Episode 163: The Forgotten Spirit of Rabshakeh—Is It Influencing You Right Now?

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Today Counts Show Episode 163

Preview

Timothy Rowe: Prayer is so dynamic and so powerful that it puts God into action. And I think that we’ve sold ourselves short on prayer.

Jim Piper: How consciously aware are we of the messages that we’re receiving? And so therefore, what do we–

Timothy Rowe: These eight strategies of Rabshakeh can be very powerful. They can be very–

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Introduction

Jim Piper: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Today Counts Show. I got to give you a little background before we get started today. But first of all, let me talk to those of you who’ve never listened to the Today Counts show. And then I want to talk a little bit about what we’re going to talk about today. So that’s the Today Counts show. We called it that because we do believe that today does count. Because we believe that everything that we learn, do think today, has repercussions for tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that.

You know, today is the day to be seized. So many of us are so busy that if I were to ask you what is the date today, you would know we’re probably in April, but you’d probably stutter to know whether we’re on the fifth, the sixth, the seventh or the eighth. But you know, we’re in there. So today counts also in the sense that we need to slow down a little bit, invest some time into thinking, invest some time into praying, into learning, into discussing. So that’s what our show is about. It covers broad topics of life and leadership.

Meeting Timothy Rowe and Introduction to Rabshakeh

So let me tell you about today and why you want to listen. Regardless of where you are in your faith journey, whether you are the CEO or whether you are starting your own ice cream truck business or you’re in school or wherever you find yourself in life, I was asked to give a message not long ago based upon a song in the Bible. Christians call them Psalms, but it’s essentially a song or a poem.

As I did some study on this particular song, I was fascinated that most theory and scholarship says it was based on looking back at some historic events in the life of the nation of Israel, to be more exact, Judah. And I learned lot about a king, young king named Hezekiah. I learned a lot about the Assyrians and the Assyrian conquest, so to speak. I was fascinated by it.

As usual, I did 10 times more study than probably what I needed to do to present a message. So you know how algorithms work, right? So I was probably on Google, I was probably researching not just in my own library, but online. And so one day, I see this gentleman by the name of Timothy, is it /row/ or /raw/?

Timothy Rowe: Row.

Jim Piper: Row, because I have a friend who would pronounce it row, and it’s spelled the same way. I have with me today, Timothy Rowe. What was interesting is, I noticed the title of a book that came up, which is a keyword in and I’m not going to ruin it but is a keyword in my study.

Now, let me get back to why you should listen. When you see a boy or a girl play sports, and you could just tell there happens to be that at least one person on that court on that field that seems to just have a heart for the game. You might say, “Wow, that boy, that girl’s got some heart.” You could also replace that word with a synonym and say spirit. There’s just a spirit about that little person that just seems competitive, just has all kinds of love for this game.

There is a spirit that we all have and that is in the world today. It’s a fascinating topic. Timothy, welcome to our show today. I’m going to probably call you Tim throughout our conversation. Introduce yourself and tell us what tell us the name of this book that I’m referring to and why you wrote it.

The Book “The Spirit of Rabshakeh is Alive and Well in America”

Timothy Rowe: My name is Timothy Rowe, you said, and the book is called The Spirit of Rabshakeh is Alive and Well in America.

Jim Piper: Let me interject. So that’s a new word for most of you, Rabshakeh. That’s a new word and you want to listen more. Keep going, Tim.

Timothy Rowe: All right, I appreciate it. Rabshakeh was actually a mouthpiece for the king of Syria. What I talk about in the book is, and again, King Hezekiah is an amazing king. He’s the king of a little country called Judah in the Bible. But God talks about Rabshakeh in three different sections of scripture in 2 Chronicles, 2 Kings, and Isaiah. That’s what kind of drew my attention to it. I’m thinking this must be pretty important if there’s three chapters of the Bible or more that’s dedicated to it.

So I began to study it and I began to see parallels with what’s going on in America today with what Rabshakeh did to try to get Hezekiah to surrender his kingdom. And that’s why I wrote it. It took me a while to write it. It was about a seven-year project to write it, but I was real thankful that God really inspired me in writing it. I began to see some amazing parallels between what’s going on in America today and what Hezekiah faced.

