R.C. Sproul

Well, there are all kinds of different programs, soap operas during the day, adventure stories at night, stories of Western heroes like Gene Autry and the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers and so on.

But one of the most popular genres of radio programs in the 40s were the

mystery stories or the detective stories like Gangbusters or Mr. King, Tracer of Lost Persons.

And they also had a program that was extremely scary called Suspense.

But the scariest program of all programs on the radio that I recall as a child was one that was on in the evening.

And the lead-in to the radio was the opening

of the door of a vault in a cemetery, in a mausoleum.

This door of a crypt swung open, and we always spoke about the creaking door.

And the sound of the creaking door was the lead-in to this program.

And as that door would creak, we would shiver in fear as little children.

And then the voice of the narrator would announce the program, Inner Sanctum.

You know, all you had to do was say it, Inner Sanctum, and we were terrified.

Now, the thing that I'm fascinated now in reflection on that is that when I was a boy, I didn't know what Inner Sanctum meant.

Now I know that the words inner sanctum mean within the holy.

And when I think back on it, I think it is astonishing that the producers of radio programs in the entertainment world, when they were looking for something that would hold people spellbound and evoke feelings of terror within them, that they couldn't think of anything more mysterious, anything more frightening to a human person than

than to be close, so close, to be virtually within the holy."

It's that kind of reaction that Rudolph Otto examined by looking at various civilizations and cultures.

And he said, when we're talking about the holy,

We are talking about something that is one of the most difficult things in human experience to define with precision and with clarity.

In fact, Otto says that with respect to the holy, we're dealing with what he calls a certain plus.