William Booth (1829 – 1912) was a British Methodist preacher who founded The Salvation Army and became its first General. Originally started as an evangelistic and humanitarian aid organization, The Salvation Army, started in England, over the years, has become less evangelistic and more of a social humanitarian aid ministry.
Booth, came to the Lord at the age of thirteen and began his evangelistic career in his early 20’s. He traveled throughout England as an itinerant preacher of the gospel. His great burden for souls led him to start the Salvation Army. During his lifetime, the Salvation Army remained very evangelistic as opposed to today where it is mainly recognized as a social gospel organization. His zeal for the conversion of souls remained his greatest passion right up to his death at age 83. Below are many of his quotes that reveal his passion to share the gospel with humanity.1
“If I thought I could win one more soul to the Lord by walking on my head and playing the tambourine with my toes, I’d learn how!”
“Work as if everything depended upon work and pray as if everything depended upon prayer.”
“I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost; Christianity without Christ; forgiveness without repentance; salvation without regeneration; politics without God; and Heaven without Hell.”
“God loves with a great love the man whose heart is bursting with a passion for the impossible.”
“Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works; and then faith again, and then works again–until they can scarcely distinguish which is the one and which is the other.”
“The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”
“Go straight for souls, and go for the worst.”
“Will you go to His feet and place yourself entirely at His disposal?”
“We are not sent to minister to a congregation and be content if we keep things going. We are sent to make war and to stop short of nothing but the subjugation of the world to the sway of the Lord Jesus.”
“Look! Don’t be deceived by appearances – men and things are not what they seem. All who are not on the rock are in the sea!”
“You cannot warm the hearts of people with God’s love if they have an empty stomach and cold feet.”
“Some men’s passion is for gold, some men’s passion is for art, some men’s passion is for fame. My passion is for souls.”
“Most Christians would like to send their recruits to Bible college for five years. I would like to send them to hell for five minutes. That would do more than anything else to prepare them for a lifetime of compassionate ministry.”
“Your days at the most cannot be very long, so use them to the best of your ability for the glory of God and the benefit of your generation.”
“While there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight – I’ll fight to the very end!”
“We must wake ourselves up! Or somebody else will take our place, and bear our cross, and thereby rob us of our crown.”
“Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin.”
1 All of the following quotes are from the websites below:
26 William Booth Quotes | ChristianQuotes.info
Inspirational Quotes by William Booth
The best 18 quotes from William Booth | Caring Magazine
Top 50 WILLIAM BOOTH quotes and sayings
William Booth Quotes (Author of In Darkest England and the Way Out)