Hezekiah and Assyrian Conquest

Jim Piper: Yeah, this is great. you know, fortunately, this is still fresh paint for me. So hopefully I’ll be able to be a good partner for you, Tim, and kind of walking through that. Just like what you already said, all kinds of things are firing off in my brain, right? One is Hezekiah’s father. To contrast between he and his father, his father fell in line with a lot of the Assyrian demands, correct? And as well as falling in line with not just their culture, which in and of itself may or may have been good or bad, but their culture of idolatry for certain.

One of things that hit me right away is that Hezekiah made a choice not to follow in the way of his father. Now, many of us have fathers that we can that would be good to fall follow in the same way. But many of us cannot say that. And it takes some courage and faith to go in a different direction. It wasn’t that he was just an amazing, good king. But he really had to step out against a lot of internal resistance, I would imagine, as well as probably within his own nation and who knows and of course, the obvious with the Assyrian army. I think he was 25, was he not, when he became king?

Timothy Rowe: Yes, yeah. And I think too, Assyria was a pretty brutal empire too. They like to use psychological warfare. They like to intimidate people. Maybe they were terrorists. I think they probably were and some of the things they tried to do because they ruled by fear. I think I talk in my book that there were fortified cities of Judah like Lachish that was 25 miles from Jerusalem. That was just completely wiped out by Assyria.

Assyria also had wiped out the kingdom to the north, Israel, and now they’re standing at the wall of Jerusalem wanting this little kingdom of Judah to succumb. So yeah, this is definitely something that he didn’t walk in his father’s footsteps. He had to basically trust God over the entire culture that was coming down.

Jim Piper: In the research for your book, did you come across anything that talked about what the Egyptian Chronicles wrote? There was, of course, the Assyrian Chronicles, because we’re not getting to the punchline yet, but Assyria was not successful in penetrating Jerusalem. In my studies, I think I recall that other nations history said the same thing. They disagreed as to why or how it happened. But I think in other writings, historical writings, it too validates the fact that Jerusalem was not taken over by Assyria.

Timothy Rowe: Yeah, it was not. I think I talk in my book why it was not. But I know that people today want to form alliances. I think it was popular back then. Rabshakeh talks about Egypt particularly. That it’s a broken reed. That really, you’re not going to get anything from Egypt that’s going to be successful against this mighty empire.

Main Message of the Book and Identifying the Voice We Listen To

Jim Piper:  Right, right. Yeah, that was part of his prose, shouting out to the walls of Jerusalem, going back over the track record of Sennacherib, right? King Sennacherib defeated this city, that city, this city. And so why in the world does Jerusalem think they’re going to be able to stand? I mean, for those who are followers of Christ, those who are God fears those who believe in God, there does seem to be maybe more than ever a voice that is challenging us, that is intimidating us. A lot of a lot of us are using terms like, or even common sense would say that this spirit, this message that we’re getting from many cultures today just doesn’t make any sense. Is that part of what your book is referencing? What would you say the main message is of this book? Again, what is the title?

Timothy Rowe: It’s The Spirit of Rabshakeh is Alive and Well in America.

Jim Piper: I love that title.

Timothy Rowe: I think spirit, you hit it right on the nose. I mean, we’re talking about it. In fact, the Bible uses the word cosmos, which is kind of an atmosphere that’s a range that we breathe in. Ultimately, we’ve got to decide what voice we’re going to listen to. Are we going to listen to the voice that tells us that Christianity is outdated, that God is outdated, that we can do it ourselves? Are we going to listen to the voice of the Lord? That’s really the basis of the book is who do you trust and do we need God in these times? That’s really the essence of the book.

Jim Piper: I wonder how many of us are even conscious of the fact that we are listening. Are we conscious of the fact that if we’re listening, if we’ve got some music in the background, if we’ve got some narrative in the background, what kind of filtering process do we have? How consciously aware are we of the messages that we’re receiving?

Therefore, what do we do about them? Do we just put up a wall and try to have it ricochet off the wall? Are we developing our intellect? Are we developing our answers? And are we considering them prayerfully? I mean, I wonder how many of us are just too busy to even think about all the messages that are coming to us at a rapid pace. And what are we doing? What are we doing? How often do we even repeat them in some small way without really putting them on trial and testing them for what they are?

Timothy Rowe: Yeah, exactly. And I think I wrote a second book about the heart and I talked about the importance of the eyes and the ears. I mean, we are bombarded with all kinds of things today and it comes through them, it usually comes to the medium of the eyes or comes to the medium of the ears. And God is always speaking. I just think a lot of times and we see verses in the Bible where it says, “I don’t want to hear you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. I’d rather hear the voice of the world.”

