God as con artist

For some reason we don ' t hear much preaching about Genesis 15, even though it seems pretty juicy. Here it is.After this, the word of theLord came to Abram in a vision:“Do not be afraid, Abram.    I am your shield,    your very great reward. ”2 But Abram said, “SovereignLord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? ”3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”4 Then the word of theLord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”6 Abram believed theLord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.You may recall that previously, Abram was going to have as many descendants as there are motes of dust in the world. That ' s a lot! But actually, there are only about 5,000 stars visible to the nude eyeball, of which half are in the hemisphere you can ' t see. So even under the best of circumstances, Abram is going to have no more than 2,500 descendants. Of course, including stars that can ' t be seen without a telescope, there are more than 100 billion in our galaxy alone.7 He also said to him, “I am theLord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs