The radio message can be spiritual. A heavy responsibility rests upon each broadcaster to make it so. Public interest, the importance of the times, and the urgency of our message require the radio program to be spiritual. Several years ago I cut from a daily newspaper one of the pertinent sayings of the late humorist-philosopher Will Rogers:
"This is Monday and I have been sitting here [Beverly Hills] reading sermons delivered yesterday. On Sundays politics is transferred from the platform to the rostrum. It's awful hard for a sinner in search of spiritual advice to drop into a church and receive any of it."—New York Times, Oct. 16, 1934.
It may be that his was a lone voice crying in the wilderness, but I hardly believe that to be so. There are many who, like him, are sincerely and earnestly seeking for spiritual advice and are perplexed because they are not finding it in the churches. They come hoping for bread, and they receive a stone. They are fed on the dry chaff of the preacher's political or social theories, and this does not satisfy.
Today the world is filled with theory. The Seventh-day Adventist preacher can hardly hope to make a name for himself among the multitudes of theorists and prophets that clamor to be heard. Nor should he try to do so. His message is a peculiar one, but it is a truly hopeful one ; it is dynamic and vital. It is truth; and truth does not need the aid of theory to be effective. Christ taught truth, and the people instinctively recognized it as such and received it gladly.
Radio has special temptations, in that it provides a means for one to build up a reputation for intellectuality and cleverness. The microphone tempts the speaker to "analyze," to "interpret," to scintillate mentally before his public, to hold audiences in spellbound streams of inspired rhetoric, lest the listener turn the dial and seek a more thrilling voice.
Of course we all need to guard against being insipid and colorless in the radio presentation. The message should be surcharged with vitality and earnestness. It should avoid monotony, for monotony on the radio is deadly. It should come from a mind teeming with interesting ideas, but also from a heart filled with the love of the Saviour of mankind.
We have all heard spiritual messages over the radio. It has been fully demonstrated that the radio talk can be spiritual. The minister of the gospel is a specialist in spiritual matters. Seventh-day Adventist ministers have a spiritual message with a unique appeal. Every radio message we give should make its appeal to the heart. It should build faith, increase courage, convey truth, and impel to active obedience.
Let us make every radio broadcast a spiritual message.
