Friday, April 10, 2015

John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

My brother Bill has a ranch, fifteen hundred acres, and a great youth work out there; but I have a little forty-acre farm where I can keep saddle horses and raise a beef every year. I have no time to farm. But one day I saddled my horse MacArthur, (His real name is General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur II or III. But I call him Mac, for short. He is a Tennessee Walker and rides like a rocking chair.) I saddled my horse, rode down to the pasture, and rode up to a fine polled, white-faced Hereford cow. And she was very gentle. We had handled her a good deal. So I rode up about ten feet from her and I talked to her. She didn't talk back but she listened very attentively. That is the difference between talking to a woman and talking to a cow! - John R. Rice

I believe that Jesus was not crucified on Friday, but on Wednesday. Preachers have usually accepted the Roman Catholic teaching that He was crucified on Friday and have never investigated what the Bible teaches on that subject. All Bible evidence proves that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday, buried that night, and arose from the dead some time Saturday night, before sunrise Sunday morning. Remember that the Jewish day began at sundown and the night was counted a part of the following day.
Matthew 12:40 plainly says that Jesus would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, or the grave, like Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly. If Jesus were crucified Friday and raised Saturday night, or before sunrise Sunday morning, He would have been in the grave one day and part of two nights. Certainly that would not fulfill His plain promise.

Many people have supposed that John 19:31 was evidence that Jesus was crucified on Friday since the Jews wished to take His body down before the Sabbath. Notice, however, that "that Sabbath day was an high day." It was not an ordinary weekly Sabbath, but an annual Sabbath, the one mentioned in Exodus 12:16. It was a day of rest, the first of seven days of eating of unleavened bread, the day on which the Passover lamb was eaten.
So Jesus was crucified on Wednesday, was taken down from the cross before sunset Wednesday (John 19:31)... Jesus stayed in the grave fully seventy-two hours, three days and three nights, and arose then some time Saturday night, that is, part of Sunday, the first day of the week which began at sundown. - John R. Rice

I will tell you this secret: I do not mean it unkindly, but one reason some people do not like me is that I am so dogmatic. There are some things I just KNOW; some things I have proved. I am not guessing about them; I KNOW about them. Thank God, I know God answers prayer and takes care of His own. - John R. Rice

I will tell you what God wants you to do. God wants you to say, "Lord Jesus, I will not hide a thing from You. I am going to tell You everything I think and everything I want. If there is anything wrong with what I want, You fix my "wanter"; but I am going to take You into my confidence and take 'everything to God in prayer.' " The Bible says specifically again and again that you are to pray about "what things soever you desire." It says, "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." - John R. Rice

You can be a Christian without being a very good one, but you cannot be a real good disciple unless you work at it and pay a price for it. - John R. Rice

Then what does prayerlessness prove about Christians? First, it shows you don't really believe the promises of the Bible. "Oh, Dr. Rice. I believe the Bible from cover to cover." I know, and you occasionally open the cover, don't you?  - John R. Rice

Then one day, David said, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake with thy likeness" (Ps. 17:15). I am looking for the time your president, Dr. Cummons*, says, "I declare, I didn't know that ugly, old John R. Rice looked so much like Jesus!" But we will awake in His likeness! This crooked nose that got broken playing college football will be straightened. And a lot of things about me more crooked than my nose are going to be straightened out! I will be like Jesus when I awake in His likeness. - John R. Rice

*Dr. Rice was speaking at Massillon Baptist College where Dr. Bruce Cummons was the president

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