Vance Havner Quotes

Paul was not ignorant of Satan's devices, but we are not so wise. Among his most successful devices today are these: exalting tolerance above truth; emphasizing the head more than the heart; making size more important than sort; stressing the positive to the neglect of the negative; putting happiness above holiness; majoring on this world instead of the next.

Christians, like snowflakes, are frail, but when they stick together they can stop traffic.

At the rate America is decaying morally, we shall have to change our national symbol from an eagle to a vulture.

The devil is not fighting religion. He´s too smart for that. He is producing a counterfeit Christianity, so much like the real one that good Christians are afraid to speak out against it.

Satan is not fighting churches; he is joining them. He does more harm by sowing tares than by pulling up wheat. He accomplishes more by imitation than by outright opposition.

It is not our business to make the message acceptable, but to make it available. We are not to see that they like it, but that they get it.

A preacher should have the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros. His problem is how to toughen his hide without hardening his heart.

Many people have the right aim in life, they just never get around to pulling the trigger. The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps -- we must step up the stairs.

If you are a Christian, you are not a citizen of this world trying to get to heaven; you are a citizen of heaven making your way through this world.

The preacher who is concerned with gaining a reputation, rising in his profession, is always in bondage. The itch for bigness is a dangerous thing. It has made a castaway of many a man whom God once richly blessed. A man should desire to be neither larger nor smaller than pleases God. Better than that, he should not bother at all about how large or how small but rather how faithful he shall be.

Salt seasons, purifies, preserves. But somebody ought to remind us that salt also irritates. Real living Christianity rubs this world the wrong way.

The primary qualification for a missionary is not love for souls, as we so often hear, but love for Christ.

I remember when the Titanic sank in 1912, it was the ship that was supposed to be unsinkable. The only thing it ever did was sink. When it took off from England, all kinds of passengers were aboard - millionaires, celebrities, people of moderate means, and poor folks down in the steerage. But a few hours later when they put the list in the Cunard office in New York, it carried only two categories - lost and saved. Grim tragedy had leveled all distinctions.

People used to blush when they were ashamed. Now they are ashamed if they blush. Modesty has disappeared and a brazen generation with no fear of God before its eyes mocks at sin. We are so fond of being called tolerant and broadminded that we wink at sin when we ought to weep.

Salvation is a helmet, not a nightcap.

If they had a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody would have given him a bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone home.

The middle of the road is a poor place to walk. It is a poor place to drive. It is a poor place to live.

Our efficiency without God's sufficiency is only a deficiency.

When a man makes alliance with the Almighty, giants look like grasshoppers.

We are not going to move this world by criticism of it nor conformity to it, but by the combustion within it of lives ignited by the Spirit of God.

Don't ever come to church without coming as though it were the first time, as though it could be the best time, and as though it could be the last time.

He who waits on God loses no time.

One man with a genuine experience with God is worth more than a library full of arguments.

What we live is what we believe. Everything else is just so much religious talk.

The gospel is for lifeboats, not showboats, and a man must make up his mind which boat he is going to operate.

Abraham did not know where he was going immediately, but he knew where he was going ultimately. He did not know the Whither but he knew the Whom. He believed God, and, being sure of his destiny, he did not worry about his destination.

No man can be a Christian by knowingly and willfully taking Christ on the installment plan, as Savior now, and Lord later.

What our Lord said about cross-bearing and obedience is not in fine type. It is in bold print on the face of the contract.

The Word of God is either absolute or obsolete.

The tragedy of today is that the situation is desperate but the saints are not.

The thermometer of a church is its prayer meeting.

We need men of the cross, with the message of the cross, bearing the marks of the cross.

Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, "shake well before using." That is what God has to do with some of His people. He has to shake them well before they are ever usable.

A revival is the church falling in love with Jesus Christ all over again.

There is a trend today that would put a new robe on the prodigal son while he is still feeding hogs. Some would put the ring on his finger while he still in the pigsty. Others would paint the pigsty and advocate bigger and better hog pens.

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be on the Lordship of Christ. When we get right on that point we are right all down the line. God honors the exaltation of His Son.

We may never be martyrs but we can die to self, to sin, to the world, to our plans and ambitions. That is the significance of baptism; we died with Christ and rose to new life.

We need a dedicated minority who, like the apostles of old, are willing to be called the scum of the earth and a spectacle to the world for the scandal of the cross.

When the Lord's white sheep become dirty gray, all black sheep feel more comfortable.

Men love everything but righteousness and fear everything but God.

Real revival does not begin with joyous singing. It begins with conviction and repentance on the part of Christians.

There was a time when ministers spoke forthrightly and named things. We don't name anything anymore. Finney had a sermon on How to Preach so as to Convert Nobody. He said 'Preach on sin but never mention any of the sins of your congregation - that will do it.'

God isn't a talent scout looking for someone who is "good enough" or "strong enough." He is looking for someone with a heart set on Him, and He will do the rest.

Taking it easy is often the prelude to backsliding. Comfort precedes collapse.

A wife who is 85 percent faithful to her husband is not faithful at all. There is no such thing as part-time loyalty to Jesus Christ.

We are fighting the greatest battle of all time with the most untrained army on earth. If strict discipline is necessary in art and athletics, how can we expect to be advanced Christians and stay in kindergarten?

Revival precedes evangelism. The church must first repent. This is the blind spot in our eye today.

Some ministers preach from notes and some don't. They have argued about it for centuries. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. Two Welsh preachers were on their way to a meeting. One noticed that the other carried written outlines. 'Ah,' he remonstrated, 'you cannot carry fire on paper.' 'True,' replied his companion, 'but you can use paper to start a fire!'

If you stand on the Word, you do not stand with the world.

People get so used to the dark that they think it is growing brighter.