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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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Mark Dever
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: August 28
Erudite
Missionary
Pastor
Preacher
Theologian
Writer
the United States of America
Faithful
Witness
Growth
Numerical
Church
Evangelism
Given
Apparent
Good
Guide
Never
Bless
Time
Guides

More quotes by Mark Dever

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If joy or urgency are missing from our presentation of the gospel, then our testimony to Christ will be missing that sort of fullness that we find in the New Testament.
Mark Dever
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Correct division should be preferred over corrupt unity.
Mark Dever
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An evangelist no more imposes his views on others than a pilot imposes his views on his passengers when he lands a plane on a runway. I bet the passengers are glad!
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.
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Sin claims to free but in fact it kills.
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Sadly, there are some fine Christian people who believe that the only way to advance the gospel is to pray for revival and nothing else. You don't know if they have any non-Christian friends or if they have ever shared the gospel with anybody in the last 30 years. It's depressing going to prayer meetings like that. I don't want to pray like that.
Mark Dever
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What really concerns me is for Christians to understand the fundamentals of evangelism in a way that is helpful in the contemporary scene.
Mark Dever
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Unbelief is like gravity, it's always pulling down on the authority of Scripture.
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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Membership is the church's corporate endorsement of a person's salvation.
Mark Dever
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God can use even stray, honest comments to bring people to himself.
Mark Dever
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It doesn't matter whether we live in the 19th or 21st centuries we face the same basic problems that everyone who lives between the Fall and the return of Christ faces.
Mark Dever
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The truly changed, truly converted, truly Christian heart can say with John Newton, “I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not what I hope to be. Yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was. By the grace of God, I am what I am.
Mark Dever
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For a Christian, our fears about the future are rooted in those places where our will differs from God's will.
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 assume that normally the Lord will be bringing people to himself through the instrumentality of the preached word. However, we have to be very careful that we don't assume that if we are 'X' faithful in evangelism, then we will see 'Y' results right now. It doesn't work like that.
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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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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According to the New Testament, the church is primarily a body of people who profess and give evidence that they have been saved by God's grace alone, for His glory alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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