Vance Havner quotes:

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 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.

When God's people are removed from this earth, you might as well try to dam up Niagara Falls with toothpicks as to stem the flood of lawlessness that will engulf mankind. Thank God for the restraining Spirit today!

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.

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 church is so subnormal that if it ever got back to the New Testament normal it would seem to people to be abnormal.

I'm tired of hearing sin called sickness and alcoholism a disease. It is the only disease I know of that we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to spread.

Too many church services start at eleven sharp and end at twelve dull.

There is great need today for the New Testament prophet who speaks to edification, exhortation, and comfort, a strengthening, stirring and soothing ministry.

Nothing is needed so much as a holy indignation against sin. It is true that there is not enough love for God, and one sign of it is that there is not enough hatred for sin.

Salvation is a helmet, not a nightcap.

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

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.

It is one of the ironies of the ministry that the very man who works in God's name is often hardest put to find time for God. The parents of Jesus lost Him at church, and they were not the last ones to lose Him there.

Our Lord approved neither idol worship or idle worship but ideal worship in Spirit and truth.

No life is great that does not point to Christ.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Men love everything but righteousness and fear everything but God.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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."

Many people are in a rut and a rut is nothing but a grave-with both ends kicked out.

We are the salt of the earth, mind you, not the sugar. Our ministry is to truly cleanse and not just to change the taste.

I preach on specific sins because people are not convicted by sermons on sin in general. It was when our Lord said to the Samaritan woman, 'Go call thy husband...' (John 4:16), that she really faced up to her sinfulness.

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

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

The devil will let a preacher prepare a sermon if it will keep him from preparing himself.

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

Somehow the idea has gotten around that it is unchristian to take a stand against heresy. Some of us need to read the New Testament again.

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

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!'

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

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.

It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish.

A deep and sober concern to please God is the rarest of rarities.

A picture of Christ was hung in the back of a pulpit. When the minister rose to speak one Sunday morning, a little boy asked his mother, 'Mother, who is that man who stands so we can't see Jesus?'

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Adam tried to hide behind the trees in the garden. There is only one tree that can hide us from Him and that is the tree of the cross.

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.

Another thing I liked about my Dad at church: he did his sleeping at home. He never used the church as an adult nursery.

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

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.

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."

Beware of being a religious poseur, trying to live up to a dramatized version of yourself.

Blessed is that Christian who can accept at the start by simple faith that which others reach only through years of questioning and reach it only then because they give up trying to analyze it and decide to accept it.

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

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.

Civilization today reminds me of an ape with a blowtorch playing in a room full of dynamite. It looks like the monkeys are about to operate the zoo, and the inmates are taking over the asylum.

Do not so contemplate eternity that you waste today.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

God's deepest secrets often miss the wise and prudent and are revealed unto babes. We say, "Children, be like your parents." Jesus said, "Parents, be like your children."

God's Word is its own best argument.

He who waits on God loses no time.

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

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

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.

I know that some are always studying the meaning of the fourth toe of the right foot of some beast in prophecy and have never used either foot to go and bring men to Christ. I do not know who the 666 is in Revelation but I know the world is sick, sick, sick and the best way to speed the Lord's return is to win more souls for Him.

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.

I suspect that much of our praying to be used is selfish, and underneath it is the sneaking desire to make our mark and be recognized.

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

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

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!

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

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.

If the fire of hell is not literal, it is worse than actual fire, and if the gates of the Celestial City are not actual gold, they are far finer.

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!

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

If you are what you've always been, you are not a Christian. A Christian is a new creation.

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

If you lack knowledge, go to school. If you lack wisdom, get on your knees.

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

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

If you would try out a preacher, send him to preach to farmers: if he cannot make the grade there, let him reconsider his call - or maybe he needs to be converted.

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.

I'm tied of hearing about temperance instead of abstinence, in order to please the cocktail crowd in church congregations.

In other days people chose a church on the basis of their doctrinal convictions. Now, lacking doctrinal convictions, they choose for social reasons.

It is a matter of whether one wants to get rich or be rich. We can be rich in Christ Jesus or perhaps get rich in Egypt, but we cannot do both.

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.

It is not our responsibility to make it acceptable; it is our duty to make it available.

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.

It is one thing to say Jesus is all you want; until He is all you have and you discover He is all you ever needed.

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

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

Jesus Christ demands more complete allegiance than any dictator who ever lived. The difference is, He has a right to it.

Jesus is all we have; he is all we need and all we want. We are shipwrecked on God and stranded on omnipotence!

Let it never be forgotten that, although we may do nothing about the Word we hear, the Word will do something to us. The same sun melts ice and hardens clay, and the Word of God humbles or hardens the human heart.

Life is like a grain of wheat: to plant it is to recognize its value; to keep it is to destroy its value. The 'planted' Christian counts life dear not unto himself but unto God.

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.

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.

Men seek fame and high places only to learn that they were happier in obscurity

More Bibles are bought and fewer read than any other book.

Most church members live so far below the standard, you would have to backslide to be in fellowship with them.

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

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

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

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

No nation can last long when it stops praying and takes up playing.

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

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