I had a letter from a young man: "Brother Rice, I am called to preach, and I have to get away and preach! I want to go to college. I have one problem, however. I owe $4,000. Now what shall I do? Shall I go on to college and just hope that some way in the future those debts will be cared for? What do you think?"
I said, "God doesn't want crooks preaching the Gospel. If you can't pay those debts honestly, then God won't help you hold a revival or build a church." - John R. Rice [Comments on 1st Thessalonians, pg. 22]
Day by day defraud nobody. Christians ought to pay their honest debts and have a good rapport with everybody. So he warns others not to defraud. [1 Th. 4:6] - John R. Rice [Comments on 1st Thessalonians, pg. 23]
Love Christians if they are not of your denomination? Yes. Love Christians if they haven't been baptized? Yes. Love Christians who may embrace some false doctrine? Every Christian is weak, and sinful, and nobody is perfect. We have to love people as we find them, then we can help them in doctrine and in life. We should indeed remember that Christians ought to love one another. - John R. Rice [Comments on 1st Thessalonians, pg. 23]
When Jesus comes in the air to receive His saints in the first phase of His second coming, at the rapture, we Christians who are alive will be changed and the Christian dead will be raised and we will all meet the Lord in the air. - John R. Rice [Comments on 1st Thessalonians, pg. 24]
What is the first thing we are to expect? Jesus to come and call us up to meet Him in the air. We do not know when that will be. " . .for ye know neither the day not the hour wherein the Son of man cometh."
We are talking about the Lord Himself, the literal, physical body of Jesus that rose from the dead, the body the disciples put their hands on, and heard talk, the body which are before them-that same Jesus is literally coming back. - John R. Rice [Comments on 1st Thessalonians, pg. 24]
What will happen [when Jesus comes back]? First, there will be a resurrection of the Christian dead. For He is going to bring back to get their bodies the spirits of those who are with Him in Heaven, and those alive shall be changed in a moment and caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. Oh, the sweet second coming! - John R. Rice [Comments on 1st Thessalonians, pg. 24]
Before I was hardly six, my mother went to be with the Lord. She went rejoicing. I stood by that open grave, along with my father who had his arms around two little boys and two little girls. A good woman held an umbrella over us when it began to rain. We looked down on that casket and said good-bye to our mother. Oh, but when Jesus comes, they will come with Jesus and their bodies will be raised up and we will meet the Lord in the air. - John R. Rice [Comments on 1st Thessalonians, pg. 25]
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