Mere acquaintance with correct doctrine is a poor substitute for Christ, and familiarity with New Testament eschatology will never take the place of a love-inflamed desire to look on His face. — A.W. Tozer

Tozer would not seek to minimize the importance of doctrinal studies, especially for us which are living in a culture dominated by churchianity in which ecumenism and biblical ignorance decorates the religious landscape. Tozer’s point is well taken and likely insulting not only to modern mainstream churchianity but also to those who elevate doctrinal studies over compassionate hearts that reach out to those in need.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15 ESV)

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me [i.e. Jesus]… (John 5:39 ESV)

Notice the two inseparably interrelated distinctives. God’s people should be the most serious bible students with a thorough understanding of John 5:39. Hopefully then, whether studying essential core doctrines or contemplating the various eschatological viewpoints, our studies will help kindle that “love-inflamed desire to look on His face.”

“Evangelism is not a professional job for a few trained men, but is instead the unrelenting responsibility of every person who belongs to the company of Jesus.”
Elton Trueblood

“I care not where I go, or how I live, or what I endure so that I may save souls. When I sleep I dream of them; when I awake they are first in my thoughts…no amount of scholastic attainment, of able and profound exposition of brilliant and stirring eloquence can atone for the absence of a deep impassioned sympathetic love for human souls.”
David Brainerd

“We shall have all eternity in which to celebrate our victories, but we have only one swift hour before the sunset in which to win them.”
Robert Moffatt

“You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go not only to those that need you, but to those that need you most…It is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society; but to save as many souls as you can; to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance.”
John Wesley

“Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress for souls that leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire. Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own hearts and our feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of ­eternal things may be the true cause of our want of success.”
Hudson Taylor

“Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.”
John Wesley

“If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one GO there UNWARNED and UNPRAYED for.”
Charles Spurgeon

“I’d rather have people hate me with the knowledge that I tried to save them.”
Keith Green

“Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”
C. T. Studd

“No sort of defense is needed for preaching outdoors, but it would take a very strong argument to prove that a man who has never preached beyond the walls of his meetinghouse has done his duty. A defense is required for services within buildings rather than for worship outside of them.”
William Booth

“It is no marvel that the devil does not love field preaching! Neither do I; I love a commodious room, a soft cushion, a handsome pulpit. But where is my zeal if I do not trample all these underfoot in order to save one more soul?”
John Wesley

“Preach abroad….It is the cooping yourselves up in rooms that has dampened the work of God, which never was and never will be carried out to any purpose without going into the highways and hedges and compelling men and women to come in.”
Jonathan Edwards

“I believe I never was more acceptable to my Master than when I was standing to teach those hearers in the open fields…I now preach to ten times more people than I would if I had been confined to the churches.”
George Whitfield

“I am well assured that I did far more good to my Lincolnshire parishioners by preaching three days on my father’s tomb than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit.”
John Wesley

“Lord, make me a crisis man. Let me not be a mile-post on a single road, but make me a fork that men must turn one way or another in facing Christ in me.”
Jim Elliot

“Those were great days, and great victories were won. We always managed a riot or a revival. Sometimes a riot and no revival, but never a revival without a riot.”
William Nicholson

“Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry?Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die?Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand?Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you DAMNED?”
Leonard Ravenhill

“While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight-I’ll fight to the very end!”
William Booth

“Make it an object of constant study, and of daily reflection and prayer, to learn how to deal with sinners so as to promote their conversion.”
Charles G. Finney

“Isn’t it staggering when you think that one sermon on the day of Pentecost produced 3000 people? And we had some cities yesterday where 3000 sermons were preached and nobody was saved. And it doesn’t even faze us.”
Leonard Ravenhill

“Can we go too fast in saving souls? If anyone still wants a reply, let him ask the lost souls in Hell.”
William Booth

“Make it an object of constant study, and of daily reflection and prayer, to learn how to deal with sinners so as to promote their conversion.”
Charles G. Finney

“If Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.”
Leonard Ravenhill

“Let the victors when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body near the wall.”
Alfred Buxton

“Let us not glide through this world and then slip quietly into heaven, without having blown the trumpet loud and long for our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Let us see to it that the devil will hold a thanksgiving service in hell, when he gets the news of our departure from the field of battle.”
C. T. Studd

“The attitude of the average Christian today is relax and be raptured. But He is coming… and when God gets angry you’ve no idea what it is. Like a thousand volcanoes exploding. He has appointed a day in which He is going to judge the world and the poor blind world doesn’t know much about it and the poor blind church doesn’t think much about it now.”
Leonard Ravenhill

“A preacher who preaches the truth uncompromisingly will be asked “does your preaching always have to be so pointy? Does it always have to be so sharp?” And of coarse the answer is no. He can blunt his message if he’d like and become just as dull as the average preacher.”
Jesse Morrell

“It is not our business to make the message acceptable, but to make it available. We are not to see that they like it, but that they get it.”
Dr. Vance Havner

