If someone charges that such preaching is old-fashioned, we gladly admit it. I have delivered only what I have received. If any be blessed through the messages, then the credit properly belongs to the Christ who shed the blood, to the God who gave the Book, and to the Holy Spirit who moves upon the hearts of men. - John R. Rice [What Must I Do to Be Saved?, pg. 7-8]
Jesus said, "And other sheep I have , which are not of this fold: them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd" (John 10:16). I say, "Lord Jesus, I am anxious to see those other sheep in Your fold. They are my brothers and sisters."
So whether they are black in skin, or yellow, or brown, or white--those who are born-again children are the children on my Father. And when I come to say, "My Father," I am acknowledging that I am part of a whole group of Christians whom I ought to love and count in the family. - John R. Rice [Great Lessons from the Sermon on the Mount, pg. 11]
"And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you." [1 Th. 5:12]
You ought to "know" those who labor among you and over you and admonish you in the Lord. The Lord says on this matter in Hebrews 13:7, "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation." Then verse 17, "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you." - John R. Rice [Comments on 1st Thessalonians, pg. 28]
Those who try to pry out signs of Christ's coming, whether they adduce their signs from falling meteors as did the Millerites, or from some manipulation of the figures in the book of Daniel, as have Seventh-Day Adventists and others sometimes, or from measurements of the Great Pyramid as have the British Israelites, or from wars, apostasy, and sin, are all mistaken. Jesus Christ plainly taught us that no one is to know the day nor the hour. People who look for such signs violate the plain intent of Deuteronomy 29:29. "The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." - John R. Rice [Matthew, pg. 392]
Little children cannot understand all the table talk of their elders, yet in enlightened homes children learn to sit nicely at the table, learn to eat quietly, and to be cheerful and happy in the fellowship of older people without disturbing the happiness of the family or embarrassing guests. Certainly the same principle obtains in the matter of public worship. Do not wait until the child understands all about theology, or can understand the discourse of the pastor before you take him to church. - John R. Rice [The Home, pg. 312]
Hell will certainly be hotter for some than for others. God always does right. We may be certain that a man who rejects Christ fifty years and with great enlightenment still resists God, will be punished more than a younger person. We may be certain that one who is reared in this enlightened land and hears the gospel all his life and then dies without Christ will find hell more terrible than a heathen savage who had only the enlightenment of the law written in his heart, that is, his conscience, and the evidence of nature around him that there is a God. Hell is the result of men's sins. Greater sin makes a more terrible hell for the sinner. - John R. Rice [What Must I Do to Be Saved?, pg. 89]
My last word is this: Don't you see that Pharaoh hardened his own heart? He hardened his heart about God, about the cries of little children, about poor, weeping mothers whom he had bereaved and torn their little ones from their arms. As the hard thud of whips fell on the backs of those he had enslaved, he hardened his heart toward their pain. God said, "All right, you like a hard heart. I will harden your heart Myself and let you be stubborn until I lead you out into the middle of the Red Sea, and then I will turn the water loose on you and I will show you." And God did. You had better not harden your heart. You had better listen to God tonight. You wise guys like Pharaoh, who will not listen to God-if He sends any trouble to you and pleads with you in mercy and goodness and kindness, He is giving you a chance. Are you ignoring it? You wise guys like Pharaoh, remember Proverbs 29:1 : "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." - John R. Rice, The Scarlet Sin, pg. 88-89]
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