his father did. He understands that this is a big deal that's going on right now. Joseph fully understood what was happening physically. His displeasure was a failure to properly discern what was happening spiritually. He was reacting at that moment in time from a fleshly perspective. And like I said, I believe that God intended that I'm sure to speak to Joseph's heart, but also to speak to ours, to, to capture our attention and remind us that in these crossroad moments in our lives, we need to stop before we reach out and grab God's hands and say, no, that's wrong. You're doing it wrong. We need to stop and we need to look at his perspective, look at it from his perspective and shift ours to his. Okay, so Joseph has this response and then Jacob responds to Joseph's reaction. How does he respond? Well, Jacob knew, he knew that he was being directed by the Lord. Therefore, he didn't accommodate Joseph's demand. And once again, this is a picture of Jacob, although he was physically frail. And you remember from our last study, it took all of his strength, all of his strength, just to sit up in bed. That's how physically frail he was. But spiritually, he is strong as an ox right now. He recognizes that what's going on is from the Lord. So Jacob was not offended by this in any way. He responds to his son in a loving and compassionate way. He assured Joseph that what he was doing He was doing in sound mind and in sound spirit. And I love the words that he speaks to him. He says to Joseph's reaction of grabbing his hands and trying to change the position of his hands, saying, no, don't do it this way. This is wrong. He says, I know, my son, I know. What he's communicating in these words is, Jacob understood what was going on in Joseph's heart and mind. He understood that Joseph knew and understood how important this was. And he assures Joseph of this, of his love for both of his sons. And he explains to him, that this was not a personal favoring of Ephraim over Manasseh and Jacob of all people. Jacob was very familiar with personal favoring and he's assuring Joseph that's not what this is about. This is the Lord's direction. This was a prophetic direction of blessing from the Lord. I want to reread verse 19 and emphasize one word and the way he uses it here. Verse 19, it says, but his father refused. And said, I know my son, I know. Now he's referring to. The first born Manasseh, he says he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nation." This word that he uses, shall, it's a declaration. Okay, Jacob is not saying to Joseph, look, Joseph, I really like Ephraim a lot. You know, I think he would be a better leader and I really hope that he will become a people and become great. It's not what he's saying. He's saying he shall. This is this is prophetic. This is a declaration. And Jacob knows this because I believe that God has revealed it to him. He is sure of this. And that's why he makes this statement, assuring and reassuring Joseph of what he's doing. And then he closes their time together. Now, remember, Jacob is about to call in the rest of his sons. All right. And he's on his deathbed. So this is pretty much the last time that he and Joseph will be spending an intimate time together, just the two of them talking. So he closes this time together in this way. He assures Joseph that although he's about to die, although Jacob is about to die, that the Lord will continue to be with Joseph and that the Lord will be faithful to the promise in the covenant to give Israel the land of Canaan, the promised land. And then right at the end Again, as assurance, he reminds Joseph that he, that Joseph has received the double portion blessing. Praise God. Okay, we're gonna end there for this evening. Lord willing, in our next study, we'll pick up where we left off and continue. God bless you.