John R. Rice Quotes & Sayings

It is far best for the Christian never to see some things, so he will never want them. The old-fashioned Christian who will not have playing cards in his house will never learn to gamble with them. One who never sees, in movies and night clubs or elsewhere, half-clothed girls, drinking, smoking, gambling, petting, making love to many men, is likely to miss being led into that kind of life by these sirens of sin. It is the Devil's game to make people think it necessary for people to know the ways of the world. — John R. Rice

We ought to shout out our thanksgiving as if every war were over; as if there were no more big taxes; as if there were no sickness, no crime. — John R. Rice

The best way to get rid of criminals is to stop raising them. — John R. Rice

Dear lost sinner, if you are a wicked sinner, yet you do not have to die and go to Hell forever. If you are a criminal or a harlot, a blasphemer, a drunkard, a convict, or a dope fiend, God does not want you to go to Hell. People do not go to Hell simply because they are sinners. Rather they go because they will not repent of their sins! If you today will confess your sins to God, and in your poor, helpless heart, will, as far as you know how, turn away from your sin, God will have mercy and will forgive and save. — John R. Rice

The Saviour said He was going to prepare us a place. How wonderful it will be is beyond human computation. Remember that in six days Christ made the heavens and earth and all that in them is ... If He made so many wonders in six days, then what beauties and marvels He has surely prepared during these 1900 years in which He has been preparing our mansions in the Father's House! — John R. Rice

God's people should be baptized because God commanded it, not because some church requires it. — John R. Rice

What a compelling motive we have for prayer, for preaching, for soul winning when we learn that every responsible human being who leaves this world without a definite change in heart immediately lifts his eyes in Hell, tormented in flame! — John R. Rice

Any time a Christian is conscious of his sin, judges the sin and takes sides against it with a penitent heart, then he has a perfect right to trust the Lord for instant, complete forgiveness and for perfect cleansing. — John R. Rice

No one can be a good Christian who does not with holy zeal set out to know, delight in, and live by the Word of God! — John R. Rice

No matter what a man's past may have been, his future is spotless. — John R. Rice

A Christian might drink only ginger ale at the tavern bar, but there he is already on the way to drinking beer and whiskey. The girl who attends a ball but never dances a step, will soon surrender her body to the lustful embrace of every casual male acquaintance as other dancers do. — John R. Rice

Prayer is asking; the answer to prayer is receiving. — John R. Rice

When you get saved, you get saved not because you deserve it, but because you simply let God save you and because you confess your own poor sinful state and your inability to save yourself. — John R. Rice

All Satan's Apples Have Worms. I do not deny that the Devil has some pretty apples; I just say that all of them are fakes and that after you bite into them, you will find they have worms. All Satan's apples have worms. — John R. Rice

I tell you, Heaven is a real, literal, physical place, a city as material, as physical, as literal as Chicago or London or New York or Tokyo. — John R. Rice

Let no preacher in a little church think that he has no audience for his message. An unseen audience of multitudes compass him about! Let no Christian who sins in the dark think that he is unobserved. He is compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses! Assuredly in Heaven they know what goes on on earth. — John R. Rice

The Christian who drinks cannot win his drinking companions to Christ. The girl who dances will never win her dancing boyfriend! You may think to gain favor and influence with the unsaved by joining with them in the lodge, or attending with them the movies, or by smoking or drinking or playing bridge with them, but you cannot! Worldliness means powerlessness! And that means that every Christian who sells out is guilty of the murder of the poor lost souls that go to Hell because he lost his influence. — John R. Rice

If you were enough like God, some one wouldn't like you. — John R. Rice

To keep the faith, run with the right crowd. — John R. Rice

You can't win everybody to the Lord, but you can always win somebody. — John R. Rice

People go wrong in their fellowships before they go wrong in their doctrine. — John R. Rice

