I do want to pray for the Lord to glorify himself and, yes, I also will pray for an outpouring of his Spirit, but I also will rejoice in what he is doing now, and I will try to be a faithful steward of the gospel by preaching it "in season and out of season", as Paul reminds us. So I want to be careful not to make an idol out of revival, or to rely upon it to the point where I don't plan for evangelism.
Mark DeverI think it's unhelpful to suggest that the task of evangelism is essentially the responsibility of ministers.
Mark DeverToo 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 DeverChristian 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.
Mark DeverThere are times when the gospel just seems to be powerfully at work in a nation, and thousands upon thousands are converted. If you think about what has happened in Latin America, Africa and East Asia all in the last hundred years, it is breathtaking. We have seen an expansion of the gospel as we have never seen before in the history of the church.
Mark DeverSadly, 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 DeverDo you want to know that your new life is real? Commit yourself to a local group of saved sinners. Try to love them. Donโt just do it for three weeks. Donโt just do it for six months. Do it for years. And I think youโll find out, and others will, too, whether or not you love God. The truth will show itself
Mark Dever