Rick Phillips Interview

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

The Program’s Mission and Weekly Format

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm your host. Every day of the week, we do something different. Mondays, you typically hear an expository sermon from Bethlehem Bible Church.

Tuesdays, I talk with Pastor Steve, my associate pastor regarding issues in the local church. And on Wednesday, I like to talk about books that would encourage you to study the scriptures. I think it was Harry Truman who said, "'Leaders must be readers.'".

I believe John Wesley said that you had to read the Word and study four hours a day and other books four hours a day or get out of the ministry. And so I wanna promote reading good evangelical literature.

I review two kinds of books, excellent books that I want you to read and other books that I want you to avoid. So we have both page turners and burners, as we call them. And so today, we have a great guest online, the author of Jesus the Evangelist, Richard Phillips.

And I should say great guests. I mean, no one's great, no one's good, but God has moved in Rick's heart to write books and minister, and Rick, thank you for being on the program today. Well, I'm delighted.

I'm hoping I'm not gonna be a burner. Yeah. Well, no, I've burned some of the books like Spong's books, you know, The Shack, that kind of thing. Oh, good. So I think you're gonna make it into the page turner category.

Excellent, praise the Lord. I don't wanna do some kind of shock radio, but you know, you have to sell radio time. Ah, well. Rick, tell us a little bit about the book. As you know, I love to study Christ Jesus, and I know you do as well.

And we see Him in the Gospels and how He evangelizes. You must have been preaching to the Gospel of John and then come up with the idea. Just give us an overview on why you think every Christian needs to read this book.

Learning Evangelism from Jesus in the Gospel of John

Well, yeah, I was actually,.

While I was preaching to the Gospel of John, I was reflecting on the differences between John's Gospel and the other three Gospels, the Synoptic Gospels. And there's a lot of things you could say about the differences, but one of them is that John's Gospel, that the unique material in John's Gospel, what he has that nobody else has, is heavily weighted, it turns out, in describing Jesus personally ministering the Gospel, Jesus' personal ministry of evangelism.

And that struck me as a very interesting thing. And as I was just reflecting on it, I said, you know, wouldn't it be useful to use this material that John had wanted us to know about Jesus, so much of which focuses directly on the Lord's personal evangelism, wouldn't that make a useful study?

And I've often described it, you know how the disciples learn from Jesus by walking around with Him. And so what we want to do is we want to walk around with Jesus in the Gospel of John, to watch Him ministering with individual people, doing His evangelistic ministry, and then draw reflections on what that means to us.

Rick, I notice in the book you focused on part one, John the Baptist, part two, Jesus to Nicodemus, and then part three, Jesus as witness to the Samaritan woman. Let's talk a little bit about John 4 and how Jesus preached to the Samaritan woman.

Some of the listeners maybe are just new to Christianity. Would you just give us an overview of our Lord's approach to giving the good news to this sinful woman? I have to say, Michael, I love all this material.

Remarkable chapter, and it's a lovely... There's a lot that's very significant in this encounter. One of the things I noticed early on is that Jesus' ministry to specific individuals. I make the comment that if Jesus had come into the world merely to die and make it possible for whoever would be saved by believing on him, Jesus would never have gone into Samaria.

John makes a point of saying Jesus had to go. It was necessary for him to go through Samaria. Now, the Samaritans were despised by the Jews. Jews always went around Samaria. In fact, it would just cause Jesus trouble to go through Samaria.

And John says, no, he had to go. And so it just reminds us of the sovereignty of God. In saving particular people. And Jesus makes this journey because this... And she was precious to him, and he wearies himself.

I think it's a wonderful... We look at the issue of the dual nature of Jesus, his deity and his humanity. Again, this chapter is just very rich. Jesus shows up and he is weary, he's tired, he's thirsty.

Why? Because he did what we need to do in evangelism. We ask the question, you know, have I been inconvenienced for the eternal well-being of someone I know? Well, Jesus was. And at the same time, of course, we're in a conversation.

The actual interaction, our Lord, I'm a big believer because the Bible teaches. And so why do I need the remedy when I'm not sick? Now, that being said, and I think she's like a lot of people in our society today.

So Jesus first as a neighbor, as a well-wisher. And she says, you know, men don't ask women to do this, much less Jews. What do our unbelieving... I have to say, Mike, I fear that in the culture war, and there is a culture war going on and we are involved in it.

But I think a mistake we've made is we look upon our unbelieving neighbors as because maybe they vote differently. And my next door neighbor, who's an unbeliever and is my neighbor, establishes a person...

How about that? That depends by... If you knew, you would ask him and he would give you living water.

Dealing with Sin, Pre-Evangelism, and the Need for Realism

Well, we're talking to Rick Phillips now and we're talking to him about his new book, Jesus, the Evangelist, learning to share the gospel from the book of John. And Rick Phillips is published by Reformation Trust.

