Ephraim's Great Blessings and Opportunities for Service

SCRIPTURE: “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”  

--Deuteronomy 32:8-9

 “Remember to Start This Patriarchal Blessing Study Moment  With a Prayer”

A QUESTION FOR YOU: Why does the lineage of Ephraim figure so predominately in the patriarchal blessings given in the church today? Doesn’t Manasseh have just as important a place in this latter day work? It all comes down to the birthright.

When ancient Ephraim received the birthright instead of Manasseh, he was called to lead, and that blessing has remained in effect for several thousand years. Ephraim, one of the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom, was captured and scattered  by the Assyrians, then moved further and further throughout the whole earth and all nations. It was foretold how through the lineage of Joseph, and Ephraim, that all nations, kindred, tongues and people would be blessed. How was this to be if they were so scattered? God worked a marvelous work and a wonder. In these, the latter days Ephraim is being found wherever they have been scattered. Now His leaders—the children of Ephraim—would perform a great work for their God. Ephraim’s election to perform  these special responsibilities in the last days prior to the coming of our Lord and Savior is spelled out in the scriptures and clarified by latter-day revelations.

AN ANSWER: Abraham was shown the intelligences that were organized in the pre-existence; and “God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said, “These I will make my rulers, for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good.” (Abraham 3:22-23) Erastus Snow in the Journal of Discourses said, “The Lord has sent those noble spirits into the world to perform a special work, and appointed their times,” “Such were called and chosen and elected of God to perform a certain work at a certain time of the world’s history and in due time he fitted them for that work…and so he elected the seed of Ephraim to be that peculiar people…that holy nation, a kingdom of Priests, a people to receive the covenants and oracles, and to be witnesses to certain nations of the God of Israel.”

            So we are 1.) to become a holy nation and a kingdom of Priests  2.) receive covenants and revelations, and 3.) be witnesses to all the nations. Sound familiar? Well one could say our responsibilities are to 1.) Preach the Gospel to all the world, 2.) Perfect the Saints through temple covenants and Priesthood ordination, and finally, 3.) Be sure that all of the people ever born on the earth have the same opportunities to hear the gospel and receive the ordinances of the temple, in other words to Redeem the Dead.

THOUGHT:  We live in a unique time in history where we have been prepared for our appointed work. We have the internet and advanced technology with digital capabilities, efficient modes of transportation to travel around the world quickly and easily, great universities for advanced learning where we can learn the languages of the world, scriptures that have wonderful study tools bound right into them and church publications in all of those languages, conferences via satellite transmission, and on and on.

            It is our responsibility to go out into the world to find those who are of the tribe of Ephraim. It’s kind of funny, but the book, “Ephraim, Chosen of the Lord: What itMeans to be of the Tribe of Ephraim” by Shute, Nyman and Bott, 1999, confirmed what I’d felt all my life, I believed in Jesus Christ from childhood even though my family was not religious. This book held a missing piece of the puzzle that was ‘my life.’   Now, I know that not only am a child of God, but that He has kept an eye on me and I was born with “believing blood” to be gathered out of the world to perform His work. I was indeed chosen before I was born to come into the world at this perfect moment in history to help prepare the earth for the Lord’s coming.

            

 Did You Ever Feel That You Had Something Special To Do?

           Perhaps, all people feel that there is something special that only they can do. That they must search out what it is that God wants them to do with their life. Maybe it is only one special little thing or maybe it is a really big significant thing. But either way, there’s a sense of destiny, a feeling that you are just waiting to do whatever it is that you promised your heavenly father that you would do when you were sent down to earth.

            I hope that really reading and studying your own personal message from God in your Patriarchal Blessing will help you to clarify your mission in this life.