John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

People who do not believe in angels can have no Christmas! The angel of the Lord was a miraculous being, a wonder-worker, bringing a message from God Himself. The Bible is a book of angels, because it is a book of the supernatural. No angels - no Saviour! No angels - no Gospel! No angels - no Christianity! Those who do not believe in angels do not believe in the virgin birth, do not believe in the atoning blood, do not believe in the inspired Bible. And Christmas is not worth having without all these. - John R. Rice

Modernists really have no Christmas, in the Bible sense. When you have Jesus born as only the son of Joseph and Mary, without any divine predictions; when you have Him die the death of a martyr but not risen bodily from the grave, not ascend up to Heaven, - then you do not have Christianity! Christianity is a supernatural religion. Anybody who believes in Christ can believe that angels came to announce His birth. Those who deny the angels deny the purity of the Lord's mother and make her a fallen Jewish girl and Jesus a bastard child. Those who do not believe in the angels make the Bible a human book, full of myths and legends and folklore and mistakes; a very good book, to be sure, but not nearly so good, the modernists and infidels think, as they themselves could write! We had as well accept this fact at the very beginning: the birth of Christ is not worth celebrating unless we accept the implications of all the supernatural that attended His birth. - John R. Rice

Concerning the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, this idea of Him as a Saviour was ever the most prominent one. The angel said to Joseph before His birth, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21). His precious name, Jesus, means Saviour! To the shepherds in the field feeding their flocks by night, the angel of God that great night gave the glad tidings, "For unto you is born this day a SAVIOUR which is Christ the Lord." It would be no good news just that a king was born, for kings have been born before and none ever saved a man from sin. - John R. Rice

The Christmas story so takes hold on my heart each year that I want to preach about it even into January! I want to preach about the wise men, about the believing virgin, about faithful Joseph, about the prophecies fulfilled in Christ's coming, about the annunciation, about there being no room in the inn, about the stable birth and the manger bed. Who could ever finish preaching about the Christmas story! - John R. Rice

Here is a principle of God's loving mercy: always a hungry heart can find out the truth about God if it wants to. Always a doubting soul, who really wants to know, can find our whether the Bible is true, whether Christ is the Son of God, whether the Bible will work in our modern world. Remember that Jesus said in John 7:17, "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." - John R. Rice

Dear reader, God is not concerned about your pious platitudes as you commend the teachings of Jesus in the sermon on the mount. He turns His face with disdain when you speak of the crucifixion as "the martyrdom" of "a good man" who "died for his ideals." There is no way under Heaven that any man can approach God in peace except he come with prayer and praise to Jesus Christ as one who is very God, Creator, Saviour, one to be loved and worshiped, one who answers prayer, one who is worthy of all the praises that can fall from human lips! - John R. Rice

My book, IS JESUS GOD?, which is an answer to infidels in the church and out, was recently advertised in THE SWORD OF THE LORD, and there came a critical letter from a man who said, "Of course, Jesus is not God. Jesus is the Son of God! How silly to write a book on IS JESUS GOD?" But he was as ignorant as he was irascible. Jesus is God, and the Scripture clearly says exactly that again and again. - John R. Rice