I really like the way the book is laid out and an excellent publishing company. Tell me your relationship, Rick, with Reformation Trust.

Oh, you know, I, like a lot of people, I've had a long relationship with Ligonier and just, I've done friends of mine and I trust them, of course. And that's probably the biggest thing. And so when Ligonier asked me if I'd be willing, I'm glad to do so.

They do a great job. Well, you have 21 books published now.

Is that true? I think it's more than that now. All right. Well, we were talking about John 4 and Christ's approach to the woman at the well. He didn't start off with sin, as you said, but in your book on page 132, an excellent chapter, Dealing with Sin, you quote James Boyce, where he's dealing with the issue of sin and do Christians talk about sin?

And the quote is in your book, it is simple because Christians are realists. They recognize that sin is an everyday experience and the number one problem of mankind. Rick, tell me a little bit about a Christian's approach regarding preaching about sin when they meet a friend or neighbor or relative.

Well, when I say that, I'm just reflecting on what Jesus did with sin. My only point is not that it's injurious in any way, but he just dealt with it very naturally. And while I think that's good to have, we do need to deal with people just naturally.

And that's what our Lord does with her. He's just going on with her. He sees, he begins, but by encouraging with her the eternal life that he has to give. But then, you know, she, the funny thing is she's always trying to change the subject and so he hones in on it, that this is your, and you know, it's remarkable to me.

People say, well, you know, we really can't talk about sin. Really? I mean, don't we live in a world in which people, and isn't it loving and just reality of these things? I was, I've spoken in a maximum, you know, when I'm in a prison and I talked with them about, you know, obviously you are rebelling against God.

Now, how are we going to deal with that? And I just think that we, Christians are realists. And I think it's a little shocking to people sometimes, but if it's not done in a, I think that we often do much better.

Well, I think your book helps us in this area. We so much in evangelicalism, we want a formula. We want the ABCs of Christian evangelism. I think it's refreshing to go back to Christ and his life and his ministry to say to ourselves, how does Jesus preach the gospel?

In what manner does he preach the gospel? Instead of running for some methodological ABC book, don't you think?

Yes, and yet at the same time, we can see a pattern. Well, the thing I point out in John four is, Jesus first cared, and the question is, do we care enough? I mean, isn't that, I lived across the street in South Florida for five years from a Jewish man, a Jewish family, and we knew them a bit.

And I've been living there for two years. When I was out in the street and our kids were out there and he came up to me and he said to me, you're like an evangelical preacher, right? I go, yeah, yeah, you know, I've passed through the big church up there.

He said, were you ever going to come to talk to me about Jesus? You know, I'm like, well, yeah, I just, you know, the frankness, I didn't care enough about the guy to do so. And he had been sitting at home watching heretical TV, wondering about salvation when he lives across the street from an evangelical preacher who didn't love him enough and who didn't care enough about him to engage in the social risk and the weariness.

And Jesus, and then he crossed just huge numbers of boundaries between Jesus and a Samaritan woman. And he just crosses them. I do want to say that there are many kinds of boundaries and the people who know they're not morally depraved, they are not likely to come to go to them.

And we've got to find ways in our family and to go to them, even in small ways. To our left is, you know, this is not a big deal, but I just make it my business to go to the black barbershop and to get to know the guys down there, to cross the boundaries and to go into their world.

I don't know how much more true is that of people who really might, maybe you're in a university setting. There's people who are not going, because they think we're not loving, they think they'll look odd.

You know, we know it's not true, but they don't know it's true. The Samaritan woman was never going to go to Jerusalem. Jesus just crosses the boundaries. She's blown away that he would do that. So he cared, he connected with her on a personal, and then having done that, just treating her as a human being, and even giving her the opportunity to serve him was a huge thing.

And then, out of that personal relationship, then he very clearly said, we've got to do that. There's a lot of emphasis on pre-evangelism, and so far as it goes, I'm fine with it, so long as it actually leads to evangelism.

And I think there's even a certain amount of forbearers to not have. Out of those, usually it's going to be effective, but we need to know the biblical message, and one of the things I try and do.

The Sovereignty of God in Evangelism

Well, it's difficult for even pastors to preach the gospel, because we realize when we go across the street to our neighbor, what is at stake, and what the cross will do, and the claims of Christ, and I think it's probably encouraging for people to know that we even have to struggle and set our mind toward doing these things as well.

I try to tell our folks here, Rick, that if you say to yourself, I wasn't led to preach the gospel or evangelize, you've forgotten the Great Commission where you don't need to be led to obey. God's already told you to obey, and when I tell my son, clean your room, and I ask him two days later, why haven't you cleaned it, and he says, well, I wasn't led to clean it.

