Wednesday, March 23

Great Missions Quotes

"The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed." --Hudson Taylor

"If I had 1,000 lives, I'd give them all for China." --Hudson Taylor

"God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him." --Hudson Taylor

"Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God." --William Carey (called the father of modern missions)

"The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become." -- Henry Martyn

"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." --Jim Elliot (missionary to Ecuador)

"We are debtors to every man to give him the gospel in the same measure in which we have received it." --P.F. Bresee

"In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been." --Robert Moffat (who inspired David Livingstone)

"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?" --David Livingstone

"Sympathy is no substitute for action." --David Livingstone

"Can't you do just a little bit more?" --J.G. Morrison (pleading with Nazarenes in the 1930's Great Depression to support their missionaries)

"Lost people matter to God, and so they must matter to us." --Keith Wright

"The Bible is not the basis of missions; missions is the basis of the Bible."
--Ralph Winter, U.S. Center for World Mission

"Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." --C.T. Studd

"If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." --C.T. Studd

"No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once." --Oswald J. Smith

"Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission has forfeited its biblical right to exist." --Oswald J. Smith

"The mission of the church is missions." --Oswald J. Smith

"We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first."
--Oswald J. Smith

"This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth!" --Keith Green

"If God calls you to be a missionary, don't stoop to be a king." --Jordan Groom

"If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn't it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death." --Dave Davidson

"In our lifetime, wouldn't it be sad if we spent more time washing dishes or swatting flies or mowing the yard or watching television than praying for world missions?" --Dave Davidson

"Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart" --Bob Pierce
(World Vision founder)

"No reserves. No retreats. No regrets." --William Borden

"If ten men are carrying a log--nine of them on the little end and one at the heavy end--and you want to help, which end will you lift on?" -- William Borden (as he reflected on the numbers of Christian workers in the U.S. as compared to those among unreached peoples in China)

"The reason some folks don't believe in missions is that the brand of religion they have isn't worth propagating." --unknown

When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."

"Someone asked, 'will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved?' It is more a question with me whether we--who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not--can be saved." --Charles H. Spurgeon

"The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time" --Carl F. H. Henry

"Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop." --Kurt von Schleicher

"You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving." --Amy Carmichael

"Only as the church fulfills her missionary obligation does she justify her existence." --Unknown

"As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both." --J. L. Ewen

"The command has been to 'go,' but we have stayed--in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth ...but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland."
--Robert Savage (missionary to Ecuador)

"People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives...and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." --Nate Saint (missionary to Ecuador)

"We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God." --John Stott

"The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity." --Mike Stachura

"'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face -- whose mercy you have professed to obey -- and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world."
--William Booth

"Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is--where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge." --Robert C. Shannon

"People who don't believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South." --J. Howard Edington

"It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions." --John R. Mott

"In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God's work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer." --Dick Eastman

"What's your dream and to what corner of the missions world will it take you?"
--Eleanor Roat

"We can reach our world, if we will. The greatest lack today is not people or funds. The greatest need is prayer." --Wesley Duewel

"Missions is not the 'ministry of choice' for a few hyperactive Christians in the church. Missions is the purpose of the church." --Unknown

"The average pastor views his church as a local church with a missions program; while he ought to realize that if he is in fact pastoring a church, it is to be a global church with a missions purpose." --Unknown

"The Christian is not obedient unless he is doing all in his power to send the Gospel to the heathen world." --A. B. Simpson

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This wonderful selection of missions quotes comes from SermonIndex.net Thanks for this great collection! Check out the hundreds of free audio messages by many of the great saints of old.

4 comments:

BParsons said...

I think that the reason there are no comments here yet is because we are all kind of taken aback. I know I am.

After all these years, I am just now getting here, and it is a surprise to see that all this wisdom had been said long before I was born.

I'm just now really seeing how it all fits in. I wish I could start over and do it all again.

Since I can't, I'm just doing my best to do the best with the time and resources I have left.

Thanks for the excellent collection of quotes.

J. Guy Muse said...

Bruce,

Have you ever explored all the stuff they have on the sermonindex.com site? It is full of a lot of really interesting message, audio sermons, etc. My favorite is a Charles Culpepper testimony of the Shantung Revival in China.

Aussie John said...

Guy,

Great Church Quotes, no matter what area of ministry.

One of my favorites on Sermonaudio.com, is the eye-witness report, by the gentleman who was there,Duncan Campbell, of the Revival on the Isle of Lewis.

Brings tears to my eyes every time I have heard it.

What a sight to behold!

J. Guy Muse said...

John,

Yes, the Duncan Campbell audio testimony is amazing. Hard to believe we are really hearing his voice as he tells the story.