Dear Christian friends:

Ohio Bell has an add on T.V. showing a Swede on one mountain using a huge horn to talk to his mother who lives on another mountain. That's how people sent news before they had radio and telephones and T.V. Indians used smoke signals. One mountain top to another. Swiss!

In our text God tells his messenger to shout Good News to Jerusalem from the mountain top. Today is Lutheran Hour Sunday. We think about how our church announces and shouts the Good News of Jesus Christ to people all over the world every Sunday. We do not use a large horn or smoke signals. We use radio and T.V.


What God told His messenger to shout to Jerusalem and all Judah:

A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” (Isaiah 40:6-8)

We are all sinners; we do not live long here on earth; like grass and the flower of grass. We need to attend to God for mercy and help.

"Your God is coming", Isaiah 40:9-11. The Savior will come. Happened seven-hundred years before Christ's birth. Also Isaiah 40:1-2. The message about man's sin and punishment of sin and the Good News that God forgives sins through the Savior who will come.

The Savior finished coming almost two-thousand years ago, the first Christmas and He suffered and died upon the cross for man's sins and arose on Easter morning.

Before He ascended into heaven He commanded His disciples to "Go and preach the Good News to every person on earth." (Mark 16:15) We are His disciples today. He commands us to shout the Good News to the Church and also to all nations.

He commands us to preach that all men are sinners and will be lost without Christ. He commands us to tell that one to one in our home and to our neighbors and to fellow church members.

But He also commands us to shout the Good News today. During Isaiah's time they climbed a high mountain and shouted it. Now, today it is much easier for us through radio and T.V. We can put a radio transmitter on a mountain top and beam radio messages into countries all around, no matter they are surrounded by an iron curtain like East Europe or China.

Even more wonderful we can send our radio message (preach) to a satellite which will transmit (send) the Good News of Jesus around the world.

God wants us Christians to wake-up and use radio and T.V. to preach and shout the Good News of Jesus to all nations. We need to feel eager and glad to do that. Satan won't want us to do that. Unbelievers don't want to see that happen. Our own sinful nature is lazy and greedy, selfish and we often refuse to join and help and support that good work.

We ought to thank God because back in 1930 He led a few of our Church leaders to begin shouting the Good News of Jesus on the radio. And since then He has blessed it very greatly. Today 1,100 stations here in the U.S.A. and Canada. World-wide 2,000 weekly Lutheran Hour programs in English and another forty-five in other languages. We shout the Good News in one-hundred-twenty-five various countries or nations.

More than 40,000,000 people each Sunday or weekly hear the Good News through the Lutheran Hour. But still 70% of the world does not know or believe in Jesus Christ. We still need more shouting of the Good News!

What can you do to help? Perhaps you think, "I am deaf. I can't hear the Lutheran Hour radio preaching." True, but you can help support it. Because you are deaf you can't shout with your own voice through the radio. But you can help support Dr. Hoffman and eighteen other Lutheran Hour voices.

You should feel, "Dr. Hoffman is my voice! He shouts for me. I will pray for him that God bless His preaching. I will give a money offering regularly for Lutheran Hour." It costs $5,000,000 each year.

Today let us thank God for radio and T.V. God had that purpose in His mind when he let Marconi invent radio. He did not want radio and T.V. for play and foolish programs. He let that happen so we can use it to Shout the Good News of Jesus. Let's join with our Christian friends and do it!

Amen.