John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

"But, Brother Rice, how are you going to have any fun?" Well, If I couldn't have fun being decent and clean and pure and respectable like a good Christian, I would decide to get along without having fun. The idea that you have more fun being dirty and by lying and cheating and breaking your vows and breaking obligations to your country or a man's duty to his wife or parents' duty to their children - to think that makes you happier is a silly teaching of the Devil, and Christians ought never be taken in by it. - John R. Rice

There are never too many children of good, God-fearing, hard-working Christian people who raise godly children. They are the salt of the earth. Do you think God wants less salt in this earth? "Ye are the light of the world" - godly, Christian young people. Do you think God wants less light? Do you think we have too many true preachers, too many missionaries, too many godly, patriotic American citizens who work for a living and earn a good salary and make good and keep this country straight? Do you think it was too bad that John the Baptist was born? - John R. Rice 

In Hebrews 13:4 the Lord says, "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." It is normal for people to get hungry, but it is wrong to steal food to eat. So it is expected that there should be normal sex drive. A man needs a wife. A woman needs a husband. They ought to have children and a happy family. Such instincts and desires are normal, right and holy. It is not wrong that one should have some natural sex desires. But it is wrong that any man should take what is not his, that is, violate somebody else's wife or the one who will be somebody else's. That is always sinful. It is wrong to take what is not yours, but it is not wrong to have normal happy marriages and the blessing of God on the home and with children. - John R. Rice

Christians are to marry only Christians. The Bible says,

"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?"

A marriage ought to be a happy and a godly marriage. A girl who is a Christian ought not to be dating unsaved boys. If you don't fall in love with a lost man, you are not likely to marry a lost man. So Christians ought to marry only Christians. - John R. Rice

"Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." - 1 Cor. 11:2-3
Christ is not ashamed to be subject to the Father. And a man ought not to be ashamed to be subject to Christ. And a woman ought not be ashamed to be subject to her husband. - John R. Rice

Children are to be brought up in the chastening or discipline and the admonition of the world.
You say, "Well, you ought to love your children." Sure you ought to love your children so much you are never content for one of them to land in Hell. You ought to love your children so much you will never be content for them to grow up as wild, irresponsible young people who never learn to obey the law and have no God but their own desires. No, children will be happy when they are reared right, and that means discipline. - John R. Rice

"And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart. . . ." You are to diligently teach it to your children. You can read the Bible through, four chapters a day, in about eleven months. Then you are ready to start on another year and read it through again. And certainly every Christian ought to read the Bible through every year. I do that, although I do an enormous amount of other Bible study. Maybe forty times a day I may refer to a concordance and look up a verse or quote it. When I preach a sermon, I may use thirty-five or fifty Scriptures. - John R. Rice