MY CAMELS ARE COMING!

By Pastor Tayo Adeyemi
 New Wine Church, London

Sunday 29th January 2012

Foundation Scripture: Isaiah 60:1-3; 4-7

Last week, we looked at two cogent reasons why God has given us the mandate to arise and shine: first, because darkness has covered the earth;  second, because the glory of the Lord has risen upon us. We defined the glory of God as the tangible manifestation of the presence of God and we agreed that the glory of God is a trigger for the release of favour. The glory of God on your life is such a powerful magnetic force that people in high places are attracted to you. We looked at three keys that will help you to be an effective glory carrier: First, a commitment to living the word; secondly, doing the works; and thirdly, fighting the war.  Having established what you need to do in order to arise and shine, today we are going to take a look at what God promises to do in this prophetic word.
Isaiah 60: 4-7 makes reference to a multitude of camels covering the land and the wealth of nations coming to the people of God. Today, God has sent me to tell you that your camels are coming.  Your blessing is on the way.  The answer to your prayers is already moving towards you. The harvest for the seeds that you have sown over many years is already on the way to you.  You have sown in tears; now it is time to reap in joy.  You have waited so long for the manifestation of the promises of God over your life.  Now the wait is over; help is on the way.
Sometimes, it seems that God is not moving fast enough for us.  But you must understand that God is not bound or controlled by time as we are.  God dwells outside the realm of time and inhabits eternity.  Time does not control Him; He controls time.  He’s never too early and He’s never too late. Listen, nothing you have done for God is in vain.  None of your prayers and not one of your seeds have gone to waste. You must remember that your God is the God who remembers: He remembered Noah; He remembered Abraham; He remembered Rachael and also Joseph; He remembered the children of Israel and He will remember you. You may not be able to see it, but something is changing. God is already moving on your behalf.  Your camels are coming. All you have to do is stand your ground and wait patiently for the manifestation of the promise.  Ephesians 6 says: “having done all to stand, stand!” ‘God calling you to lift up your eyes and pay attention; He is bringing restoration.  Everything you have lost is coming back to you. Look out on the horizon; your blessings are coming!  When you see what is coming your way, your heart will swell and almost burst for joy. Why?  Because the abundance of the sea is being turned over to you; and the wealth of the nations is coming to you.
Isaiah 60: 6 speaks of a ‘multitude of camels’ covering the land and the dromedaries of Midian, Ephah, and Sheba converging and bringing gold and incense. The scripture literally refers to an inundation of camels, streams of them; as far as the eye can see, meaning that God’s blessings will cover you like an overflowing of waters.  Your wealth will be spread out all over you.  In order to really understand the significance of this passage we need to look at the context and background against which the message was delivered. It was a prophetic word that God sent through Isaiah to the children of Israel following their captivity. This was a word that was sent to a people whose lives had been torn apart by their enemies. Their homes had been ransacked; their possessions pillaged; everything that was precious to them had been destroyed. Families had been separated; they had been robbed of their identity and heritage; even their worship had been undermined. In the midst of all this, God begins to speak of restoration.  Now remember, when God restores, He never restores with just what was lost; He always restores with something much better. As a covenant child of the living God, this prophecy is also yours to claim: God wants to restore everything that the enemy has stolen from you or destroyed in your life.
What exactly do I mean when I say ‘my camels are coming’? In the Middle East, in Bible days, animals were the primary means of transportation and you could tell a person’s status by the kind of animal they used for transport. Most people would ride on a donkey (remember Balaam in the book of Numbers and also Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem). Kings and soldiers would usually a ride a horse.  Merchants and travellers would usually ride a camel.  So when you saw a camel, you could tell the camel had come from a far place and also, it was very likely that the camel was carrying precious goods for a wealthy person.
Camels were the main means of transportation in the desert, a place representing dryness or recession. God is bringing you abundance in the midst of recession; and His chosen form of transport is the camel. Camels may not be our first choice as a vehicle for the transportation of our blessings with their sloppy awkward appearance and terribly bad breath unlike horses, which are majestic and regal.  Yet, in spite of all these negative features, the camel is the preferred means of transportation for going through the desert because it is physiologically designed to cope with extremes of temperature and the harshest of desert conditions. Using up its huge store of fat in its hump for nutrition, it is able to go without food or water for more than 8 days. God is bringing your blessings to you in a vehicle that can withstand the harsh conditions of the dry desert – a vehicle that is recession proof. 
Now, the number of camels that a person owns is indicative of their wealth.  So, the richer you are, the more camels you own. God says He’s bringing these camels to you in multitudes, as many as far as the eye can see. Where will they be coming from? Midian, Ephah and Sheba all speak of the Arab world and North Africa.  Your wealth is coming from the Arab world – can you receive it? And they will be bringing gold and incense, which speak of your wealth and your worship – the two major things that the devil seeks to attack in your life. Wealth and worship - you will have enough to enjoy the good of the land and you will have enough to worship God in a way that is befitting. Gold speaks of earthly riches; and the incense speaks of heavenly riches.  
