John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

There are good reasons why sin is not always punished immediately. The Scripture says about alcoholic liquor, "At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder" (Prov. 23:32). At the last, not at the first. At first wine seems to bring gaiety, fellowship. At the first it is not sclerosis of the liver, the enslaving habit, the broken home, the accident, the poverty, the drunkard's grave. That comes later. - John R. Rice

Let us have no talk of universal salvation, of a Heaven without a Hell. The eternal separation of saved and lost is clearly stated here [Rev. 21] as it is many times in the Scripture. Let no foolish softhead forget how awful is sin, how God hates it, how a righteous God, a just God, cannot be righteous and count the impenitent as good as the penitent, the child of Satan as good as the child of God. God cannot be a God of justice and judgment in some parts of the Bible and say here that sin is inconsequential. It is not. - John R. Rice

In Mark 13:32 He said, "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels, which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Even Christ on earth, in human body, did not know the time of His return. He had laid aside that as part of the marks of deity. He knows now, of course. - John R. Rice

We love the King James version. It has the most beautiful, stately language. It is reverently done. We use the King James Version continually and urge others to use it. We do not recommend any of the paraphrases- Phillips Translation, The Living Bible, Good News for Modern Man, etc. We do not recommend any translation influenced by liberal unbelief like Moffatt's, the Revised Standard Version nor the New English Bible. Some one-man translations are helpful for reference at times but are not adequate to replace the King James or the American Standard Versions. The new American Standard is probably the most accurate of all, though generally we prefer the King James Version. - John R. Rice

Spurgeon spoke once of walking in a busy market place and he heard a man stand up on a box and cry out his testimony for the Lord Jesus. "I ain't got no edication but I want to tell you about my Saviour>" Spurgeon said that the man butchered the King's English and in his heart at first there was some thought, Then why doesn't he leave it to other people who have some education to tell it better! But the man continued, "I ain't got no edication but I have heard it and I've a right to tell it!" And Spurgeon said there leaped in his heart the glad word, Yes, if he heard it he ought to tell it. And so ought all of us. "Let him that heareth say, Come." - John R. Rice

The Lord is saying that salvation is provided; that you don't have to work for it, that you don't have to beg for it- you simply have to accept it. - John R. Rice

We hear silly talk about "easy believism" as if there were some merit in making salvation hard to get! Men speak as if they would like to take credit away from Jesus Christ who paid the whole debt and on the cross cried out, "It is finished." No, God made it easy.
A mother suffers when a child is born but the child does not suffer. Jesus paid a marvelous price, an awful price that equated the torments of the damned in order to save sinners, but the sinner does not have to suffer to be saved, he does not have to weep to be saved; he has only to turn his penitent heart to accept salvation offered. Take the cup and drink it, dear sinner, for it is free! - John R. Rice