24 Vance Havner Quotes

The church is a hospital for sinners, and not a museum for saints.

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.

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.

The task of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

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.

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.

If you want to be popular, preach happiness. If you want to be unpopular, preach holiness.

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.

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

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.

The alcoholic commits suicide on the installment plan.

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.

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.

You can't tell it like it is, if you don't believe it like it was.

The social gospelers are so obsessed with this-worldliness that other-worldliness (is) laughed at, and next-worldliness is rated low. It is as though it were sinful to talk about heaven on earth. Thank God, there is still a band of us pilgrims who have gotten out, who are going on, and who are happy to be getting home.

The hope of dying is the only thing that keeps me alive.

Salvation is a helmet, not a nightcap.

Our Lord said, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." It is evident, then, that a true disciple is a soul-winner. It is possible to sit on the shore discussing the signs of the times when we ought to be driven by the signs of the times to launch out into the deep and let down our nets for a draught.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Men love everything but righteousness and fear everything but God.

Our Lord sent His disciples out as sheep among wolves; now the wolves are being invited into the sheepfold.