Faith by Hearing

The story of Gospel Recordings Incorporated is an ever changing one. The 3,000 dialects “captured” on records have grown to over 3,600; and this world-wide mission continues to send out, in increasing numbers, records with the clear gospel message to those who may never be reached by any other effort. Illiteracy remains one of the great obstacles of missionary endeavor, and the “talking tracts” in the tribal dialect have given many a missionary extra voices to penetrate this formidable barrier.

Not only has the number of “languages recorded” increased, but also a million and a half more records have gone out to the four corners of the earth in the interval since the epilogue of this book was written. On every front there has been advance – new areas entered, new factories established, new developments in record-player production, and a gradual spreading of the ministry over the whole face of the globe.

Many have caught the vision of this ministry. Home bases are staffed by faithful fulltime workers who man the presses, assemble Phonettes, handle technical equipment, type letters and do routine tasks that go to make up the whole. Part-timers and prayer partners, faithful stewards and those who stand by the work in other ways are too numerous to mention, but all combine to keep the wheels of this ministry turning.

Several decades later, at Gospel Recordings Incorporated, the goal remains the same – the gospel on records for “every tongue, tribe and nation.” Unaltered too are the means by which the work is carried on – complete dependence on the Lord for wisdom, strength and supply of every need. Above all is the continuing awareness that it is the Holy Spirit who changes these inanimate black discs into powerful messengers of the gospel, with the result that in many a remote and neglected area of the world lives are being transformed as Christ is proclaimed.

Epilogue: “Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them. Sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth.”

1. The First Record: “Who hath despised the day of small things?”
2. Vision Yet Unrevealed: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord”
3. Wanted – Fellow-laborers: “My God shall supply all your need”
4. Hindrances – God’s Signpost: “I will lead them by a way which they knew not”
5. Call of the Little People: “My sheep wandered upon every high hill…”
6. To Every Tribe: “Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel – for the responsibility is already committed unto me”
7. The Australian Branch: “…For all manner of service”
8. The Task Ahead: “This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”