But there is a voice speaking, both the world and the cosmos that we breathe in and there’s also God is continually speaking to us. The question is, what voice are we following? What voice are we going to form the basis of our life? And what voice is going to be important in the decisions that we make?

Main Message of the Book and Identifying the Voice We Listen To

Jim Piper: Our listeners are probably going to get tired of this story because I’m going to keep telling it because it has had an impact on me over the last couple of weeks. I think it hopefully will continue to penetrate my thinking and my heart. I’ve already done a little bit of writing about it. I’m going to do some more writing about it. But the story kind of goes like this.

It was a Monday, I think it was about three weeks ago, two weeks at the most. I’m sorry, two, three weeks, three weeks at the most. My Monday calendar had about two hours of white space in it, which is for me a type A person that’s go, go, go, go is really unusual. So it kind of freaked me out. I thought maybe I had accidentally canceled some appointments, or I also am known for blocking time for different projects. But it was a white space.

After I found out that I just appeared to be at oversight. Then I asked myself, my goodness, what am I going to do with these two hours? I had already had a quiet time, already had some exercise, was pretty much organized for the week knew what I was going to take on. So anyway, to make long story short, I decided to take those two hours and do some more thinking, some more sitting, some more reading, some more praying.

And so, I came down to the studio and I sat on the front porch right out of the studio here and I grabbed two books. One was entitled Greatness, and the other one is my Bible. After spending about an hour and a half of reading and thinking, I had three thoughts that came to mind. One thought was you’re thinking too small. The second thought that came right in the heels of that was that you are praying too small. Then the third one said, you are too busy.

Now, Tim, I don’t know how you are, but even my good thoughts sometimes aren’t really great thoughts. I have two kinds of Jim thoughts, bad ones and good ones. But even my good ones, when I compare them to what I would call God thoughts, there’s still a huge chasm between those two. And as I get older, I’m trying to pay more attention to God thoughts and trying to invest in those even more than what I think might be a good Jim thought.

I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t think they were bad thoughts, but I didn’t know if they were just gym thoughts or God thoughts. And so I kind of said to God or to myself, maybe both, I have a board of directors, me, myself and I, and sometimes God gets thrown out of that board. I tried to bring him back into that. And so I said, “All right, if I get up in the morning and those three thoughts are still with me, I’m going to choose to believe that those are God thoughts and then I’m going to see if I can unpack them.”

Sure enough, in the morning, they were more like God shouts. And so, as I began to think about it, and I think this goes to the point of your book, as I began to think about it, I started saying, “Well, why did I get this thought that I’m having small thoughts, not big thoughts.” And the more I began to think about it, I’ve been taking some risk lately, some fiscal risks, some business risks, some ministry risks. Slowly but surely, I’ve noticed that my mind has been captured on making ends meet. Instead of more visionary, courageous kind of thinking.

And then of course that flooded into what would be obvious if you’re thinking scarcity, if you’re thinking small, you’re gonna start praying small. I noticed that as I started examining my most recent prayers, my prayers used to be, “God, I pray that you make my grandchildren warriors, that hell would become afraid of my grandchildren, that you would bring wonderful spouses into their lives,” and praying similar prayers for my kids and for my wife and for myself.

They were big prayers, but lately my prayers have been “God please protect them from harm, please protect them, protect them, protect them.” They were prayers of protection, which by themselves aren’t bad. But if you’re praying for them to be warriors that makes hell afraid, I think protection is kind of already included in that.

I just saw this slow decline of my thinking and prayer. And then I get to this other one that didn’t seem to correlate with the first two until I started believing, “Wait a second. If this is a God thought. So when the thought came, you’re too busy.” And then it made all sense in the world to me when you are too busy, and you’re not doing enough thinking, you’re not doing enough praying. Well, then of course, you’re thinking and your prayers are going to be small.

It kind of reminds me when I would teach boys and girls how to dribble the soccer ball or the basketball. They would be so focused on their feet, or they’re dribbling that they weren’t looking up to see who’s open or what obstacle might be coming. It’s so important to keep our head up. As I knew this appointment was coming, I was also fascinated with the similarity of what can happen to us as believers. There is a spirit of less than, there is a spirit of fear, there’s a spirit of intimidation, there’s a spirit of bullying. Instead of a spirit of hope and redemption and faith and courage, know, those kinds of things.

