R. A. Torrey Quotes

The reason why many fail in battle is because they wait until the hour of battle. The reason why others succeed is because they have gained their victory on their knees long before the battle came. Anticipate your battles; fight them on your knees before temptation comes, and you will always have victory.

We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.

When the devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees a whole church on its face before God in prayer, he trembles as much as he ever did, for he knows that his day in that church or community is at an end.

The chief purpose of prayer is that God may be glorified in the answer.

If we think of the Holy Spirit only as an impersonal power or influence, then our thought will constantly be, how can I get hold of and use the Holy Spirit; but if we think of Him in the biblical way as a divine Person, infinitely wise, infinitely holy, infinitely tender, then our thought will constantly be, 'How can the Holy Spirit get hold of and use me?'

Prayer that is born of meditation upon the Word of God is the prayer that soars upward most easily to God's listening ears.

If loving God with all our heart and soul and might is the greatest commandment, then it follows that not loving Him that way is the greatest sin.

All that God is, and all that God has, are at the disposal of player. Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent.

One of the commonest causes of failure in Christian life is found in the attempt to follow some good man whom we greatly admire. No man and no woman, no matter how good, can be safely followed. If we follow any man or woman, we are bound to go astray. There has been but one absolutely perfect Man on this earth-the Man Christ Jesus. If we try to follow any other man we are surer to imitate his faults than his excellencies. Look to Jesus and Jesus only as your Guide.

Oh, men and women, pray through; pray through! Do not just begin to pray and pray a little while and throw up your hands and quit; but pray and pray and pray until God bends the heavens and comes down.

I would rather win souls than be the greatest king or emperor on earth; I would rather win souls than be the greatest general that ever commanded an army; I would rather win souls than be the greatest poet, or novelist, or literary man who ever walked the earth. My one ambition in life is to win as many as possible.

The devil is perfectly willing that the Church should multiply its organization and its deftly contrived machinery for the conquest of the world for Christ, if it will only give up praying... Satan laughs softly, as he looks at the Church today, and says under his breath: "You can have your Sunday schools, your YMCAs...your grand choirs, and your fine organs, and your brilliant preachers...as long as you do not bring into them the power of Almighty God, sought and obtained by earnest, persistent, believing, mighty prayers."

The truly wise man is he who believes the Bible against the opinions of any man. If the Bible says one thing, and any body of men says another, the wise man will decide, "This book is the Word of him who cannot lie".

Those persons who know the deep peace of God, the unfathomable peace that passeth all understanding, are always men and women of much prayer.

The Devil is perfectly willing that the church should multiply its organizations and its deftly contrived machinery for the conquest of the world for Christ, if it will only give up praying...The Devil is not afraid of machinery; he is only afraid of God. And machinery without prayer is machinery without God.

Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God's. . .grace and power.

We must always bear in mind that the primary purpose of our work is not to get people to join a church, to give up their bad habits, or to do anything other than to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Pray for great things, expect great things, work for great things, but above all pray.

Every Christian who does not study, really study, the Bible every day is a fool.

The Spirit, when He prays through us, or helps us to meet the mighty "ougthness" of right praying, trims our praying down to the will of God.

Any church may have a mighty man of God for its pastor, if it is willing to pay the price, and that price is not a big salary, but great praying.

There must be, in any complete revelation of God's mind and will and character and being, things hard for the beginner to understand; and the wisest and best of us are but beginners.

Triumphant prayer is almost impossible where there is neglect of the study of the Word of God.

Out of a very intimate acquaintance with D.L. Moody, I wish to testify that he was a far greater pray-er than he was preacher.

The truly wise man is he who always believes the Bible against the opinions of any man.

God has not changed; and His ear is just as quick to hear the voice of real prayer, and His hand is just as long and strong to save; as it ever was.

Do not study commentaries, lesson helps or other books about the Bible: study the Bible itself. Do not study about the Bible, study the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God, and only the Bible is the Word of God.

To win men to acceptance of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord is the only reason Christians are left in this world.

If we would pray aright, the first thing we should do is to see to it that we really get an audience with God, that we really get into His very presence. Before a word of petition is offered, we should have the definite consciousness that we are talking to God, and should believe that He is listening and is going to grant the thing that we ask of Him.

God's Word is pure and sure, in spite of the devil, in spite of your fear, in spite of everything.

The life of entire surrender is a joyous life all along the way.

It is of the highest importance from the standpoint of experience that we know the Holy Spirit as a person.

Those who truly believe on Jesus Christ are saved from all fear.

We are not saved by denying self, or taking up our cross, or doing anything else, we are saved by simply believing in Jesus.

Out of a very intimate acquaintance with D. L. Moody, I wish to testify that he was a far greater pray-er than he was preacher. Time and time again, he was confronted by obstacles that seemed insurmountable, but he always knew the way to overcome all difficulties. He knew the way to bring to pass anything that needed to be brought to pass. He knew and believed in the deepest depths of his soul that nothing was too hard for the Lord, and that prayer could do anything that God could do.

We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power.

There are two ways of reaching the people. One way is to invite them to come to you, the other way is to go to them.

Every true revival from that day to this has had its earthly origin in prayer.

I prayed fifteen years for the conversion of my oldest brother. When he seemed to be getting further and further away from any hope of conversion, I prayed on.

It is clear that there must be difficulties for us in a revelation such as the Bible. If someone were to hand me a book that was as simple to me as the multiplication table and say, “This is the Word of God; in it He has revealed His whole will and wisdom,” I would shake my head and say, “I cannot believe it; that is too easy to be a perfect revelation of infinite wisdom.” There must be, in any complete revelation of God's mind and will and character and being, things hard for the beginner to understand; and the wisest and best of us are but beginners.

Ninety-nine Christians in every hundred are merely playing at Bible study; and therefore ninety-nine Christians in every hundred are mere weaklings, when they might be giants, both in their Christian life and in their service.

I am ready to meet God face to face tonight and look into those eyes of infinite holiness, for all my sins are covered by the atoning blood.

Cultivate prompt, exact, unquestioning, joyous obedience to every command that it is evident from its context applies to you. Be on the lookout for new orders from your King. Blessing lies in the direction of obedience to them. God's commands are but signboards that mark the road to present success and blessedness and to eternal glory.

Every type of destruction that human philosophy, human science, human reason, human art, human cunning, human force, and human brutality could bring to bear against this Book, and yet the Bible stands absolutely unshaken today. At times almost all the wise and great of the earth have been pitted against the Bible, and only an obscure few for it. Yet it has stood.

I would rather go to heaven alone than go to hell in company.

Prayer can do anything that God can do.

We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God, because they must seem small to Him who sitteth on the circle of the earth. But if they are large enough to vex and endanger our welfare, they are large enough to touch His heart of love. For love does not measure by a merchant's scales, not with a surveyor's chain. It hath a delicacy... unknown in any handling of material substance.

The one who is truly born again will love the Word of God.

Wealth, honors, pleasures, is not so eagerly to be desired as the forgiveness of our sins.

For eighteen centuries every engine of destruction that human science, philosophy, wit, reasoning or brutality could bring to bear against a book has been brought to bear against that book to stamp it out of the world, but it has a mightier hold on the world today than ever before. If that were man's book it would have been annihilated and forgotten hundreds of years ago.