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Alphonse Bertillon was born in France in 1853 to a world very different from ours today. There were no computers, telephones, fax machines, or radios. If you wanted to remember something you had better write it down, even tape recorders or video cameras were about 100 years from invention. As a young boy, Alphonse had always been interested in the human body and how it developed. So, as you would expect, he became a police detective in the city of Paris upon completion of his studies. A detective for the Paris police? How does this fit in with the study of the human body?

During Alphonse's studies he noticed that some things about a man rarely change. He took thousands of measurements of the size of the head, length of the ear and fingers, the size of the foot, and the length of the arm. Then he got an idea that might help the police solve crimes. Why not record all of these human measurements on criminals when They're arrested and store it in files to use again. This way they could build a history on known criminals who were constantly changing their names to keep out of jail. By building this file on the dimensions of the human body, even when a criminal changed his name, they would still have records on him that were not linked to a name but rather his physical characteristics.

One day an old man was brought to the police station where Alphonse worked. He had been arrested for stealing a diamond necklace. As the man was questioned the other detectives were convinced that he was just a harmless old man who had been stealing just to feed himself and his sick wife. Alphonse wasn't so sure. There was something about this man that didn't seem right. Along with his assistant, Alphonse began to take measurements of the mans arms, legs, ears, and head. Then he went to his files in search of information that matched these measurements. The old man continued to plead his case but Alphonse was sure that this man was hiding something and the answers were in his files. Finally he came to a file that caused the detective to stop. There before him was a picture of the old man who had been caught stealing the necklace. He looked a little different but all of the measurements in the file matched exactly to those that had been just taken by his assistant. When he showed the old man the picture he had of him the old man snarled, "If not for your files you would never had recognized me!"

Just as the detective in our story seemed to know about this old man, God too knows all about you. There is nothing that can be hidden from him. The disciples often wondered how the Lord knew what they were thinking only to realize that as God's son he too knew everything about them. You can't hide from God but are you ready to face him?

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