Right, sure. We have the Great Commission, and here Christ Jesus promising us, and lo, I am with you always. In light of that, Rick, tell me a little bit about the appendix, the sovereignty of God in evangelism.

Why is the sovereignty of God important for the people as they talk to their friends at work or their neighbors? Why is that such a solid doctrine for them, practical doctrine?

Well, you know, I firmly, belligerently, in front of the sovereignty of God does not in any way minimize or mitigate against evangelism. We do not believe that since God predestines those who are going to heaven, it doesn't matter.

God has given me the duty of doing so. Having said that, I think that our own sin and that Satan often get us to act, and so whenever we find ourself thinking, well, you know, God's sovereign, so it doesn't matter whether I do my duty or not.

We are not right. We should never let our knowledge of the sovereignty of God keep us from being as aggressive as we can be. In fact, if we understand the situation rightly, it is only the, and that will ground us in biblical methods.

I think that one of the reasons why there's so much unbiblical evangelism is that people who don't believe in the, and it's not working, they don't think, and so they try to improve upon the methods. Well, that's always going to be a disaster.

What we need to do is the biblical ministry of prayer, and then we allow God to sovereignly work, and so on the one hand, we are, on the other hand, we patiently wait upon the Lord, and it's exciting to me.

You know, I get up in the pulpit sometimes saying to myself, you know, unless the Holy Spirit accompanies the preaching of the Word, they're gonna hate me. I mean, I'm gonna preach an offensive message to them because I'm preaching the text, or they're gonna think I'm nuts.

Ah, but there is the Holy Spirit, isn't there? And it gives us such freedom to joyfully give a preaching of the gospel itself, because we know that God will sovereignly enter into that, and he will save many.

Boyce, Barnhouse, and the Mentors God Uses

Well, speaking of the sovereignty of God, tell us a little bit about your relationship with James Montgomery Boyce, and I often think of those who have been placed in my path to train me. It could have been anyone, but God in his goodness placed the right kind of man at the right time in my life to give me the right doctrine, or who knows, I could be following Benny Hinn.

Tell me about God's goodness in giving you a mentor.

Like James Montgomery Boyce. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. When I was with him at 10th, but, you know, I was converted. I was a graduate who was living in downtown Philadelphia, five blocks from 10th, and my mother kind of nagged me that I needed to go to church.

And so, you know, I've been raised in liberal Presbyterian churches, so I walked in, I'll never forget for this man to be articulately preacher. Maybe I'd seen a remarkable thing. My life changed. It's amazing what God can do.

Well, I went away to, actually, I was a military officer. I was on the faculty at West Point, and I got involved in Bible. Back to 10th, I, but when I came on staff, I joined his work with the Alliance, and really, he was my spiritual father.

And the great thing about Boyce, his city and the integrity, so much of the things that I say and do now arise out of dinner conversations. I serve our Lord. You know, one of the big themes was an utter conviction.

And now you have Dr. Barnhouse as a spiritual grandfather, I guess.

Well, it's true. You know what, right after Boyce died, in fact, the night that Phil Riker and I, and I gave more of a eulogy sermon in the evening, and I preached on the Word of God. Well, anyway, after I preached the sermon, this little old lady comes up to me.

Oh, wonderful. I said, ma 'am, did you know why I was his sister? And, of course, Boyce, and I very, I do feel, I mean, I think I have the right to claim I'm one of Barnhouse's grandchildren and one of the sons of Boyce.

Jesus Christ, the Great Commission, and the Goal of Evangelism

Amen. Well, we've been talking to Rick Phillips, and he's the author of many books, but the one I wanted to talk about today was Jesus the Evangelist, Learning to Share the Gospel from the Book of John.

You can go to our website, nocompromiseradio .com, and there'll be a link on how to order this Reformation Trust book, and I think it'll encourage you to preach the gospel, to evangelize and study our Lord Jesus Christ.

We've only got about 15 seconds left, Rick, but so many times we hear WWJD, and it's not really symmetrical. People can't do what Jesus did, but they can learn from his evangelistic style and motives, can't they?

Well, I want to say this, that when Jesus, after he witnesses this, while that's happening, the disciples come back and they hand Jesus a sandwich. And Jesus refused. My meat and my drink is to preach the gospel.

And I just want to say this, the thing Jesus was so preoccupied with that he couldn't even stop to eat was the woman taking the gospel back to her village. And the thing right at this moment that has the rapt attention of our exalted Lord Jesus, his whole enthusiastic attention and his mighty prayer is when you and I witness the gospel.

Amen. Jesus the Evangelist, Rick Phillips. Thank you, Rick, for being on the show. God bless you.

God bless you, Mike. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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