A sermon from a Catholic Bible.. by John R Rice

Compassion is the word and if you ever saw him give an invitation then you know that the words he spoke alone do not do it justice. I never saw him give an invitation without tears. In his presence you knew that this was one man why realy cared for the lost, and no matter how many people were in the room he left you feeling like he really cared about you. And you know what, it was not some kind of mind game or trick he could play to 'make' people come to Christ. I think it seemed like he cared so much because he really did.

I for one think he would be shocked with the calloused hearts of many modern fundamentalists.

Do you really want to reach the lost for Christ? If you do pray for a broken heart like John Rice had.

What do you think John of Japan?

 

Not JofJ here, but I remember Dr Rice well. So much of modern fundamentalism has nothing to do with the fundamentalism I was saved into. Sure there were standards and such, but there was a compassion that is rare today.

 

I pray to have a broken heart like Jesus did over sinners.

Some, and I didn't say I do, think Rice had a lot of charisma.

 

Yep, we IFBer's didn't have mcuh compassion on the different races like they "did" back then.

Whatta farce!

I preach to 30-60 black kids every Sunday. I don't know of many in days go by that preached to blacks that often unless they were black!

 

And yet today so many IFBers will split hairs over the tiniest issues. Dr Rice was not perfect, but he could teach us a lot.

 

I don't exactly know how far you are going back, I can only go back to the 70's. When I knew John Rice he was already quite advanced in age but was this a problem for him earlier? All the IFB churches I knew had vast outreach and bussing programs that reached thousands of kids, most of them of minority races. In my church today, which is SBC, our newest and most exciting outreach programs are those to spanish speakers. I may just be younger and ignorant on this matter but I thought most IFB churches of old were mixed racially, at least more mixed than other churches.

Now I do remember having swap a pastor days with churches that were mostly black in the Atlanta area when I lived there. The bottom line was that a family might come to our majority white church and get saved but often ended up members of a church where they were not a minority. I never had a problem with that. While I have visited and preached at churches that were 90% plus black I dont know that I would be comfortable or effective as pastor or member there. It is not that I don't love them and share a lot with them they just have different traditions and the style of worship is different.

 

I can't speak for sure on Dr. Rice nor any other person, but I recall many a white pastor working with the black pastors in helping them. R. G. Lee in Memphis was know for that, when he was president of the SBC he had the head of one of the black Baptist groups speak at the SBC meeting, showing the red, Christ's blood and the black and white of brothers and sisters in Christ. Many IFB churches worked with the black churches in their town. Dr. Lee in Chattanooga help start a black Christian school, which is part of U of Chattanooga( or is it called UT at Chattanooga today) today. In a segregated society of the day, that was taking steps, find fault but I'm sure he caught heat for that. As close as he and Dr. Rice were, I'm sure it must not have been new to him.

 

Speaking of the Catholic Bible...I led someone to the Lord with their own Catholic Bible.

I used the Roman's Road at that time, and she was astonished that our two Bibles had the same verses in them!

John R. Rice certainly had a heart for soulwinning and I don't think it was the color of the skin, but rather the color of the sin that he was concerned with. To him, a soul was a soul, the skin color didn't matter, as far as I know.

 

From the time I got saved in 1974 I was involved with IFB churches that reached out to minority kids on buses and we always tried to get parents to come.

To imply that the IFB n in the 60s-70s was racist is uncalled for.

 

Thanks to Tim for starting this thread. The wife and I just got back from a bunch of business, and I just now noticed this thread.

I preached this morning on revival, since we are having special meetings in November. Revival is the missing element in the Fundamentalist movement today. John R. Rice was the greatest advocate of true revival in the 20th century, in my view. He often preached on the power of God, the fullness of the Holy Spirit and revival. He believed that a preacher should not pray down revival, but should have it with him based on the fullness of the Holy Spirit. He based this, among other passages, on Rom. 15:29. And I am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ."

Would that someone, anyone in America today would get the heart for revival that John R. Rice had. We don't need more political involvement, or anti-abortion demos, or more up-to-date methods. We need revival. All other efforts are simply bandaids on the massive wound that is America's lack of true revival. Modern Fundamentalists are hung up on everything but the power of God, it seems to me.

Concerning John R. Rice and racial issues, he was a product of his times, in many ways. Therefore, he would be politically incorrect according to many nowadays. My brother has written a book about his relationship with Grandad that will be pretty stormy in some ways, since my brother was a radical leftist activist on this issue back in the 1970's. But my brother will also say one thing in the book, and that is that John R. Rice always had compassion for people of other races.

He was time close friends with black Gospel singer Elbert Tindley, who often sang in his revival meetings during the 1940’s. Once when Granddad took the family and Elbert into an ice cream parlor, the owner refused to serve him because of his race. Granddad stormily took the family out, telling the owner he would not be back until the policy was changed.

His famous tract, "What Must I do to Be Saved?" was translated into over 40 languages and has seen over 20 million distributed in those languages around the world. He visited Japan twice and loved the Japanese. To my knowledge he paid for a young Jamaican black man to come to school in America for training as a preacher, after which the young man went back to Jamaica to preach.

 

You've described him well, friend. If people who oppose the public invitation could only have seen him give an invitation with that great compassion, and the tears on his face, they might change their minds. And if some who give shallow, forced invitations today would get their hearts right, they would see real revival. He believed that any preacher who could preach on Hell without tears was backslidden.

It was an eye-opening experience to pray with John R. Rice. He didn't believe in prayer lists. He believed in simply praying for everyone you could think of. If you could recall their name you should pray for them, he believed. I once counted as he prayed for over 100 people by name and need. Would that we had that compassion today! Revival would come.

 

I've never thought of him as having charisma, but then I can't evaluate something like that since I grew up as his grandson. If he had charisma, that still doesn't explain how God used him. He believed fully in the power of the Holy Spirit and compassion for the lost, and that is what drove him, not the effect of his personality. He was the most genuine person I've ever known, exactly the same in private as in public.

 

:thumbs: Thanks for this thread. It is inspiring to see the legacy that John Rice left behind and seeing some of the products of that legacy in JoJ and his work. Praise our amazing God!

 

In Tennessee as in other places especially in the South, we have the custom of a wake before the funeral. During the middle of the night I sat there with Granddad's body for about an hour thinking about his legacy. I prayed for the Lord to use me as he used Granddad. However, God has put me in a completely different type of ministry as a missionary in a Gospel-resistant country rather than an evangelist in America.

In my ministry I've seen only a tiny fraction of the souls God used him to save. However, one thing I learned from Granddad is that each of us must follow God's will for himself or herself. God doesn't have a cookie cutter to turn out believers with. As I said recently on another thread, while he was considering who would follow him as editor of the Sword of the Lord, he told me, "Johnny, God doesn't ordain ministries, He ordains men."

After my schooling I worked at the Sword for almost a year, and that was like another year of seminary to me and has affected my ministry to this day. Granddad wanted me to stay and continue to work with him, but God had other plans. I'm far happier here planting a tiny church in the middle of God's will in Japan than I would have been working in a super church or other large ministry in America. God's will is always best.

 

I need to remind myself to do a "Find all posts" of JoJ the next time I feel frustrated with baptist board and Christians in general. :thumbs:

 

Careful, my head is starting to....

Seriously, join me on the Missions/Evangelism thread to talk about kinds of evangelism. :wavey: