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difficult to induce them to sell us time. Then one day the manager
of a station told me frankly WHY. It was not prejudice against
religion. It was partly the poor quality of many religious
broadcasts, but even more the fact that radio surveys had proved
that about 90% of the general listening audience WILL NOT LISTEN to
religious programs. As soon as they hear a hymn, a prayer, or a
sermon on the air they TUNE OUT, or flip the dial to another
station. The surveys showed there is a definite "religious
audience" of not more than 10% of the total radio audiences. This
10% eagerly listen in to their favorite religious broadcasts, and
support them in the belief they are carrying the Gospel to a lost
and dying world. But, the radio surveys showed, such broadcasts do
NOT reach the lost and dying world at all---the WORLD tunes out and
refuses to listen. Commercial advertisers do not like to have
their broadcasts following religious programs, because business men
know they will have only the small "religious audience" listening.
It's just a matter of business with the radio stations.
Then one day another incident opened my eyes. I have a
brother-in-law who is an educator. "Your broadcasts are splendid"
he said one day, "but frankly I can't understand your sermons. You
speak in a sort of 'religious language'---maybe it's Bible
language, or spiritual language, but to me it's a technical
language I don't understand---it's just outside my line."
Do you see what was wrong? --WHY the WORLD is not listening to
such broadcasts? In I Cor 2:14 we read that the natural
unconverted man CANNOT understand the spiritual things of God's
Word. Sometimes these truths are just "foolishness" to him. He
CANNOT UNDERSTAND THEM, because they must be SPIRITUALLY
understood. But, says verse 10, "God hath revealed them unto US by
His Spirit." "When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come," said Jesus,
"He will guide you into ALL TRUTH"---that is, into the
understanding of the WORD.
If God called me to go to China and preach to the Chinese, I
should first learn to speak the CHINESE LANGUAGE. I would speak to
them---preach CHRIST, and HIS GOSPEL to them, in THEIR LANGUAGE, so
that they would understand. Now the WORLD does not understand
spiritual language or "Bible language". I learned that, to carry
the Message to the WORLD, I would have to drop the more spiritual
phraseology, and speak to the world in it's own language.
If the SMALLEST radio audiences today are the "religious
audiences", the BIGGEST radio audiences today are held by the
newscasters and the news analysts. Before being converted and
called into the ministry, I had devoted twenty years to writing for
newspapers and magazines. The news today rapidly fulfills Bible
prophecy. No news analyst can rightly UNDERSTAND or interpret
world events today, without the background of sound understanding
of the Bible and its prophecies. Likewise no minister could take
advantage of this fact in broadcasting, without a practical news-
paper background. I began to realize God had so guided my life
that I had BOTH. Why not utilize this life experience to the glory
of God? Why not take advantage of this unique experience to
produce a broadcast of the type which stands number ONE in public
interest, instead of in last place---a broadcast that would talk to