John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

"You never had a family altar; you never taught the child the Bible; you never tried to get him saved. Now he is in the penitentiary and you think you are not to blame! Let me ask you another question. Did you whip that boy and make him mind? Did you make him say, 'Yes, Sir!' and 'Yes, Ma'am!' and di you whip him and make him obey?"
He answered back, "Dr. Rice, my boy was different. He was nervous and high-strung and you couldn't use those methods on him."
I explained that I was nervous and high-strung also but that my dad just got a little more nervous than I did, so we early got that settled,
The boy had gone to the state penitentiary a criminal and the father tried to evade the blame. He was wrong. He could have won that boy to Christ and could have disciplined him and made him into a good character, but he did not. - John R. Rice

And today the formal worship services in the churches are the enemy of evangelism and hinder soul winning. Many men would like to have Billy Sunday results from an Episcopalian-type format of the services. But it doesn't work that way. - John R. Rice

None who read this will expect to have seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, but you may be tempted to take marriage lightly. One of every three marriages in American ends in divorce [this was written in 1976]. Everywhere I go I find the shocking example of Christian people, who are born again, who believe the Bible, who go to fundamental churches, yet they break up their marriage. Good Christians ought to set out to make marriage a lifetime business and they ought to mean it with all their hearts and live or die by their pledge to "love, honor and cherish [or obey] 'til death do us part." Christian people should stay together. - John R. Rice

Let no foolish man and woman make the excuse that "I don't love him any more." What people are commanded to do, they can do. And the Bible commands, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it" (Eph. 5:25). And elder women are plainly commanded " That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children" (Titus 2:4).Let good women dress themselves modestly and reserve their love and beauty and charm of their bodies and their caresses for one man alone for a lifetime. And let every man set out to be to his wife as Christ was to the church; love his own by grace, and to be head and high priest, protector and provider for the wife. - John R. Rice

When Solomon married unsaved, heathen, idolatrous women, he went against the plain command of God. And any Christian who marries an unsaved mate thus goes in violation of the plain command, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" (II Cor. 6:14-16). John R. Rice

A simple man of God, a converted stone mason, preached at the Pacific Garden Mission, using these Scriptures [Isa. 6:5-8]. With only a fifth-grade education and stumbling words, this man showed how God was glad when someone would offer himself.
That day I offered myself to God. I said, "Lord, I do not have the dramatic instinct and the moving voice of Dr. George W. Truett, and I do not have the gifts some men have, but I will be faithful. I will not be bribed nor bluffed nor bought nor scared. I will preach the Gospel straight." And I began to preach.
Oh, I know God is glad to have people volunteer. He wants willing service. - John R. Rice

In Ephesians is a blessed command, "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." That is, it is a sin to drink wine and get drunk. "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise" (Proverbs 20:1). But if it is a sin to get drunk, then in the same verse is another plain command, and to disobey that, also, is a sin. It is a sin to get drunk, and likewise it is a sin not to be filled with the Spirit, the Scripture says. Oh, the fullness of the Holy Spirit is for everybody, and the command is for all. - John R. Rice