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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.

Vance Havner

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Vance Havner
Age: 77 †
Born: 1886
Born: February 16
Died: 1963
Died: May 2
Clergyman
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Plainfield
New Jersey
Full
Reminds
Today
Operate
Blowtorch
Looks
Monkeys
Inmates
Like
Civilization
Asylum
Taking
Dynamite
Room
Zoos
Rooms
Asylums
Playing
Apes

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The thermometer of a church is its prayer meeting.
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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.
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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.
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The same church members who yell like Comanche Indians at a ball game on Saturday sit like wooden Indians in church on Sunday.
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The real test of your Christianity is not how pious you look at the Lord's table on Sunday, but how you act at the breakfast table at home. If it takes two cups of coffee to make you fit to live with, you had better go to the mourner's bench.
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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.
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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.
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If you can't pray as you want to, pray as you can. God knows what you mean.
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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.
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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.
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Self, service, substance is the Divine order and nothing counts until we give ourselves.
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A deep and sober concern to please God is the rarest of rarities.
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If you lack knowledge, go to school. If you lack wisdom, get on your knees.
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Most church members live so far below the standard, you would have to backslide to be in fellowship with them.
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You always enter God's hospital as a charity patient. You can't pay your way.
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Adam tried to hide behind the trees in the garden. There is only one tree that can hide us from Him and that is the tree of the cross.
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You can't preach it like it is if you don't believe it like it was.
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It is not our responsibility to make it acceptable it is our duty to make it available.
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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.
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When we sin, we are often upset, not because we have grieved the Spirit but because our pride has been injured.
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