Editor’s note: “The Spoken Word” is shared by Derrick Porter each Sunday during the weekly Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square broadcast. This will be given Sunday, May 18, 2025. This is week No. 4,992 of the broadcast.
As we’ve previously shared, “Music & the Spoken Word” is nearing its 5,000th week in a row of continuous network broadcasting. July 13, 2025, marks 96 years since a young man, Ted Kimball, climbed a 15-foot ladder to a microphone suspended high in the air. From that single hanging microphone, the sounds of the Tabernacle Choir and organ at Temple Square would be carried over the airwaves for the first time. Ted stayed there, high in his perch, for the duration of the broadcast, announcing the songs along the way.
In the ensuing years and decades, “Spoken Word” messages of hope, joy, peace and many other timeless principles have been delivered to the world.
Today we’d like to share some of God’s timeless principles as presented by Elder Richard L. Evans, J. Spencer Kinard and Lloyd D. Newell, all former presenters of this program.
Richard L. Evans: “Faith is that quality of trust which prevents the uncertainty of the future from destroying the opportunities of the present — which brings peace in the midst of confusion and sleep even while some problems are unsolved. Faith is trust, belief, conviction, a force in the lives of all balanced men, and it leaves an awful emptiness when it dies or departs.” (“Faith Is Not To Have a Perfect Knowledge,” by Elder Richard L. Evans, “Music & the Spoken Word,” Nov. 30, 1952.)
J. Spencer Kinard: “And thus it is with prayer. We may not know quite how it works, but we don’t need to. The Lord has not burdened us with complicated formulas. He has made the process of prayer so simple that a humble child on his knees can make it work. The only requirements are that our desires be righteous and our supplication be sincere. The Lord stands ever anxious to assist us.” (“Prayer Power,” by J. Spencer Kinard, “Music & the Spoken Word,” March 23, 1980.)
Lloyd D. Newell: “Knowing that God’s love for us is real and unchanging can calm the storms of life and bring meaning amid uncertainty. God will not forget us or forsake us. In this we have peace — a peace that comes from knowing that the world and its affairs remain in the loving and all-powerful hands of Him who created it in the beginning.” (“The Sustaining Power of God’s Love,” by Lloyd D. Newell, “Music & the Spoken Word,” Nov. 25, 2001.)
I add my witness to each of theirs that God’s timeless principles of faith, prayer and love are in full force and effect today. For “God is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Mormon 9:9; see also Hebrews 13:8).
Tuning in …
The “Music & the Spoken Word” broadcast is available on KSL-TV, KSL News Radio 1160AM/102.7FM, KSL.com, BYUtv, BYUradio, Dish and DirecTV, SiriusXM (Ch. 143), tabernaclechoir.org, youtube.com/TheTabernacleChoir and Amazon Alexa (must enable skill). The program is aired live on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. Mountain Time on these outlets. Look up broadcast information by state and city at musicandthespokenword.com/viewers-listeners/airing-schedules.
