Scratching your head? Who in the world are Abraham and Carl?

When we see the word “and” between two names, we assume they are connected in some way. For instance, I love the comedy teams of Andy and Barney (Mayberry), Lucy and Ethel and (one of my favorites) Laurel and Hardy.

For the record, Abraham and Carl are not a comedy team. In fact, they never even met for they lived thousands of years apart.

Scratching your head again?

Abraham as in the patriarch in Genesis and Carl as in Carl Sagan, the 20th century astronomer and astrophysicist. So, how are these two connected? They both counted stars.

Being an astronomer, Carl Sagan counted the stars for a living. Abraham counted the stars at the request of the Lord.

“And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall they seed be.” Genesis 15:5 (KJV

At this point in Genesis, Abraham’s name was actually Abram. He and his wife Suri (later Sarah) were still childless, but The Lord had promised Abram to make him a father of nations. He used the stars as an example of the size of His promise yet to be fulfilled.

Now, here is where it gets fun!

When Abraham looked into the night sky with his bare eyes, he saw around 3500 twinkling stars. Even though he was probably amazed by the numbers of them, I am pretty sure he didn’t try to count all of the stars one by one.

“1...2...3...4…wait. Did I count that one already? Where was I? 1...2…I missed that one. 1…2…3…”
But what if Abraham had the advantage of looking through Carl’s modern telescope. I dare say it would have blown his mind. You see, most of those points of lights in the night sky are not single stars. They are so far away that is how our eyes perceive them.

Most stars are in binary star systems (2 stars orbiting each other). Some are in globular clusters (many stars crammed into one place). And some points of lights are actually other galaxies with their own multitude of stars.

Abraham would have realized he was looking at millions if not billions of stars instead of thousands.

He would have not been overwhelmed simply by the numbers of stars, but by the realization of just how big God’s promise to him actually was. You see, God knew the number of stars in that night sky when He made that promise to Abraham.

“He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.” Psalm 147: 4-5 (KJV)

His promise to Abraham and those to us today are eternal and have no boundaries. But thanks to our extremely limited understanding of our world and what is happening around us, we place limitations on God’s promises in our minds and sometimes our hearts.

If you ever began to doubt how truly great He is, may I suggest you look over the deep field space pictures on NASA.GOV. Try to count all the stars in them and if you ever get done in this lifetime, let me know.