Becoming God's Chosen--Nation Series

Becoming God’s Chosen

A. Jacob-Israel adopt Joseph’s Sons

B. Jacob-Israel blesses Joseph’s Sons

Dillingham Bible Fellowship, Genesis 48, 6/8/02

I joined the Air Force right out of High School. It was not a planned out choice, for I really did not plan on joining the Air Force, much less serving in the Air Force through retirement.

Yet by the very blessed will of God it is a path that God opened for me, when I was still ignorant of Him and struggling very hard against His will.

I will be totally honest I was drunk and had been smoking marijuana the day that my friend decided he was going to go and see and Air Force recruiter. He asked me along and initially I didn’t want to go the office with him then decided it would be OK. After all I had a bad knee and couldn’t get in anyway—right.

I remember going into the office and the recruiter greeted my friend and as they were talking about the military I was just looking around. Remember this is something that had not even crossed my mind.

The recruiter started showing my friend videos of training and he happened to put on a video of Security Police and the training they received. I found that interesting and enjoyed that.

The recruited asked me my name and I gave it. He consulted his book—which I later learned was our high schools Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) and stated that I had the highest score in my school.

Well to make a long story short, I left the office signed up to depart for Air Force Basic training less than a month later on an Open General career path.

Out of all the possible jobs that could have come my way, I somehow received a Law Enforcement career path.

This was totally opposite of the way I had been raised and the things I believed. I felt more akin at the time to outlaws than police officers.

You see, although I did not know what God intended to do in my life in a mere 10 years, God did know and He absolutely knew what would be best for me when I accepted him at the age of 28 in a small dorm room in Oklahoma City while I was training at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. At that time I was adopted into the ever-loving family of God, grafted into the one true vine.

This young man who had come from a life of sin in the swamps of Louisiana could and would become something of Kingdom value under the molding of God’s skilled hands. Praise God for the honor of being in HIS service here in Bristol Bay Alaska or anywhere else He might lead.

Similarly, we will walk today as Jacob-Israel adopts Joseph’s son into the nation of Israel and again we will see that as Jacob blesses them—God’s blessings do not flow after the thoughts of man. Jacob blesses the younger—in the same manner that he had been blessed and that Isaac his father had been blessed as the younger. Let us walk with Israel through chapter 48 of Genesis today.

A. Jacob-Israel adopts Joseph’s Sons

Genesis 48:1-7 (KJV)

And it came to pass after these things, that one told Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick: and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. [2] And one told Jacob, and said, Behold, thy son Joseph cometh unto thee: and Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed. [3] And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, [4] And said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.

[5] And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. [6] And thy issue, which thou begettest after them, shall be thine, and shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance. [7] And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem.

After these things—After the arrangements concerning the funeral that were recorded in the last chapter, Joseph is summoned to Jacob on his deathbed. “Manasseh and Ephraim” accompany Joseph on this last visit to their aged Patriarch.

They seem to have accompanied their father from respectful affection to their aged relative.