For more than forty years scientists believed in the existence of the Piltdown man, discovered by Charles Dawson, but it was all a hoax. In 1912 Charles Dawson, a fossil hunter, discovered the first fragments of the Piltdown man. As interest developed, more fragments were produced. They called the find "Eoanthropus dawsoni" - Dawson's Dawn Man. He brought them to the British Museum. The jaw had come from a modern ape. It was stained with iron salt and bichromate. An oil paint had been used to stain the chewing surfaces. This was perhaps one of the greatest forgeries and hoax perpetrated on the scientific community in modern history.

Men believe all kinds of things about life and living which may be true and false based on how close such beliefs reflect the real world. There were people who proved and mathematically demonstrated that heavier-than-air flight was impossible, but the Wright brothers proved otherwise. There have been families who did not believe the perilous warnings of an oncoming hurricane, flood, or fire, but that did not stop the devastation. The fervency and sincerity of one's beliefs do not change reality one iota. What men believe about God or about His plan and will for their lives and this world, does not determine whether He exists. Whether or not men can fathom the glorious nature of His attributes does not change Who God is! Man's beliefs do not change the fact that He has entered history nor how He will close out history as we know it.

Men are free to believe what they will about the attributes and character of God, but such beliefs do not determine or change reality. Have you heard celebrities or national personalities express, in the media or on a talk show, what they believe about the existence or the nature of God? Too often those who express their personal and often warped beliefs are allowed mistakenly to conclude their beliefs have validity because that is just what they believe. The spirit of today asserts, "Who is to say that another's belief is invalid? The point that we must make when people express their personal views about God is that such views are right or wrong based on how close they parallel God's own revelation of Himself.

If you could communicate a comprehensive verbal picture that reflected what you thought when you heard the word "God" or "Jesus" it would uncover why you worship and live the way you do. We might even be able to partially predict your spiritual future based on your stated, visualized images of God, for it is those very images that both reflect and determine our worship and our lifestyles. A.W. Tozer rightly stated,

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen about its religion, and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low though of god

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a give time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives god to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she ways about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent that her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God

There are those who struggle with the miracles of the Bible. Their problem is that they just do not have a real, sovereign God. As it has been well stated, their god is too small. They spell God with a small "g." God not only has the power to bring Jesus into the world through the womb of a virgin, but He created a man from far less than that, from the dust of the earth. If God created the heavens and the earth, then is there anything that He cannot do for all the laws of the world are in His hands!

The God of this world is a miracle working God who rules and reigns in the affairs of men! Jehovah still turns marriages around. He still intervenes in the lives of those facing disease and death. God directs the affairs of men today and sets up people in places and position that cannot be accounted through any natural explanation. God can meet financial needs in ways that are only the result of His supernatural hand. God has stepped into history and is not an absent landlord. He is infinite in all His attributes! We serve a living Savior, He's in the world today!