Havner Quotes & Sayings

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!' — 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

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. — Vance Havner

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

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

The first step towards the evangelizing of the world is the christianizing of the church. — Vance Havner

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

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

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. — Vance Havner

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. — Vance Havner

Satan does some of his worst work on exhausted Christians when nerves are frayed and the mind is faint. — Vance Havner

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

One cannot help the evil thoughts that come, but it is the thoughts we cultivate that make the difference between good or evil. We don't have to open the door to the devil and say, "Make yourself at home." — Vance Havner

Plenty of church members are shaky about what they believe, while not many are shaken by what they believe. — 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

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

The Word of God is either absolute or obsolete. — Vance Havner

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

There are many who say they want to be victorious Christians, but few are willing to endure the discipline necessary to make one a good solider of Jesus Christ. There is a prize to possess, but before we possess it there is a price to be paid, and few will pay it. — Vance Havner

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

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

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. — Vance Havner

It used to be called the Lord's Day, now it is the weekend and if we group all holidays on weekends the devil will have scored another move against Sunday worship. — 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

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. — 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

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

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. — Vance Havner

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

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. — Vance Havner

When Christ possesses the will He keeps it fixed. The trouble comes when we take matters out of His hand and try to handle them ourselves. — Vance Havner

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

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. — Vance Havner

What we live is what we believe. Everything else is just so much religious talk. — Vance Havner

No life is great that does not point to Christ. — Vance Havner

When we are weakest and most despondent, Jesus is most considerate. When there is a break in our progress or we have a spell of depression, he sees the whole of our lives and in the light of that He is longsuffering with discordant details. — Vance Havner

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

What we love usually manages to get into our conversation. What is down in the well of the heart will come up in the bucket of the speech. — Vance Havner

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

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

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

We need to take down our "Do not disturb" signs ... snap out of our stupor and come out of our coma and awake from our apathy. — Vance Havner

Men love everything but righteousness and fear everything but God. — 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

You have not really learned a commandment until you have obeyed it. The Church suffers today from Christians who know volumes more than they practice. — Vance Havner

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

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. — Vance Havner

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! — 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

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

God saved us to make us holy, not happy. Some experiences may not contribute to our happiness, but all can be made to contribute to our holiness. Vance Havner
The destined end of man is not happiness, nor health, but holiness. God's one aim is the production of saints. — Oswald Chambers

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. — Vance Havner

We've learned how to lengthen life, but we don't know how to deepen it. — Vance Havner

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

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. — Vance Havner

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

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. — Vance Havner

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

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. — Vance Havner

It is better to wake up five hundred Christians than to convert five hundred sinners, for if five hundred Christians really wake up, they will win more than five hundred sinners. — Vance Havner

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

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

What gives the Word of God authority is simply the fact that it is the word of God! — Vance Havner

God's Word is its own best argument. — Vance Havner

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

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. — Vance Havner

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. — Vance Havner

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. — Vance Havner

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

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

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. — Vance Havner

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

The thermometer of a church is its prayer meeting. — 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

Progress is a farce because man's head and hand have created wonders that stun the imagination, but his heart does not keep step and his morals undo all that his mind has wrought. — Vance Havner

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. — Vance Havner

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. — Vance Havner

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

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. — Vance Havner

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

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

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

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

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. — Vance Havner

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

When I pastored a country church, a farmer didn't like the sermons I preached on hell. He said, Preach about the meek and lowly Jesus. I said, That's where I got my information about hell. — 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

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

The preacher who jests and jokes with his people all week will soon find that he cannot stand in his pulpit on Sunday with power to reprove, rebuke and exhort. He may be the life of the party but it will be the death of the prophet. — Vance Havner

There never has been a culture since this world began in which a New Testament Christian could feel at home. — Vance Havner

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

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

We are so prone to expect to become good Christians by some sudden experience that lifts us all at once to higher ground without the gradual climb. We forget that we are to "grow in grace" and that normal growth is not a matter of fits and starts. — Vance Havner

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. — Vance Havner

We are fighting the greatest battle of all time with the most untrained army on earth. If strict discipline is necessary in art and athletics, how can we expect to be advanced Christians and stay in kindergarten? — Vance Havner

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

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

He who waits on God loses no time. — Vance Havner