“We are not called to proclaim philosophy and metaphysics, but the simple gospel. Man’s fall, his need of a new birth, forgiveness through atonement, and salvation as the result of faith, these are our battle-ax and weapons of war.”
C. H. SPURGEON

“Ministers often preach about the Gospel instead of preaching the Gospel. They often preach about sinners instead of preaching to them.”
Charles Finney

“Christian people, are you figuring round and round to get a little property, yet neglecting souls? Beware lest you ruin souls that can never live again! Do you say — I thought they knew it all? They reply to you, “I did not suppose you believed a word of it yourselves. You did not act as if you did. Are you going to heaven? Well, I am going down to hell! There is no help for me now. You will sometimes think of me then, as you shall see the smoke of my woe rising up darkly athwart the glorious heavens. After I have been there a long, long time, you will sometimes think that I, who once lived by your side, am there. O remember, you cannot pray for me then; but you will remember that once you might have warned and might have saved me.”
Charles G. Finney

“Do all the good you can by all the means you can in all the places you can at all the times you can to all the people you can as long as ever you can.”
John Wesley

“All roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ.”
Keith Green

“The man whose little sermon is “repent” sets himself against his age, and will for the time being be battered mercilessly by the age whose moral tone he challenges. There is but one end for such a man – “off with his head!” You had better not try to preach repentance until you have pledged your head to heaven.”
Joseph Parker

“How shall I feel at the judgement, if multitudes of missed opportunities pass before me in full review, and all my excuses prove to be disguises of my cowardice and pride.”
Dr. W. E. Sangster

” Whenever, in any century, whether in a single heart or in a company of believers, there has been a fresh effusion of the Spirit, there has followed inevitably a fresh endeavor in the work of evangelizing the world.”
A. J. Gordon

The invasion of the Church by the world is a menace to the extension of Christ’s Kingdom. In all ages conformity to the world by Christians has resulted in lack of spiritual life and a consequent lack of spiritual vision and enterprise. A secularized or self-centered Church can never evangelize the world.”
John R. Mott

“Oh, to realize that souls, precious, never dying souls, are perishing all around us, going out into the blackness of darkness and despair, eternally lost, and yet to feel no anguish, shed no tears, know no travail! How little we know of the compassion of Jesus!”
Oswald J. Smith

“Many do not recognize the fact as they ought, that Satan has got men fast asleep in sin and that it is his great device to keep them so. He does not care what we do if he can do that. We may sing songs about the sweet by and by, preach sermons and say prayers until doomsday, and he will never concern himself about us, if we don’t wake anybody up. But if we awake the sleeping sinner he will gnash on us with his teeth. This is our work – to wake people up.”
Catherine Booth

“Brethren, do something; do something, do something! While societies and unions make constitutions, let us win souls. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work and quit yourselves like men. Old Suvarov’s idea of war is mine: `Forward and strike! No theory! Attack! Form a column! Charge bayonets! Plunge into the center of the enemy! Our one aim is to win souls; and this we are not to talk about, but do in the power of God!’”
Charles Spurgeon

“God save us from living in comfort while sinners are sinking into hell!” Charles Spurgeon

“Oh my friends, we are loaded with countless church activities, while the real work of the church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost is almost entirely neglected.”
Oswald J. Smith

“Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress for souls that leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire. Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own hearts and our feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of eternal things may be the true cause of our want of success.”
Hudson Taylor

“Oh sirs, deal with sin as sin, and speak of heaven and hell as they are, and not as if you were in jest.”
John Flavel

“I would think it a greater happiness to gain one soul to Christ than mountains of silver and gold to myself.”
Matthew Henry

“How can I help weeping when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are on the verge of destruction!”
George Whitfield

“Evermore the Law must prepare the way for the gospel. To overlook this in instructing souls is almost certain to result in false hope, the introduction of a false standard of Christian experience, and to fill the Church with false converts… Time will make this plain.”
Charles Finney

“A foolish physician he is, and a most unfaithful friend, that will let a sick man die for fear of troubling him; and cruel wretches are we to our friends, that will rather suffer them to go quietly to hell, then we will anger them, or hazard our reputation with them.”
Richard Baxter

“Reckon then that to acquire soul-winning power, you will have to go through mental torment and soul distress. You must go into the fire if you are going to pull others out of it, and you will have to dive into the floods if you are going to draw others out of the water. You cannot work a fire escape without feeling the scorch of the conflagration, nor man a lifeboat without being covered with the waves.”
Charles Spurgeon

“It is of no use for any of you to try to be soul-winners if you are not bearing fruit in your own lives. How can you serve the Lord with your lips if you do not serve Him with your lives.? How can you preach His gospel with your tongues, when with hands, feet, and heart you are preaching the devil’s gospel, and setting up an antichrist by your practical unholiness?”
Charles Spurgeon

“We should never stop at having won a soul for Christ. By this, we have done only half the work. Every soul won for Christ must be made to be a soul-winner.”
Richard Wurmbrand