Timothy Rowe: No, and I think you hit it right on the head. And part of my book, I really try to talk about how big God is and we should just enjoy Him. That God says He surrounds us, that He’s got our back, that He goes in front of us, that He’s so much bigger than we could even comprehend. Then I have a whole chapter on prayer, too. That prayer is so dynamic and so powerful that it puts God into action. I think that we’ve sold ourselves short on prayer.

Prayer is something that people say, “I’ll pray for you,” but they really don’t understand, I think, in what the Bible talks about, the importance of prayer. I mean, it’s part of the armor of God. It’s something that can shake the very gates of hell when it’s used correctly. We think God is too small and we pray too small. I think we get so busy sometimes that we forget about God.

I mean, I’m an attorney. It’s easy to get busy and to work, but I try to set aside a time every day that I can just quiet myself and get with God. Usually, the best time’s in the morning. You know, quiet myself and not try to get so busy that I forget about God, because one of the great things we see in Scripture is God continually says, “Remember me, remember me.” You know, there’s a lot of memorials that God has through Scripture that God doesn’t want us to forget Him because He’s awesome. I think the more that we focus on God and His characteristics, the more we’ll see just how great He is.

Applying the Story to Modern Leadership

Jim Piper: If I had a wish for my colleagues, for those that I serve, whether they’re leaders of nonprofits or ministries or Fortune 500 companies or CEOs of very successful companies, whatever is that they would come to realize the beauty of stopping to do a certain thing. What I mean by stopping, halting, not doing it anymore, compartmentalizing their faith with their work, or separating them, and instead, being able to take the challenges and problems at work and see God as a partner, see God as somebody who’s big enough to be small enough to care about us, and to provide wisdom, to provide discernment. To, again, provide some of those character elements that we had mentioned before. Out of curiosity, Tim, is Timothy a family name? Do you know why you were named Timothy?

Timothy Rowe: I don’t know. I know I have the same middle name as my father. But I don’t know why I was named Timothy, but it’s interesting in the Greek as it’s one who honors God, is the essence of Tamar and Theos, those two words. No, and maybe I should have asked, but I never did. I am thankful for the name. I always say God loved the name so much, he put two books of the Bible in there. But it’s an interesting name and I am thankful I have it.

Jim Piper: When I start talking to men and women in the marketplace and if they become interested in reading scripture, they want to know where to start. Depending upon where their faith is at, there’s a lot of typical answers that we give. To really understand the gospel, we tell people to read the gospel of John. Many times, we say, well, just start from the beginning. It’s a little bit misleading because the Bible isn’t all written in chronological order. You know, Genesis is a great place to start.

When I’m speaking with somebody who does have some faith, that other general answer is, well, start in the book of Proverbs because it has immediate application for wisdom and leadership and business. But I like to also mention first and second Timothy. That’s why I asked you because the leadership concepts that Paul is giving to his protege, Timothy, is just super, super valuable.

I remember when I first went into ministry, somebody had mentioned that to me, and I just tore first and second Timothy apart. I still have that Bible in my library somewhere. It’s not really useful anymore because pages don’t stay where they’re supposed to stay. And those pages were so highlighted, penciled. You can see the oil from my fingers even being all over the pages, but I was just curious.

Discussion on the Book’s Impact and Rabshakeh’s Strategies

So let me say this and then ask you another question. So obviously, again, however, I stumbled upon your book, I went to Amazon, and you have a good section excerpt there in Amazon of this book. That’s what I meant by I already did some reading in it and was drawn to your writing. Being that I am somewhat educated in contract law, thank goodness you don’t write like that.

Timothy Rowe: Yeah, it would be hard to understand.

Jim Piper: I enjoyed reading it. I have not ordered the book yet, but it’s on my to-do list. I am going to order the book because I like your style of writing. It is thorough. It is interesting. I think if somebody really does want to take a deeper dive without having to become a scholar, I think this is written at the right level. It covers very important topics. What are some of the things that you could say about the book? What did it do for you? Right?

Timothy Rowe: Yeah, I think that’s true.

Jim Piper: I noticed that in the two books that I have written, I might have been the person that benefited the most if nobody else did. Yeah. Tell me, what did it do for you in your life as you wrote it?

Timothy Rowe: I think it really strengthens your faith in God because Hezekiah faced an absolutely impossible circumstance. We face those in life all the time where we may think that there’s no way out. As I began to look, I saw that these eight strategies of Rabshakeh can be very powerful. They can be very intimidating. They can be very learning that, yeah, let’s just go along with this voice, this spirit and let’s do these things.