If you look closely in this passage, another animal is mentioned – the dromedary.  Camels and dromedaries are really the same thing but there is something that makes the dromedary special: its speed. The dromedary is so fast, it can cover as much ground in one day that the best Arabian horses would cover in the eight or ten days. The dromedary was the Old Testament version of today's Ferrari. Jeremiah 2:23 speaks of the swift dromedary. Not only is your blessing coming, it is coming at top speed.
Now remember, that for every promise of God, He expects you to play your part.  So what do you need to do in order to prepare for the arrival of your camels? Two things, both of which are encapsulated in Jesus’ statement in Mark 10:45 ‘For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many’ To serve and to give: God is looking for people who have a heart to serve and a heart to give. In order to prepare to receive your camels, you must serve and you must give.
Genesis chapters 22, 23 and 24 can be described as allegorical chapters (I recommend that you read these in yourspare time).  On the surface, they tell one story, but there is another story behind the story. In Genesis 22, we read the story of Abraham going up to Mount Moriah to sacrifice Isaac.  This speaks of the sacrificial death of Jesus on Calvary. As Isaac in a sense, died and was resurrected, so also Jesus.  In Genesis 23, we read of the death of Sarah; the mother of Isaac.  Israel can be said to be the mother of Jesus; and the Bible says Israel will be set aside for a season, to allow for the birth of the church. Now in Genesis 24, Abraham sends his servant on a journey to find a bride for his son, Isaac. Abraham represents God the Father; the nameless servant represents the Holy Spirit; Isaac represents Christ; and the bride represents the church. Notice that Abraham sends the servant out with not one, not two, but ten camels. Now let's think about it: if the servant needed another camel for the bride to ride on, Abraham would have sent him with maybe one or two extra camels. So you can understand that these camels were carrying goods for the bride to be. Ten speaks of completeness; so the ten camels speak of the fullness of blessing and prosperity. This is what Jesus meant in John 10:10, when He said; “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” Now notice that Jesus comes only after the thief has come to steal, to kill and to destroy – not before.
The servant meets Rebecca by the well and asks for water.  Rebecca not only gives him water, but offers to water his camels.  Now let me put this in perspective for you.  One camel is able to drink 100 litres of water in 10 minutes. Let’s just assume that Rebecca’s bucket is 20 litres.  That means for each camel, she draws water from the well 5 times. In order to water ten camels, she had to draw water 50 times.  She draws about 1,000 litres of water that evening.  If that is not a servant’s heart, tell me what is. But this is the powerful thing about what Rebecca does: the camels that she waters today, she’s riding the next day.  They now belong to her. When she gave them water to drink, she was simply doing it out of the kindness of her heart.  She had no idea that she was actually watering her own camels. God is going to send camels your way; and He will watch to see whether or not you will water them. Only those who are servants will be willing and ready to water a stranger’s camels. Bishop Joseph Garlington said “The opportunity to serve never comes at your convenience.”
Now those camels brought Rebecca many material blessings; but that was not the big deal.  The big deal was that they carried her to her destiny. The camels you water today may be the very camels that will carry you into your God ordained future. Not only is God calling you to serve; He is also calling you to give. In this season of arising and shining, God is testing the hearts of His people and He is proving those who are willing and obedient. God is getting ready to place tremendous wealth at your disposal.  But you must understand that money is power.  The more money you have, the more powerful you are.  God is not just looking for those who are powerful; He is looking for those who know how to convert their financial power into kingdom influence. The question is this: if you had unlimited amounts of money, where will your heart be?  Will you be serving God or will your money have your heart? Can God really trust you with more than enough?  If you had more than enough would you give or would you hold on to it? If you look very closely, this passage in Isaiah is really not about you; it’s about the house of God.
In this season, God is looking for people who are willing to serve and willing to give. This is a season of uncommon harvests; a season of unusual harvests; supernatural harvests. But let me remind you that there can be no harvest unless there is first a seed.  A seed of nothing will produce a season of nothing. If you want to create a perpetual flow of harvests in your life, you must learn to take advantage of every opportunity to sow seed.  Galatians 6:7 says ‘Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.’ The JB Phillips translation puts it this way; “A man’s harvest in life will depend entirely on the seeds that he has sown.” If you sow ordinary seeds, you will reap an ordinary harvest.  If you sow normal seeds, you will reap a normal harvest.  If you sow regular seeds, you will reap a regular harvest. If you want to reap the unusual harvests that God is bringing in this season, you must be ready to sow unusual seeds.
Why does God demand these two things from you?  Why does He demand that you serve and that you give? Because the blessings that the camels are bringing are not primarily for you to gratify yourself - they are meant to be instruments in your hand for the advancement of God’s kingdom. So only those who are faithful servants and faithful givers will qualify to receive the camels.  So begin to prepare your heart; this is an unusual season, and God is demanding an unusual response. Your camels are coming!