Salvation is a free gift. — John R. Rice

The normal Christian life is a life of regular, daily answer to prayer. In the model prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray daily for bread, and expect to get it, and to ask daily for forgiveness, for deliverance from the evil one, and for other needs, and daily to get the answers they sought. — John R. Rice

And then the dear Lord will take us to the new earth, surrounded by the new Heaven, and the holy New Jerusalem will come down from God out of Heaven. Then we will have an end of pain and sorrow and crying and death. All these, thank God, will be forever done! And then God Himself will wipe away our tears. — John R. Rice

What kind of Christian are you? Did you ever lose a job, or lose a night's sleep, or lose a friend for God? If your Christianity never costs you a dollar, never cost you a friend, never cost any tears or broken heart, then can you really say that you love the Lord very much? To be a really good Christian is going to cost you. — John R. Rice

Those who go to Heaven ride on a pass and enter into blessings that they never earned, but all who go to hell pay their own way. — John R. Rice

The world never burned a casual Christian at the stake. — John R. Rice

Christian, that sin which first came between you and God is bad, but that is not the last step in the progress of sin. The most guilty part in this quadruple sin is to hide it, deny it, ignore it, refust to confess it, refuse to repent of it! — John R. Rice

If you surrender yourself, and do not rush, but meditate on the Word of God, you will find prayer forming in your heart. It is a prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit, a prayer that God will be pleased to hear. — John R. Rice

Any pleasure that would keep you from Christ is a sinful pleasure that will doubtless cause you anguish, heartache, tears and remorse. — John R. Rice

Multitudes of people who expect to go to Heaven will go to a Hell of torment. Thousands of "good" people, "moral" people, church members, even church workers - yes, and, alas, even prophets, priests and preachers - will find themselves lost when they expected to be saved, condemned when they expected approval, cast out of Heaven when they expected to be received into eternal bliss. That is the explicit meaning of the words of our Lord ... (see: Matt 7:21-23.] — John R. Rice

This world loses its appeal when the steps become tottering, when the hearing becomes dim, when the faded eyes cannot see as they once did. When loved ones are nearly all gone on ahead, then all the riches or fame or pleasures of this world are baubles and trash. — John R. Rice

It is a sad and shocking fact that many religious people are in Hell. — John R. Rice

I want no Christmas without a burden for lost souls, a message for sinners, a heart to bring in the lost sheep so dear to the Shepherd, the sinning souls for whom Christ died. — John R. Rice

Jesus Himself also said, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3:36). When you trusted Jesus Christ, He saved you. I will pray for you that you will believe God and quit depending on your feelings and emotions. It would be wrong for me to be praying for God to give you the kind of feeling you want. That is not the way we are to know we are saved. We know we are saved because God said it and we have faith to believe it. Faith takes God's Word as true and relies upon it. — John R. Rice

According to the Bible, a genuine answer to prayer is getting what you ask for. — John R. Rice

He that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. — John R. Rice

The best soulwinners are those who go when it is convenient and then go when it is not convenient. — John R. Rice

Present-Day Wickedness, Apostasy and Modern Civilization Cannot Prevent Revival. — John R. Rice

Sex appeal alone is the poorest basis in the world for a happy marriage. — John R. Rice

God doesn't send His children to Hell either. It's just the Devil's children that God sends to Hell. Why should God look after the Devil's children. — John R. Rice

You can never truly enjoy Christmas until you can look up into the Father's face
and tell him you have received his Christmas gift. — John R. Rice

When boiled down to its essence, unforgiveness is hatred. — John R. Rice

After one is right with God and pleases God, the next most important thing in all the world is to be right with one's own father and mother. — John R. Rice

Do you think that your sin is hidden away? Do you think that men will never know it? Well, you should remember that God knows it already. And you should remember, second, that sin continued in will inevitably come to light. Usually it will be exposed in this life. Certainly it will be exposed when you stand before God and God's record books are opened. That which is whispered in a corner shall be shouted from a housetop. God will bring every secret thing to judgment, we are told. What warning to our hearts! — John R. Rice