Vance Havner Quotes

If you see a Bible that is falling apart, it probably belongs to someone who isn't!

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.

If we don't come apart; we will come apart.

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!'

I would say to today's young minister, 'Be not afraid to give much time to solitary walks and meditation'.

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

Some missionaries bound for Africa were laughed at by the boat captain. 'You'll only die over there,' he said. But a missionary replied, 'Captain, we died before we started.'

Worse than blind leaders of the blind are bland leaders of the bland.

God's Word is its own best argument.

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.

Progress is a farce because man's head and hand have created wonders that stun the imagination, but his heart does not keep step and his morals undo all that his mind has wrought.

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

Not everyone who has made peace with God has realized the peace of God.

Too many Christians live their Christian lives inside their heads; it never gets out through hands and feet and lips.

Too many Christians are stuffing themselves with gospel blessings while millions have never had a taste.

What we love usually manages to get into our conversation. What is down in the well of the heart will come up in the bucket of the speech.

If the church would only be the church- if Christians would only be Christians- nothing could halt our onward march.

God knows His own. It is well that He does, for sometimes it would be difficult for us to determine who are His!

The last word of our Lord to the church was not the Great Commission. The last thing He said to the church was 'Repent.' He said that to five out of seven.

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

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

God is on the lookout today for a man who will be quiet enough to get a message from Him, brave enough to preach it, and honest enough to live it.

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.

The alternative to discipline is disaster

God has a place and purpose for you, somewhere for you to be and something for you to do. You never will be happy elsewhere, nor can you please God anywhere but there.

The temple of truth has never suffered so much from woodpeckers on the outside as from termites within.

I have often been reminded of the wild duck that came down on migration into a barnyard and liked it so well that he stayed there. In the fall his erstwhile companions passed overhead and his first impulse was to rise and join them, but he had fed too well and could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. The day came when his old fellow travelers could pass overhead without his even hearing their call. I have seen men and women who once mounted up with wings like eagles but are now content to live in the barnyard of this world.

If you can't pray as you want to, pray as you can. God knows what you mean.

We need to be preaching a dynamic Gospel and living firecracker lives.

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.

Every Christian is a priest, not offering a sacrifice for sins - since that has been done once and for all - but offering his person, praise and possessions.

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

We are not to be isolated but insulated, moving in the midst of evil but untouched by it.

It's hard to be optimistic when you have a misty optic.

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.

It is not that God is stingy and must be coaxed, for He "giveth liberally and upbraideth not." It is that we ourselves are so shallow and sinful that we need to tarry before Him until our restless natures can be stilled and the clamor of outside voices be deadened so that we can hear His voice. Such a state is not easily reached, and the men God uses have paid a price in wrestlings and prevailing prayer. But it is such men who rise from their knees confident of His power and go forth to speak with authority.

A soft and sheltered Christianity, afraid to be lean and lone, unwilling to face the storms and brave the heights, will end up fat and foul in the cages of conformity.

Nobody in pulpit or pew needs a revival more than a bitter-spirited fundamentalist with his dispensations right and his disposition wrong.

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

If the devil cannot keep you from being saved, if next he fails to make you backslide, then he undertakes to keep you just an average Christian. Here he succeeds with most believers.

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.

The only way to meet the modern demon-stration of the powers of darkness is by a demonstration of the power of God.

No life is great that does not point to Christ.

The man who sets out to live the life worthwhile-to follow his vision and speak his heart-need not look for position, honors, prosperity.

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.

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. We are plainly told in the Scriptures that in the last days men will not endure sound doctrine and will depart from the faith and heap to themselves teachers to tickle their ears. We live in an epidemic of this itch, and popular preachers have developed “ear-tickling” into a fine art.

Before we can strengthen believers or win the lost, we must be converted from the self-life to the Christ-life. . . "Not I, but Christ."

Because the Lord loves us He chastens and rebukes us. Modern sentimentality has reduced God to a tolerant indulgent grandfatherly being who winks at our transgressions.