John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

If you pray right, you can sing some then. If you pray right, you can get over your down-in-the-dumps attitude. You can learn peace and joy. So they [Paul and Silas] prayed.
That is what the Lord said in Philippians, chapter 4: "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (vs. 6). So first you pray, then you beg God, then you are pretty well satisfied and happy. So you thank God. - John R. Rice

Oh, as they [Paul and Silas] sang praises to God, the prisoners heard them. Somebody else heard them, too- up in Heaven. I have sometimes said it is likely the Angel Gabriel stands by the throne and when the Lord says, "What is the matter , Gabriel? You are so nervous," Gabriel answers, "I want to help those people out. They got beat up and their backs are so bloody. The people tore the shirts off them for preaching and casting out the devil from this girl. Now they are in jail."
"Well, what do you want to do?" asks the Lord.
"I want to get those men out of there," says Gabriel.
Now I don't know how it happened, but up in Heaven the Lord agreed to it, and an old earthquake began to shake that old prison, and shake it, shake it. It cracks, and the first thing you know the glass is broken out of the windows and the lock on the door breaks and the stocks fall down and Paul and Silas find themselves free. - John R. Rice

The Devil's crowd is going to slander you if you stand up and speak out for God. So if you are too strong against adultery, the homosexuals, the dirty liquor business, somebody is going to tell lies on you and slander you. - John R. Rice

This is a blessed truth about this man Abraham and how he was saved. One of these days Abraham, our sweet example, will be in that crowd caught up at the rapture.
Somebody argues that the church didn't start until Jerusalem. But that "general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven" (Heb. 12:23) - that group, when the dead in Christ shall rise first, then the dead in Christ, that assembly that will be caught up in the air to meet Jesus (that called-out assembly, a church), will include Abraham. Yes, it will! That group didn't start gathering at Pentecost. That crowd started when the first person was saved back yonder. One of these sweet days when the trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ shall rise, we will see Abraham, along with righteous Abel, along with Elijah, along with other Old Testament saints who believed in God. Abraham will be in that group. Then we will "sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven," we read. John R. Rice

Years ago in Dallas, Texas, there was a great meeting of Christian men of a certain group. I went to the church where the meeting was held and was shocked to find many cigarette butts lying around outside. Each one would take a drag on his cigarette before going inside, then throw his cigarette down. I thought that was shocking. But the simple truth is, That church house was not as important as those bodies they defiled.
Your body is the temple of God. - John R. Rice

In some wonderful sense the relationship of a husband and wife is a symbol and picture of our relationship to Christ. "Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ , so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing." A wife saves herself for her husband and a Christian should say, "The Devil cannot have my body. I am not a servant of sin. I am not going to defile this, the sweet temple of God. He lives here." We ought to remember that our bodies are the temples of God, and should keep them holy for Him. - John R. Rice

Romans, chapter 8, verses 26-27 says:
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for: we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but: the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Oh, when you go to pray, say, "Sweet Spirit of God, teach me how to pray aright." Pray in the Spirit. Ephesians 6:18 commands, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." - John R. Rice