Quotes by Vance Havner
Vance Havner (1901–1986) — Prediger · Baptistisch · USA
Vance Havner (1901–1986) war ein US-amerikanischer baptistischer Pastor, Buchautor und überregional tätiger Erweckungsprediger. Er wurde durch seinen bildhaften, aphoristischen Sprachstil bekannt und forderte in seinen Predigten kompromisslos persönliche Umkehr und geistliche Erneuerung, während er theologische Aufweichungen scharf kritisierte. Heutigen Bibellesern bieten seine prägnanten Zitate und Andachten pointierte Denkanstöße für eine entschiedene christliche Nachfolge.
Era: The 20th Century
Recurring topics: Discipleship, Church & Congregation, Witness & Mission, Growth & Character, Wisdom & Understanding, Grace & Redemption, Service & Love of Neighbour, Freedom & Truth
Quotes by Vance Havner
Worry, like a rocking chair, will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.
Vance Havner
A preacher should have the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child and the hide of a rhinoceros. His biggest problem is how to toughen his hide without hardening his heart.
Vance Havner
Many church members are starched and ironed but not washed.
Vance Havner
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.”
Vance Havner
If you lack knowledge, go to school. If you lack wisdom, get on your knees! Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is the proper use of knowledge.
Vance Havner
Some preachers ought to put more fire into their sermons or more sermons into the fire.
Vance Havner
The greatest friend of truth is time. Error is always in a hurry, but God’s man can afford to await the vindication of time. And if he is not vindicated in his own lifetime, eternity will settle the score.
Vance Havner
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
We are not bearing our crosses every time we have a headache; an aspirin tablet will take care of that. What is meant is the trouble we would not have if we were not Christians.
Vance Havner
The task of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Vance Havner
The temple of truth has never suffered so much from woodpeckers on the outside as from termites within.
Vance Havner
Popularity has slain more prophets of God than persecution ever did.
Vance Havner
The devil will let a man prepare a sermon if that will keep him from preparing himself.
Vance Havner
The primary qualification for a missionary is not love for souls, as we so often hear, but love for Christ.
Vance Havner
Where are the marks of the cross in your life? Are there any points of identification with your Lord? Alas, too many Christians wear medals but carry no scars.
Vance Havner
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
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.
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
Men love everything but righteousness and fear everything but God.
Vance Havner
The deader your gospel, the flashier your package.
Vance Havner
Too many are willing to sit at God’s table, but not work in his field.
Vance Havner
We need men of the cross, with the message of the cross, bearing the marks of the cross.
Vance Havner
We are the salt of the earth, not the sugar. Our ministry is truly to cleanse and not just to change the flavor.
Vance Havner
A wife who is 85% faithful to her husband is not faithful at all. There is no such thing as part-time loyalty to Jesus Christ.
Vance Havner
If you want to be popular, preach happiness. If you want to be unpopular, preach holiness.
Vance Havner
The thermometer of a church is its prayer meeting.
Vance Havner
Church members too often expect service and never think of giving it.
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
Many churches are like an ailing lung with only a few cells doing all the breathing. The real life of a church is in a few faithful people who keep it from being an animated corpse.
Vance Havner
Most church members live so far below the standard; you’d have to backslide to be in fellowship. We are so subnormal that if we were to become normal, people would think we were abnormal.
Vance Havner
No man or woman ever had a nobler challenge or a higher privilege than to bring up a child for God and whenever we slight that privilege or neglect that ministry for anything else, we live to mourn it in heartache and grief.
Vance Havner
The early Christians condemned false doctrine in a way that sounds almost unchristian today.
Vance Havner
Too many Christians are stuffing themselves with gospel blessings while millions have never had a taste.
Vance Havner
Taking it easy is often the prelude to backsliding. Comfort precedes collapse.
Vance Havner
The cause of Christ has been hurt more by Sunday-morning benchwarmers who pretend to love Christ, who call Him Lord but do not His commands, than by all the publicans and sinners. They say they are evangelical but not evangelistic. They glory in being… disciples of the Lowest Common Denominator. They traffic in unfelt truth and refuse to get excited over religion. Their ideal service is “a mild-mannered man standing before a group of mild-mannered people, exhorting everybody to be more mild-mannered”… How many nice, comfortable, lovely people rest smilingly in church pews, their conscience drugged, their wills paralyzed, in self-satisfied stupor, utterly unconscious of their danger while the Lord of the Lampstands warns them, “I am about to spit you out of My mouth.
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
We are here to preach that sin is black, hell is hot, judgment is certain, eternity is long, and salvation is by grace.
Vance Havner
I heard of a man who said to the preacher, “I want to sing in your choir.” The preacher replied, “But you don’t belong here. Where do you have your membership?” He said, “I don’t belong to any local church. I belong to the invisible church.” The pastor said, “Then I suggest that you join the invisible choir.”
Vance Havner
40 quotes in total — browse the collection.
Sources: wikipedia.org, sbcevangelist.org, substack.com, azquotes.com
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