In 1869 the world’s most famous farm was in Cardiff, New York. Workmen digging a well claimed to find the fossilized body of a man over ten feet tall that weighed nearly 3,000 pounds. Owner William Newell looked happy. Who wouldn’t have been? He saw it as a quick way to become both rich and famous.
What a fantastic discovery! Two professors on Yale University’s faculty, one a paleontologist and the other a chemist, agreed that the giant was authentic. So did poet Ralph Waldo Emerson and Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes. The news spread rapidly across America.
Other experts smelled a hoax, but that didn’t hurt ticket sales. The discovery helped Newell raise prices from five cents per visit to one dollar. P.T. Barnum, the circus showman and master of deception, offered to buy the act. Somehow Newell seemed to be expecting him. Intense negotiations followed, but Newell was overconfident. He spurned Barnum’s offer of $60,000 for a three-month lease of the fossil.
Barnum turned around and walked away. “He will be back with a better offer,” Newell boasted. The slick showman went out and hired a skilled sculptor to create a duplicate of the fossil. The following year the people interested in seeing the unusual fossil did not need to travel way out in the country to see Newell’s prize possession. They paid higher prices to see a “twin fossil” when Barnum’s circus came to their town. Having lost his best prospect, Newell sold to other investors. This group lost heavily and sought an injunction against Barnum, claiming that his fossil was not real.
They were surprised when Barnum admitted his giant wasn’t real. He told them that he had hired a stonecutter to chisel a copy of Newell’s fossil from a block of gypsum, then age the creature with sulfuric acid. There was no law against creating duplicates, and the public caught on. The original was also a hoax. An investigation revealed that Newell had a silent partner, George Hull, who had once purchased a huge block of gypsum in Indiana and employed George Hull, a Chicago stonecutter.
Pressured by mounting evidence Hull confessed. Angry investors then sued Newell. The only money anyone finally made was by P.T Barnum, probably the original target of Newell’s scam. Both Newell and Hull learned that you should never try to con a con artist. You will lose money every time.
In the wilderness temptations of Jesus, Satan tried to convince Him to take a shortcut on His earthly mission. “Avoid the pain and rejection of people,” Satan said. “Make a deal with me and you will not have to suffer the agony of a crucifixion or the darkness of death. You only need to bow down and worship me.”
If Christ had accepted Satan’s offer it would have been the ultimate hoax – and history’s biggest disappointment and greatest tragedy. But it didn’t happen that way. Read the four gospels. Jesus went willingly to the cross. It was God’s way of demonstrating how much He loves every single individual who has ever lived – or will ever live in the future. With His Son’s mission fulfilled, God raised Him from the dead. He did this so that every human being who accepts Him as Savior and Lord might have everlasting life.
Are you a Christian? The road to heaven begins at the foot of Calvary’s cross. If you want to travel that road there is only one way to do it: You must go to Calvary’s cross, confess your sins, lay them down, accept Christ as your Savior and Lord, turn to the right, and keep straight ahead.
There is no other way!
The Paper Pulpit 
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