John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

I got married in North Texas where my sweetheart lived. We had been going together for four years. We were married in a country home. An old-time friend, Dr. R.R. Gaines, (I got one of my R's in my name from him), performed the ceremony. Mrs. Rice's three brothers were so broken up that people didn't come around to congratulate us; so we went around to greet them.
My father was there. He looked so grave and serious. I said, "Dad, I think you are worse scared than I am!"
He said, "Yes. When you have been married as long as I have, you would be scared, too!"
So marriage is a serious thing requiring the blessing of God. There are holy bounds and holy plans about it. - John R. Rice

The Scripture said, "Let the wife see that she reverence her husband." "Reverence" seems a strange word. I hear hair-splitters and Hell-raisers and troublemakers and critics say, "You ought not call a preacher a Reverend." It doesn't matter whether you put Reverend before my name when you address a letter to me. But that word is not bad, for a woman is to "reverence" her husband, too. So, if a woman calls her husband "Reverend," she would be right in her attitude. - John R. Rice

I was in Matador, Texas, in a revival campaign. My wife and my two little children were with me. We went to a country home for a lovely dinner. When the meal was served, the lady asked, "Brother Rice, what will you have to drink- coffee or sweet milk or buttermilk or iced tea?"
I said, "May I have iced tea, please>"
She turned to Grace who sat next to me, a little five or six-year-old girl, and asked, "Gracie, what do you want to drink?"
She said, "May I have iced tea, please?"
I interrupted, "Excuse me, may I change my drink? Give me milk, please."
Grace said, "Excuse me, may I have milk, too?"
And we got milk.
Now tea is not bad, but little girls need milk. I wasn't going to say, (and God is my witness, how carefully I have dealt with this all these long year,) "I will drink tea, you can only drink milk." No, sir. I am saying a man is accountable to God to set the pattern for his children and for his home. - John R. Rice

God wants a Christian woman to be subject to her husband. That is what the Bible says and that is the way to peace and happiness in the home. Good women, would you feel better if there were never a policeman? Would you be more comfortable if your children had no teachers in school? Is it better if the church has no pastor? Do you think no one ought to be in charge? Don't talk like a fool. You don't believe that. God's plan in a home is to have peace and joy, with the husband representing God in the home. - John R. Rice

It is a wonderful blessing when little children are born into the world. First, there is the waiting nine months while the baby is formed. Then the people so look forward to the time of birth. First Peter 3:7 says the husband and wife are "heirs together of the grace of life." God gives a man and a woman in marriage the privilege of taking part in creation and bringing into being not only the little body, but in some way a little soul. Of course that miracle is of God; it is God who gives life to the little one. But it is still true that the husband and wife are in a holy business, "as being heirs together of the grace of life." Happy is the man and woman who want children.
Sorry is the woman who wants to be petted and have all that marriage gives, wants the man's support and his name, yet doesn't want to bear him children. You are not normal. You are dodging the privilege God has given to women. - John R. Rice

Abortion is murder. It doesn't fit in with the Bible pattern. It is wicked. It is done by selfish people who want their own way, by a woman who doesn't want to nurse a baby and care for him. She doesn't want those little fingers clinging to her and a little voice calling her Mamma. She doesn't want the responsibility of teaching the little one about the Lord, get him to school and see God make him a preacher or a statesman or a doctor. She doesn't want that. She doesn't want these great blessings.
She wants to be like a prostitute in the home with the pleasures of sex without the duties of marriage and home. So she takes part in the murder of the little one whom she ought to love but whom she rejects. Abortion is the murder of those God has given as "heritage of the Lord." Oh, how serious we ought to take it! God intends people to have children. - John R. Rice

Rejoice, then, in the children whom God gives. They are a blessing from God.
You have to train them, to be responsible for them. The Scripture says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6). You ought to raise your children for God. Children should obey their parents and should be taught respect for parents and for the teacher and for the policeman on the corner and for the judge on the bench, yes, and for the flag of our government. And they ought to be taught that at home. Oh, set out to rear your children for God. - John R. Rice