The Camels are Coming! Man, Get ready for your Rebekah!

And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. Gen 24:63  

‘And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age: and the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things’, so chapter 24 of Genesis begins in one of those scenes most beloved by pastors on marriage and the search for a wife. But what strikes me, or what would seem discordant at first, is the expression that God had blessed Abraham in all things. Really? But Abraham had only one legal child so far, only one! And at 100, he was still very far from being called a grandfather, or even the father of many nations! And yet the Bible writer says, ‘the LORD had blessed Abraham in all things’! Now does that not, in our own time, sound merely like a rich hyperbole?

But then it was a camel country… and it was a desert without roads… it was agrarian… and it was the land where a sower went forth to sow… and yet it was the land where God had blessed Abraham in all things! Now is there a parent today who is worried that his own beloved son, like Isaac, does not seem to be anywhere in a hurry to end his deafening loneliness? Then please get your camels and gifts ready! And then bring in your trusted servant and let him hit the road immediately and may God go with him!

And God had blessed Abraham in all things! And it was only fair therefore that Abraham should’ve blessed his son… Fathers …God has blessed you in all things… spoil your wife, but also bless your sons! God created men and blessed them…so they would spread the blessings… ‘And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing…. and kings shall come out of thee…’ (Gen 12:2;17:6).  

And so the camels came for Isaac at last… and so the journey of his blessings got in its right shift right here, and so was the birth of a nation’s destiny readied, and so were the blessings which were vouchsafed to Abraham by his almighty God about to take a new turn…but that only happened because there had been Sarah to begin with…and Rebecca! ‘The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem: And let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the seed which the LORD shall give thee of this young woman. So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife… And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David ’ (Rth 4:12-13,17). 

‘The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham’ (Mat 1:1). 

And so was Abraham blessed in all things as a matter of fact: ‘Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.  And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham’ (Gal 3:6-9). And may your own blessings too continue to bless others like Abraham’s and even long after you have left to sleep with your own fathers!

 And so are you still very far away from your own blessings as yet? Get a Rebekah! As it is written, ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD’ (Pro 18:22). And so Isaac brought his wife into his mother Sarah's tent, ‘and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death’ (Gen 24:67). Guys, the camels are coming! So stop meditating and look yonder… isn’t that a train of camels raising the dust of history and coming specifically for you? Stand up then… and be ready to embrace your bride!