"The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it," PSA 68:11.

 As our Saviour was taking His leave of this world, He commissioned His disciples to publish the good news of the gospel, "...unto the uttermost part of the earth," ACT 1:8. History clearly reveals that the apostles did not personally visit, "...the uttermost part of the earth," but their gospel is preserved and published through the printed page.

Daniel Webster said, "If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness, will reign without mitigation or end."

Our text tells us that, "The Lord gave the word: [but also] great was the company of those that published it." This responsibility of publishing, "...the Gospel to every creature," MAR 16:15, rests upon every individual who names the name of Christ.

I cannot emphasize enough the power of the printed page. Beginning with the time of Moses throughout the ministry of our Saviour, the printed page has been God's means of preserving the Gospel for this generation.

In our day of modern technology with radio, TV etc. the gospel can be published to the ends of the earth, but these means still do not replace the need for the printed page.

It is most appalling to find that throngs who have been communicant church members for years cannot find a place in the Bible! They have not even a vague idea of the blessed doctrines contained therein, nor of God's revealed will for our lives.

HOS 4:6 says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee...seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."

Every individual who has a Bible available to them will be held responsible for the same degree of knowledge as those who have observed 1TI 4:15-16. "Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee."

ISA 1:3 says, "Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." It was this ignorance of God's will revealed in His Word that resulted in the moral decay in the time of Isaiah as well as today. Multitudes, "are destroyed for lack of knowledge."

Spiritual deadness and weakness prevails in the churches today because of ignorance! The Lord says, "MY PEOPLE are destroyed for lack of knowledge"; "MY PEOPLE doth not consider." Our Saviour said in JOH 5:39, "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Our text says, "The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it." The printed page must be used to evangelize, teach, train and expel ignorance as it has done in the past. The moral decay in the time of Isaiah was because the people did not acquaint themselves with God's will through studying God's Word.

1JO 1:6 says, "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." Amen.