Vance Havner famous quotes

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

#Soul #Missionary #Christ

Salvation is a helmet, not a nightcap.
-- Vance Havner

#Salvation #Helmet #Nightcap

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

#Christian #America #Eagles

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.
-- Vance Havner

#Blessed #Men #Faithful

I would just as soon listen to a gangster lecture on honesty as watch Hollywood portray the Bible.
-- Vance Havner

#Honesty #Hypocrite #Lectures

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.
-- Vance Havner

#Christian #Faces #Lord

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

#Christian #Real #Singing

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.'
-- Vance Havner

#Names #Sin #Spokes

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.
-- Vance Havner

#Christian #Poor #Places To Live

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.
-- Vance Havner

#People #Vision #Venture

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

#Christian #Together #Sticks

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.
-- Vance Havner

#Christian #Wise #Stress

God judges what we tolerate as well as what we practice. Too often we put up with things we ought to put out.
-- Vance Havner

#Christian #Practice #Judging

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.
-- Vance Havner

#Christian #Real #Smart

You haven't lost anything when you know were it is. Death can hide but not divide.
-- Vance Havner

#Death #Lost

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

#Christian #Church #March

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.
-- Vance Havner

#Christmas #Sacrifice #Son

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.
-- Vance Havner

#Prayer #Wrestling #Men

We have suffered from the preaching of cheap grace. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. People will take anything that is free, but they are not interested in discipleship. They will take Christ as Savior but not as Lord.
-- Vance Havner

#People #Grace #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.
-- Vance Havner

#Christian #New York #Mean

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.
-- Vance Havner

#Christian #Needs #Minorities

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

#Christian #Men #Mind

There is no devil in the first two chapters of the Bible and no devil in the last two chapters. Thank God for a book that disposes of the devil!
-- Vance Havner

#Book #Two #Devil

You can't preach it like it is if you don't believe it like it was.
-- Vance Havner

#Believe

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

#Men #Messages #Needs

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

#Dark #Thinking #People

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

#World

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

#Doe #Would Be #Sometimes

Too many are willing to sit at God’s table, but not work in his field.
-- Vance Havner

#Fields #Tables #Willing