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God can use even stray, honest comments to bring people to himself.

Mark Dever

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Mark Dever
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: August 28
Erudite
Missionary
Pastor
Preacher
Theologian
Writer
the United States of America
Bring
Use
Even
People
Stray
Comments
Comment
Honest

More quotes by Mark Dever

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Testimonies are great things about what the Lord has done for us, but no-one will be offended when you talk about what God has done for you. You need to be specific about sin, about Christ's death on the cross, about others' need for a saviour, and about their need to repent and trust in Christ.
Mark Dever
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Evangelism is not simply looking at someone and saying, Look, you have to become a Christian. Instead, an evangelist tells us the truth about who God is, and explains where we stand as a result of that. People can ignore us - indeed, they have every legal right to do so.
Mark Dever
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As long as quick numerical growth remains the primary indicator of church health, the truth will be compromised. Instead, churches must once again begin measuring success not in terms of numbers but in terms of fidelity to the Scriptures.
Mark Dever
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I guess I tend to see divine appointments everywhere. I am always on the alert for opportunities. So I prefer to err on the side of witnessing too often than not enough.
Mark Dever
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The difference between apologetics and evangelism is that in apologetics, you are answering objections that the world raises, whereas in evangelism, you are bringing the message that Christ brought. So unbelievers tend to set the agenda in apologetics, and you set the agenda in evangelism.
Mark Dever
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Our examples of enduring hardship are often more powerful than our stories of success and triumph.
Mark Dever
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By the grace of God I am what I am
Mark Dever
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We can't know at any given time how God will bless our faithful witness. So the apparent numerical growth of the church is never a good guide to how faithful we have been in evangelism.
Mark Dever
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Forgetfulness of God's grace is one of the greatest tools in the enemy's war against our souls.
Mark Dever
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The church arises only from the gospel. And a distorted church usually coincides with a distorted gospel.
Mark Dever
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Too often preachers want to deal with people simply at the level of publicly accessible reason. We participate with them in their own epistemology. But this is not New Testament preaching. We have a message that is not from this world it is from God. We don't know it by our own cleverness we know it because God has revealed it.
Mark Dever
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Discipling involves instruction and imitation.
Mark Dever
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There is no gospel without the offence. This is God's wisdom. It never seems sensible to us in our flesh.
Mark Dever
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It's fine to deal with people's doubts and explain why they have good reasons to believe in Christ. But until we tell them the good news of Jesus Christ, we haven't done our job. They need a saviour that God has provided them in Christ. Once they know that, we can do as much apologetics as we need to.
Mark Dever
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Our culture is becoming more hostile to the gospel. This trend may be more established in Australia than in the USA, but it's now certainly the case that the postmodern mindset is dominant, particularly in the media. Therefore, when we start speaking in terms of certainties, we sound scary to other people.
Mark Dever
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Once we see more of our need and understand more of what Christ has done for us, he will become more precious to us. And this, in turn, will enable our obedience far more than sheer grunt effort.
Mark Dever
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There is simply so much reason to believe the good news of Jesus Christ in history, in Scripture, as well as in our own experience that it would take a leap of faith not to believe in the gospel.
Mark Dever
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Membership is the church's corporate endorsement of a person's salvation.
Mark Dever
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Most people are glad for somebody else to share their own story of how they have found spiritual help. The problems start when you begin to universalize your story - when your narrative becomes authoritative and begins affecting their lives as well.
Mark Dever
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Worldliness in the church is a lot more pervasive than a lack of passion for evangelism. Nevertheless, one of the results of worldliness is a waning enthusiasm for evangelism.
Mark Dever