John R. Rice Quotes of the Week

Notice [in I Peter 1:10-12] these very prophets "who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you," inquired and searched diligently into their own prophecies, into the Scriptures they themselves had written, "searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." These prophets search their own writings, earnestly desiring to find out what the Holy Spirit meant when He, the Holy Spirit, testified through their pen of the first and second coming of Christ and such matters written down in the Bible!

These human writers knew (vs. 12), had it revealed to them from God, that they were simply agents ministering to us and not unto themselves the things which the Holy Ghost gave them to write down. - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 21]

The words of the Bible are God's words. Those who believe the Bible must believe in verbal inspiration. The only intelligent alternative is complete repudiation of the Bible -- infidelity; and yet that, God knows, is not very intelligent. - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 29-30]

There may be some things about the Bible you cannot explain. But your ignorance is a sorry excuse for criticizing the blessed Word of God. Other men, more devout than you, more scholarly than you, older in experience than you, greater soul winners than you, have been able to believe in the Bible. Do not let your youth or your ignorance or your pride or your friendship for modernists and unbelievers lead you into the terrible sin of adding to or taking from the words of the Bible. - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 34]

It ought to check your smirky complacency, your smug self-righteousness, to know that God sees your heart and that though your life may be beautiful like a white-washed sepulchre, He knows that inwardly you are full of iniquity, like the rotting flesh and crawling maggots in the tomb.

Unless you have been born again, unless you have been cleansed in the blood, you are a poor, wicked, Hell-deserving sinner like Paul. God is not impressed with your outward morality and self-righteous boasting. You see, God knows your sinful heart! - John R. Rice [Soul-Saving Sermons for Sinners, pg. 134]

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There is no judgment between death and Heaven for a Christian. There is up in Heaven a judgment seat of Christ where Christians will be rewarded according to their works. It is true that rewards will be different for different Christians, depending on how each lived, but the salvation question and the getting-to-Heaven question is already settled forever. Paul cried in in Romans 8:34, "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." I thank God that one can know he is going to Heaven. - John R. Rice

I confess that I seek no friendship of hypocrites who pretend to love the Lord Jesus, pretend to be Christians, and then deny every fundamental of the Christian Faith, and stab Christ in the back and try to wreck the faith of the young and innocent and ignorant. I say frankly that I am trying to be true to Christ; I am not especially striving for what you call "human civility." If I talk as the Lord Jesus talked about His detractors and deniers, it will not appear polite. If I pronounce the anathema that Paul pronounced on those untrue to Christ, I will not appear civil. If I follow the plain instructions (inspired of God) of the beloved Apostle John, I will not please infidels in the church, who want the friendship and the money of honest Christians while they deny the deity of Jesus Christ. - John R. Rice [Great Controversial Subjects Settled from the Bible, pg. 339]

Let it be understood also that I do not believe God has ever had more than one plan of salvation nor that He will have any other. Unsaved Jews who died without Christ are lost without remedy, just as is every other person who has died without Christ. The plan of salvation to be offered Jews through the tribulation time and afterward will be exactly the same as offered Jews and Gentiles today. - John R. Rice [Matthew, pg. 13-14]