John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

America has grown morally soft, decayed in principle. We do not whip our children to make them mind nor demand and get their respect for their superiors, nor teach them to work to earn their way honestly. We do not mind much the lawlessness of sit-down strikes not violence and murder and gangsterism, particularly if it be in the name of the labor unions. We do not want the death penalty for murder, nor for rape nor for kidnapping, though the Bible clearly gives us God's command for it. We do not want sin punished. Most of our pulpits do not preach the wrath of god against sin. America, on the whole, has not heard about Hell and judgment. So we have become a people without strong principle, mushy, fat, well-fed, luxury-loving people. We fear hardship, we hate discipline, and to many there is nothing worth fighting for but money, and nothing worth dying for! God help us, America needs to repent and learn to hate sin, to know it must be punished and brought to judgment. We need to learn to boldly advocate righteousness, and to be willing to live or die that righteousness shall reign in our lives and nation, and wherever we are responsible before God. - John R. Rice

Some time ago, before America was in the war [World War II], a Christian woman wrote me that she disagreed with my article on "American Friends of Hitler," and deplored the idea that a Christian should ever fight about anything. In the same letter she asked prayer about her wayward son who was grieving his parents by going on in sin. I feel that likely that attitude of never doing anything about sin, no judgment of sin, no punishment, no sense of responsibility, no respect for authority, was responsible for her son's waywardness. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." She may have felt she was too good a Christian, too loving a mother to punish her boy and make him obey, make him do right. But her thought, if that be what she thought, was folly and sin. It is not Christlike to ignore sin, to laugh it off, to pet wickedness. Christians who are too good to come out against Hitler or other such international bandits, or against sin anywhere, bring the curse of God on our country. - John R. Rice

Since war is upon us [written early in WWII], since our own people are killed, our country in immediate danger, I wonder what that woman thinks who was so religious she did not want anyone to bother Hitler or other such international criminals? Her son is of draft age. Will she still think Christians ought not to do anything about such sin and wickedness? Oh, America, repent! - John R. Rice

Oh, no Christian is in danger who is in the will of God, and in the presence of the Saviour! One is safer with Him in the night than being alone in the daytime. One is safer with Him in the storm than being alone in a peaceful, quiet place. One is safer with Him in war than without Him in peace. - John R. Rice

Sometimes Christian people say, "I am afraid to speak to lost sinners about Christ. I am afraid I will do more harm than good. I am afraid I will drive them away from the church." Well, dear friend, you had better be more afraid of displeasing God than of displeasing sinners. As long as you listen to the complaints and excuses of ungodly men, men who follow Satan and ignore the plain command of God to preach the Gospel to every creature, then certainly you will be responsible for the doom of lost souls you did not warn! - John R. Rice

For my part, if my faithful and loving invitation to a sinner to come to God drives him away from the church, then still I ought to do it. If a man must go away from the church and reject Christ, I would rather he go after hearing my plain warning and my loving invitation. If a man must go to Hell, then I do not want him to go unwarned. - John R. Rice

Do more harm than good by personal work? Never, if you go in Jesus' name, if you follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, and if you use the Word of God. We are commanded to go, and Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:19, 20). You may make somebody angry, but that itself may be used of God to awaken one out of lethargy and cause him to see what a sinner he is. Do not go by appearance in this matter, nor by the opinions of unconverted or carnally minded men. Go by the Word of God and the clear leading of the Holy Spirit. For when you talk to a sinner thus, you are talking for Jesus Christ. Your invitation is God's invitation. - John R. Rice

I believe that Jesus was not crucified on Friday, but on Wednesday. Preachers have usually accepted the Roman Catholic teaching that He was crucified on Friday and have never investigated what the Bible teaches on that subject. All Bible evidence proves that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday, buried that night, and arose from the dead some time Saturday night, before sunrise Sunday morning. Remember that the Jewish day began at sundown and the night was counted a part of the following day.
Matthew 12:40 plainly says that Jesus would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, or the grave, like Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly. If Jesus were crucified Friday and raised Saturday night, or before sunrise Sunday morning, He would have been in the grave one day and part of two nights. Certainly that would not fulfill His plain promise.
Many people have supposed that John 19:31 was evidence that Jesus was crucified on Friday since the Jews wished to take His body down before the Sabbath. Notice, however, that "that Sabbath day was an high day." It was not an ordinary weekly Sabbath, but an annual Sabbath, the one mentioned in Exodus 12:16. It was a day of rest, the first of seven days of eating of unleavened bread, the day on which the Passover lamb was eaten.
So Jesus was crucified on Wednesday, was taken down from the cross before sunset Wednesday (John 19:31)... Jesus stayed in the grave fully seventy-two hours, three days and three nights, and arose then some time Saturday night, that is, part of Sunday, the first day of the week which began at sundown. - John R. Rice