So sin grieves the Spirit. That means the Holy Spirit may be living in your body and makes all the promises true about you, but you don't know much about it.
That is like a woman I knew years ago. She was married to a poor, drunken, wicked, profane man. She lived in the same house with him and cooked his meals, but didn't have fellowship with him. She told me one time weeping, "I'm a Christian and I'm going to stay with him; I won't break up the home; but, how long! How long!"
Don't you suppose the Holy Spirit who lives in the same house with you sometimes says, "This fellow has no love for me"? So the Holy Spirit lives in the same house with you and in your body, but He doesn't get His way. He doesn't get all the attention. He doesn't get to lad you. You don't listen to Him talk.
So a Christian, rebuked by the Spirit, might come to feel, "Oh, I'm not saved," when actually you grieved the Spirit. - John R. Rice [Golden Moments with Dr. John R. Rice, pg. 277]
Oh, let us all make a new start. Here is a wonderful thing. The Bible promise is very sweet and clear, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Any kind of new vow for the new year must involve some sense of sorrow for any failure in the past, and some honest confession to God of that failure and sin. Then when we confess it, drop it. It is forgiven. It is marked off. It is held against you no more. Not only does Jesus forgive, but He cleanses from all unrighteousness. - John R. Rice [The Best News One Ever Heard: A Saviour Is Born!, pg. 36]
Another thing that burns in our heart as we consider how awfully serious, how important, how urgent it is that men get saved, is that death presses upon us on every side.
I have twice lingered at the gates of death. Once with a fractured skull, in 1956, and again in March, 1978, when I went to the hospital with a heart attack. What a fool I would be if I should presume and make great plans for the future without considering that I have only this present breath, maybe part of this day, and it may be at any time no more! - John R. Rice [Was Pope John I a Born-Again Christian?, pg. 42]
Are you going to be a good Christian this year and set out to make yours a Christian home, with the Bible and prayer. The communists don't like the Bible. They don't have it in the schools. Well, wicked people have put it out of American schools, and a lot of you people didn't care because you don't have it in your homes, either.
But why be like a communist, or like an infidel, or like a heathen? Believe the Bible and love the Lord. Have the Bible in your home. Teach it diligently. Talk about it all the time. Teach it to your children! You are not going to be a good Christian if you don't do that. - John R. Rice [Victory in 1975, pg. 23]
The person of Christ and the doctrine of Christ in the Bible are inescapably connected. There is no Christ but the Christ of the Bible. There is no saving doctrine of Christ except the Bible doctrine about the person, life, atoning death, and resurrection of Jesus. One who does not believe the Bible doctrine about Christ does not have Christ and is not saved. The saving Gospel is involved in the Bible teaching about Christ and the fact that He died as God's atoning Lamb for us sinners. - John R. Rice [Golden Path of Successful Personal Soul Winning [pg. 170-171]
Are you going to be a good Christian this year and set out to make yours a Christian home, with the Bible and prayer? The communists don't like the Bible. They don't have it in the schools. Well, wicked people have put it out of American schools, and a lot of you people didn't care because you don't have it in your homes, either.
But why be like a communist, or like an infidel, or like a heathen? Believe the Bible and love the Lord. Have the Bible in your home. Teach it diligently. Talk about it all the time. Teach it to your children! You are not going to be a good Christian if you don't do that. - John R. Rice [Victory in 1975, pg. 23]
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