Quotes from Mark Dever

Evangelism is not imposing anything on anyone; it is simply sharing the truth.

I recognize that not all of us may have the same abilities and talents in sharing the gospel. But I want to keep the heat on all of us for getting the good news out there.

Christian proclamation might make the gospel audible, but Christians living together in local congregations make the gospel visible (see John 13:34—35). The church is the gospel made visible.

When our eyes fall from God to humanity, social ills replace sin, horizontal problems replace the fundamental vertical problem between us and God, winning elections eclipses winning souls.

Briefly, the Regulative Principle states that everything we do in a corporate worship gathering must be clearly warranted by Scripture. Clear warrant can either take the form of an explicit biblical command, or a good and necessary implication of a biblical text.

Local churches exist to display God's glory to the nations. We do that by fixing our eyes on the gospel of Jesus Christ, trusting him for salvation, and then loving one another with God's own holiness, unity, and love.

The preaching of the Word must be absolutely central. Sound, expositional preaching is often the fountainhead of growth in a church.

As the minister speaks to the ear, Christ speaks, opens, and unlocks the heart at the same time; and gives it power to open, not from itself, but from Christ.

The picture of Sibbes—as a Reformer, but a cautious one; as a Puritan, but a moderate one—is consistent with the rest of Sibbes' life and activities in Cambridge and London.36

Lest anyone think that any action, however required or useful, could be a source of pride, Sibbes preached that "it is a sottish conceit to think that we can fit ourselves for grace, as if a child in the womb could forward its natural birth. If God hath made us men, let us not make ourselves gods."107

Never leave the impression that you're the hero or the smartest

The natural faculties are not all that compose a person; God has, "in great mercy," left the conscience.1 Sibbes taught that the conscience in man acts as God's "vicar; a little god in us to do his office, to call upon us, direct us, check and condemn us.