John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

With some melancholy I realize that I am not physically the man I once was. I could not now ride bucking broncs, nor play out four quarters of a college football game, nor lift nine hundred pounds, nor chin myself fifteen times on a bar. My eyes need glasses; I must watch my diet; I cannot miss a night's sleep without paying a price. I am only fifty-four, but I have in my body the sentence of death. - John R. Rice

Too many Christians, when they come to a funeral, do not act like Christians. There are too many people who, under the stress of parting with loved ones on the deathbed and in the cemetery, act as if the Bible were a lie and as if Jesus would never come. Oh, dear Christian, do not be ignorant concerning them which are asleep, and do not sorrow as others which have no hope! For God who remembers you will not forget our beloved ones whose bodies lie in graves that are marked by our fast withering flowers and often watered with the tears of our loneliness and sorrow. Blessed be God, we shall see them again! - John R. Rice

Children will not follow the precept of a father and mother whose example does not tell the same thing. It is a pitiful thing that it should ever be necessary to say about parents, like Jesus said about the scribes and Pharisees, "Whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works; for they say and do not." (Matt. 23:3). Children will have no confidence in a hypocrite. They know whether you mean business for God. - John R. Rice

When your children see you day by day putting business before the church, putting your pleasure before God, putting money-making before soul winning, reading other literature before reading the Bible, do you suppose they believe in the sincerity of your claims as a Christian? Do you suppose they are impressed by your devotions to God? Do you suppose they see any reason for trusting Christ and loving Him and serving Him? So, about many a parent it could honestly be said, "What you do talks so loud I cannot hear what you say!" - John R. Rice

Put Christ first in your home if you want the peace of God to dwell there. We have it plainly said in the Word of God, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me" (Exodus 20:5). You may expect your children to follow in your footsteps. You cannot expect them to love God and serve Him, to put Him first, unless you do the same. - John R. Rice

At our home as a boy (it is one of my happy memories!) we always expected to go to church. My father, my stepmother, the whole family (too many to ride in one carriage!) went to church. We went when it was cold and when it was hot. We went when it rained and when it was dry. It was rare indeed that any were so sick they could not go. If that were true, the rest went to church, and just one stayed home to take care of the sick. We went to church and Sunday school on time. We went to prayer meeting.
I thank God for the happy memories that proved to me the sincerity of my father's faith in God. - John R. Rice

The home can not be happy when a prodigal boy or a wayward girl breaks the heart of Mother and Father. The home cannot be happy where the children grow up and forget Mother's God and Father's God. The only sure hope for happiness through the years is that each child, as he comes to the years of accountability, be won to Christ, to love Him, to trust Him, to follow Him in baptism, to get in church with God's people, to obey the Lord and grow in grace. - John R. Rice