Vance Havner Quotes

32 Sourced Quotes

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.

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

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

Vance Havner
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.

Vance Havner
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.

Vance Havner
We have always needed old people to keep things from going too fast and young people to keep them from going too slow. Youth has fire and age has light and we need both.

Vance Havner
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.

Vance Havner
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.

Vance Havner
Men love everything but righteousness and fear everything but God.

Vance Havner
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.

Vance Havner
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.

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

Vance Havner
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

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

Vance Havner
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.

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

Vance Havner
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
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
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.

Vance Havner
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.

Vance Havner
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
Where God guides He provides. He is not responsible for expenses not on His schedule. He does not foot the bill when we leave His itinerary.

Vance Havner
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.

Vance Havner
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.

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

Vance Havner
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.

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

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

Vance Havner
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
The same church members who yell like Comanche Indians at a ball game on Saturday sit like wooden Indians in church on Sunday.

Vance Havner