QUOTES From VANCE HAVNER, American Preacher...

QUOTES

From Dr. Vance Havner

Albie's note: Vance Havner [1901-1986] was an amazing Baptist preacher and author.  This North Carolinean started preaching at 14, and didn't stop 'til he went to glory! That alone is a great legacy, but "Uncle Vance" also preached some of the greatest messages I have ever heard and read.

He was the most homespun of country preachers, possessing a southern charm that always belied his great intellect and persuasive power. A preacher friend of mine has said it well: "Old Vance was half Charles Spurgeon and half Billy Sunday with the voice of Will Rogers." I wish I coulda met him!

When you cannot trace God’s hand you can trust his heart.

If I could strike one note on the piano it would be "Be Natural."

A country boy can learn city ways, but the city boy cannot learn country ways.

God does not always send his prophets through the convention assembly line lest they come out wearing a stamp that does not become them.

I find myself wondering how John the Baptist would have addressed the Rotary Club in Bethel or how John the Baptist would behave before a Monday Minister’s meeting.

Today's church life runs from rigor mortis to St.Vitus.

You can be so wary of getting out on a limb that you never go up the tree.

Opportunity brings opposition.

Casual Christians know nothing of spiritual warfare.

The average church member doesn’t even give the devil enough trouble to get his attention!

Just because we cannot see the clouds on a sunny day doesn’t mean they are NOT there.

His will never lead us where His grace cannot keep us.

Time is the one thing it does take to be holy. When we’re too busy for that we’re just too busy.

We spend many an hour just talking when we should have been plowing.

If we could answer all the "whys" we would not need faith.

Only God could meet the demands of God’s righteousness and only a man could identify with sinful humanity. As "God-man," Jesus Christ did both.

Something was finished at Calvary, but some three days later something else was begun.

Nothing else can be as good as the blessing God has for you.

My father said "dirt, debt, and the devil" were related so I decided to keep away from all three as far as possible.

The vaults of heaven are moth-proof, rust-proof, and thief-proof.

The word "Christian" ends with "IAN" and that stands for "I Am Nothing." We are zeroes until we relate to him.

Zeroes are useless unless they follow a numeral. Beside Jesus Christ we take on value, but He does not come next.

The mighty angel broke the seal, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it as if to say, "NOW look who’s in charge around here."

Unless there is a spiritual revival, we might as well try to hold back Niagara Falls with toothpicks.

The real problem is sin and science has no answer for sin.

The Spirit has not come to supercede Jesus, but to testify of Him and make Him more real.

Jesus came not to brush away the cobwebs, but to kill the spider.

A Christian is not a citizen of earth trying to get to heaven, but a citizen of heaven making his way through this world.

If you growl all day you will end up "dog tired" at night.

Fix your eyes on the glory to come and then what looks dark in the distance will brighten as you draw near.

The road from groans to glory is by grace, and there will always be enough of that to do all that God wants you to do, as long as God wants you to do it.

A man is not the sum total of what he thinks in his head and does with his hands, but what he is in his heart.

Christians are not just nice people, they are new creatures.

All things are His and all things are ours, except ourselves.

What we call fellowship sometimes-- when we gossip over our coffee at a church supper-- is often just sociability under religious auspices and not the communion of saints.

An attitude of worship can cut down an avalanche of words.

Our happy "whiles" here are but a foretaste of "forevers" to come.

It has not dawned upon most of us that we do not need some new thing so much as some old things that would be new if anybody tried them.

Heaven is not an endless vacation where we sit on clouds wearing haloes and plucking harps forever. Nothing could be more exhausting than eternally doing nothing.

Anybody can be faithful, but many are not.

The greatest ability is depend-ability.