John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

Here is another matter: one who doesn't steal knowing he couldn't get by with it; but he covets. He wants his neighbor's wife, or property, or that which he didn't earn. How many people want what they don't earn! How many people want to take that which another man worked for and give it to the poor bums who won't work. They vote for a socialistic program; so we take another fellow's property, give it to them and guarantee everybody wages or everybody insurance in order to get their votes and support. I am just saying, God looks on the covetousness of the heart and counts a thief the one who covets just as the one who hates is a murderer. . - John R. Rice

I heard a foolish preacher say one time, "There was never a man clean enough, fine enough, fit enough to marry a pure, decent, fine Christian woman." I know better. Many a man is just as clean in the way he thinks and in the way he talks and in the way he lives as any woman. - John R. Rice

I remember so well when my first baby was born. I ordered a boy. I wanted a boy to be a football quarterback. I played college football, then I coached football. After being a college football quarterback, then I wanted him to be an evangelist. But each time they were out of boys and sent me a girl. I kept on ordering boys until I had a household of girls! I know when I am licked! I used to be partial to boys. I am partial, now, to girls! - John R. Rice 

In II Timothy 4:2 the young preacher is commanded, "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season." The preacher is always to preach the gospel. He is to preach the gospel when it is "in season." Then he will have big crowds. Then there will be more concern. Then he will have the help of other Christians. When it is "in season," that is harvest time. But every preacher knows that there are also times when it is "out of season." There are times when it is hard to preach. There are times when the crowds are small. There are times when there is little conviction. There are times when few souls are saved. The preacher ought to go ahead and be faithful in season and out of season. Some people can be won when it is "out of season," but most people will go to Hell unless they get on God's train while it is "in season." - John R. Rice

At Decatur, Texas, a large healthy man leaned on the tent ropes and listened to the preaching, mocked at the invitation, laughed at the personal worker who pled with him to be saved. He was seventy years old. A few months later, after an appendicitis operation, he lay on his bed screaming, "O God! Give me more time! I've got to have time to repent! It isn't fair to make me die like this! Give me more time! O God, I'm not ready to die!" Despite his seventy years, despite the major operation, despite the solemn warnings of his doctor, he faced death unprepared and found it like a glaring monster, unwelcome and unexpected, which must devour him.His last conscious word was one of horror. What must have been the fearful awakening the other side of death! After seventy long years his harvest was passed forever. - John R. Rice

How often I have seen evidence that people's hearts are hardened when they hear the gospel. You see, the gospel is a two-edged sword; it cuts both ways. Either it turns people's hearts to God or it hardens people against God. A man who has heard the gospel is either nearer Heaven or nearer Hell. Where the gospel does not bless it damns. Second Corinthians 2:15, 16 tells us, "For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?" To the unconverted we are a taste of death. To the saved we are a taste of life. Those who are not saved by the gospel will find their hearts are hardened by it. - John R. Rice

We are told that God "hardened Pharaoh's heart." Pharaoh hardened his own heart by neglecting warning after warning. His confession was only half-hearted, his repentance insincere, and his heart grew calloused and indifferent. Plague after Plague came from God, and yet Pharaoh hardened his heart. So it seems that God determined to force the issue. Pharaoh had to be saved, or he had to be forever hardened and go to Hell as an example of the wrath of God on one who had received such great enlightenment. Since Pharaoh would not repent, would not be saved, then he was doomed, and God forced the issue so that his heart was forever hardened, so that he died in the Red Sea with his armies, to be forever the example of a man who would not hear God's call, who hardened his heart, and who then became so hardened that he could never be saved. - John R. Rice