John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

You know, men say, "Well, I like my freedom." You will never be free as long as you are a slave to drink.
A man sat in his own front room and said to me, "Brother Rice, if I don't get this thing licked, my wife will leave me. She says she has had enough, that she is not going to raise the children in an atmosphere of drunkenness. She said one more big drunk and she is going home to her mother." And he said, "My boss is going to fire me if I get drunk any more. He can't hold me on the payroll when I am never fit to work." He said, "I wish I had some way to get myself under control and be the man I ought to be."
I told him, as I tell you: Jesus Christ is the way to get control of yourself. You are not free. - John R. Rice [Sweet Family Ties in Heaven and Hell, pg. 181]

Jesus Christ is the way to get control of yourself. You are not free. Is a man free when he is down on Skid Row in Chicago picking up cigarette butts in the gutter and knocking at the back doors for handouts, or going down to a soup kitchen or a rescue mission or is sometimes put in jail and sometimes sleeping in the alley and begging for any way to get a little bit to drink? Do you think that man is free? Is a man free when he is enslaved by lust, or enslaved by habit, or enslaved by passion, or enslaved by hatred, or enslaved by narcotics, a dope habit or liquor habit? No, nobody is really free until he gets Jesus. - John R. Rice [Sweet Family Ties in Heaven and Hell, pg. 181]

I have a book of sermons entitled WHEN SKELETONS COME OUT OF THEIR CLOSETS! They do. One day the skeletons are going to come out of their closets. Someday the chickens are coming home to roost. The sinner is going to receive his wages some day. God is going to drag every poor, wicked sinner out of Hell, stand him up and open the record books. You are going to give an account. You are going to face your life and your sins, what you did and what you wanted to do; what you could have done and didn't and all the people you have led wrong. - John R. Rice [Sweet Family Ties in Heaven and Hell, pg. 183-184]

In Ezra 10:9 we read: "Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered themselves together unto Jerusalem within three days. It was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month; and all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling because of this matter, and for the great rain."
You think it is hard to go to church if you have a cold. You think it is hard to go to church if it snows a little. They stood out in the open air in the rain and trembled over their sins. - John R. Rice [Sweet Family Ties in Heaven and Hell, pg. 185]

The right kind of preaching has to have enough of judgment and of righteousness and of self-control that men are conscious of their needs. We need more preaching on repentance. We need more preaching on sin and a whole lot more preaching on judgment. That is the kind of preaching that got results.
"I don't believe in scaring people," you say. Well, evidently you and the Lord Jesus don't see alike. You remember how He preached and said, "The rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments" (Luke 16:22, 23). That is the most terrible deathbed story I ever read. Jesus talked that way. - John R. Rice [Sweet Family Ties in Heaven and Hell, pg. 187-188]

Grateful hearts are important. That's why I thank Mrs. Rice nearly every day for a good meal. I thank her because I am happy and content, and I ought to be grateful. You, too, ought to be grateful for what you have. God gives so many, many gifts for which we ought to thank Him. Have you got anybody to love you? That's wonderful! Do you have daily food? That's wonderful! Did you rest last night? Good! Did you have a place out of the weather? Fine! You didn't have to sleep out in the park somewhere? Well, you should be grateful. - John R. Rice [Golden Moments with Dr. John R. Rice, pg. 168]

I tell you, God loves sinners, but God hates sin, and God is going to bring sin to judgment. And the preacher who doesn't preach judgment is dishonest. He is not true to the Bible; he is not true to his calling; he doesn't deal fairly with sinners. He is going to give an account for all the sinners that he lets go on smiling and happy and lets them go on to Hell reveling in the fact, "The preacher likes me and thinks I am o.k. if I do live like the Devil." No, we need more preaching that makes people tremble. - John R. Rice [Sweet Family Ties in Heaven and Hell, pg. 188]