“If God trusted the revelation of the Living Word to the written Word, then so can we.”
“The message of salvation can be presented through means of the printed page. It never flinches, it never grows tired, never grows disheartened; it works while we sleep; it travels cheaply and requires no rented building; it never loses its temper; and it works long after we are dead. The printed page is a visitor which gets inside the home and stays there; it always catches a man in the right mood, for it speaks to him only when he is reading it; it always sticks to what it has said, and never answers back.
The printed page is deathless: you can destroy one, but the press can reproduce millions. As often as it is martyred it is raised. It can enter doors locked to the evangelist; it preaches in the factory, the train, the kitchen; it visits the school and the jail; it whispers in the ear of the dying.
The printed message can reach those whose religions forbid them to go to church. It can reach the student who, proud of his intellectualism, refuses to listen to the Gospel or relate himself to it for fear of his fellow students or professors. Away from searching eyes, from the probing investigations of the state, away from the demand of superstitious religion, away from the critical intrusions of friends and family, the message of salvation can be read and understood.
Yes, literature is the link to life. Tomorrow, many missionaries will have to leave their field, but our witnesses can remain. A link -- LITERATURE -- can be left in the hands of national Christians, sensitive to their responsibility and equipped to reach those masses who long for hope beyond their darkness.
Remember, people everywhere are reading. Education has become compulsory for school-age children in most countries. Just since you began reading this, almost 200 new readers have entered the world of the printed page. They are eagerly extending their hand for reading material.
The way to reach the most people in the shortest period of time is with the printed page. Certainly this does not imply that we should neglect other means of evangelism, but the churches of America should awake to the importance of the printed page. Churches, like the proverbial ostrich, have hidden their heads in the sand of neglect, ignorant and indifferent to the value and potential of literature in the evangelization of the lost and growth of believers. It is time to take massive projects, systematically covering countries and metropolitan areas with the printed page. Do not send your missionary to the battlefield without ammunition.
If God trusted the revelation of the Living Word to the written Word, then so can we. We have one task. It is to evangelize the human race with the only Gospel God ever gave. The size and urgency of our task demands the use of the mass media of literature. ‘He is not willing that any should perish.’ Neither am I! Are you?”
--Dr. Oswald J. Smith
