Top 211 Quotes & Sayings by Vance Havner - Page 3

The alternative to discipline is disaster

Plenty of church members are shaky about what they believe, while not many are shaken by what they believe.

I'm convinced that a large percentage of people that we call worldly Christians are perhaps not Christian to begin with and that may be the trouble.

Our Lord holds the keys to the doors of Christian service. You don't have to chase 'key men' around if you know the Keeper of the keys!

The early Christians condemned false doctrine in a way that sounds almost unchristian today.

We honor God by asking for great things when they are a part of His promise. We dishonor Him and cheat ourselves when we ask for molehills where He has offered mountains.

Today I am one day nearer Home than ever before.

We need to take down our "Do not disturb" signs... snap out of our stupor and come out of our coma and awake from our apathy.

We justify ourselves when we should judge ourselves. If we learned humility, it might spare us the humiliation.

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."

Simply wait upon Him. So doing, we shall be directed, supplied, protected, corrected, and rewarded.

I wouldn't cross the street to hear Ingersoll preach on the mistakes of Moses, but I'd love to hear Moses preach on the mistakes of Ingersoll!

Christ is most concerned with the direction in which you habitually are going and not with a spasmodic eruption either good or bad.

There are no trivial assignments in the work of the Lord.

The devil is in constant conspiracy against a preacher who really prays, for it has been said that what a minister is in his prayer closet is what he is, no more, no less.

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.

One of the greatest errors in the church today is the artificial distinction we have created between accepting Christ as Savior and confessing Him as Lord. We have made two experiences of it, but the New Testament makes them one.

A true preacher is best measured not by how many bouquets have been pinned on him but by how many brickbats have been pitched at him. Prophets have been on the receiving end of mud more than medals.

You always enter God's hospital as a charity patient. You can't pay your way.

I can conceive of no greater, more romantic and interesting adventure than to undertake to live like Jesus in this complicated day.

An old minister explained the smudges on his sermon outlines by saying they were caused by sweat and tears. And without those two marks, a sermon is not a sermon.

Do not so contemplate eternity that you waste today.

Any man who takes Jesus Christ seriously becomes the target of the devil. Most church members do not give Satan enough trouble to arouse his opposition

God's Word is its own best argument.

No amount of facts in his head can compensate for the lack of fire on his lips.

Make Jesus Christ your theme! I have seen preachers espouse causes and champion movements, and when the cause died and the movement collapsed, the preacher vanished too. But the man who glories in Christ never grows stale.

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

The devil's not fighting churches today, he's joining churches.

A mortician can make a dead man look better than he ever did when he was alive. So churches like Sardis may appear very much alive when they are dead in the sight of the Lord. God knows the difference.

A preacher who is too big for a little crowd would be too little for a big crowd.

We must live in all kinds of days, both high days and low days, in simple dependence upon Christ as the branch on the vine. This is the supreme experience

We are so prone to expect to become good Christians by some sudden experience that lifts us all at once to higher ground without the gradual climb. We forget that we are to "grow in grace" and that normal growth is not a matter of fits and starts.

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

Faith doesn't wait until it understands; in that case it wouldn't be faith.

The detour is always rougher than the main road

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

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

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

You have not really learned a commandment until you have obeyed it. The Church suffers today from Christians who know volumes more than they practice.

Revival is simply New Testament Christianity, the saints going back to normal.

Too many are not willing to give the Gospel a fair trial. They are too ignorant to speak wisely but not wise enough to speak ignorantly. A man is not a sinner because he is a skeptic; he is a skeptic because he is a sinner.

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

Faith has no value of its own, it has value only as it connects us with Him. It is a trick of Satan to get us occupied with examining our faith instead of resting in the Faithful One.

Most people would not want to live where there are no churches but many people live as though there were no churches.

Most of the notable turn out to be the not-able. God's greatest truths still belong to babes.

It is debatable which is causing us more harm - hot-headed ignorance or cold-hearted intellectualism.

One hour in heaven, and we shall be ashamed that we ever grumbled.

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.

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.

It is only the life that is lost for Him that is found in Him.

To the average professed Christian today, living so far below normal, New Testament Christianity would be a shock.

If the Lord tarries, there may yet be a grass-roots awakening that will overflow all sectarian barriers. There are a host of good people... who long for a visitation from heaven in old-time power. The kindling wood is scattered all round in all the churches. May God help us to rake off the ashes, uncover the live coals and may He blow upon us with the breath of His Spirit!

To build character of purpose and integrity is our high mark, and that cannot be done in a world where there are no adverse elements.

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

Humility is not thinking meanly of oneself, but rather it means not thinking of oneself at all.

One cannot help the evil thoughts that come, but it is the thoughts we cultivate that make the difference between good or evil. We don't have to open the door to the devil and say, "Make yourself at home."

We are suffering today from a species of Christianity as dry as dust, as cold as ice, as pale as a corpse, and as dead as King Tut. We are suffering not from a lack of correct heads but of consumed hearts.

Christmas is based on an exchange of gifts, the gift of God to man - His unspeakable gift of His Son, and the gift of man to God - when we present our bodies a living sacrifice.

No life is great that does not point to Christ.

People get so used to the dark that they think it's growing brighter. It's possible to fraternize with unbelievers until false doctrine becomes less and less objectionable.