I think it really strengthened my faith in God because I saw that God is the victor, God is the warrior, God always comes through. He sets forth principles in His Word that if we follow Him, He promises He’s the faithful one, He promises that they’ll come to pass. I think it really strengthened my faith in God and faith in His word.

Jim Piper: Talk about some of these eight strategies. You can’t give your book away on a podcast, but talk about some of them that really stood out that you think are, “Oh, man, this is something that’s just as clear as day that is even happening now.”

Timothy Rowe: Yeah, I think the first one, which is the foundation, is who do you trust? That’s what the Spirit was really saying. Trust me, don’t trust Hezekiah, don’t trust Yahweh, don’t trust God. Trust me, I can give you much more than what Yahweh can or what Hezekiah can. The foundation strategy really is who do you trust? Do you trust God? Hezekiah obviously did. Or do you trust the culture around you?

Then I build on that. Is the Bible mere words? The Bible says that men shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. But we have to determine what we think about the words that are in the Bible. That was the second one, is that the spirit of Rabshakeh was saying, “Look, this is just mere words. I wouldn’t be worried about it.”

Then he gets into deliverance. He says five times, Hezekiah can’t deliver you. But I talk about that there’s deliverance in only one and that’s God. And then he mocks, he reviles God and I talk, get into detail with that. And then he really says, “Look, I can provide you anything that you need. Is God enough or do we just need to have the little picketed fence and the home and the garden and we should be fine?” I talk a little bit about that.

Then I do a whole section on high places. Unfortunately, Israel and Judah kind of use the high places to worship other gods. But I ask, what is your high place, which is similar to who do you trust in? Then the seventh one, I talked about how fear is the fuel of Rabshakeh. Then the eighth one is, it’s an interesting one that I think about a lot after everything else, he said, “God told me to do this.” So we have to have discernment, just like you said. Is this really the voice of the Lord, or is this just the voice of a man speaking that’s trying to say that God’s the one that set him up?

These were the eight strategies that were used against Hezekiah. They’re good strategies. They’re still used today. The Bible says not to be ignorant of Satan’s devices. He uses these same devices today, some stronger than others. And then we have to decide who we’re going to trust, who we’re going to put our faith in.

Hezekiah’s Actions and Sennacherib’s Defeat

Jim Piper: Listening to you, I thought about this. You’re a king, you’re the leader of a nation, you want to take over another nation. Obviously, the most profitable way to do that would be through some sort of sell job, some sort of merger, really hostile takeover, some sort of diplomacy to reduce bloodshed and loss because bloodshed and loss is going to cost you a lot more down the road. You’re going to have more rebellion. You have resistance. You’re going to have bitterness. You’re going to have–

So any man or woman with half a brain knows that psychological warfare is probably something that you want to try. You know, forgetting the whole fact that conquering another nation, that whole foundation of motive has to be examined in and of itself. But sooner or later, just to awaken the consciousnesses, maybe it’s a cultural debate what’s going on, but in the digression of things, it will eventually get to force.

And that’s of course, where it was going to until the biblical account of the miraculous interceding of God against the Assyrians, that somewhat humorous to me. I know it’s not humorous, but it’s somewhat humorous to me in that story for those who are unfamiliar. So there’s a big number that’s thrown out 185,000. I don’t know if you did study on that whether that you think is a legitimate number or hyperbole or whatever, but 185,000 soldiers camped outside of the walls of Jerusalem. And then in one evening, the armies of God wipe out not 185,000, but a lot of them to where the biblical story has, in my mind, Tim, this is what it looks like.

I’m in my tent, slept on a rock wrong. I get up trying to stretch my neck. I’m stretching out. I noticed that there’s dead bodies everywhere. For whatever reason, I was spared. But the obvious sign of defeat, I mean, can you imagine the fear that must have gone through the other soldiers? And of course, Sennacherib and company split went back. And of course, the story gets worse for him when he gets murdered on his own. But it made me think about the other side of the story that you’re talking about.

I don’t know how long it took for the Assyrians to come from the north, march through Israel, make its way down Jerusalem, but it wasn’t days, it wasn’t weeks, probably wasn’t months. It might have been. What, a year two or three? I’m not sure.

Timothy Rowe: Yeah, I think in the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign was when they took over Assyria and then after that they turned their focus to Judah. But yeah, I think that the Bible sometimes doesn’t tell us as far as the exact timing that’s involved.

Jim Piper: Right. But there’s enough information to know that Hezekiah had some time to see that it was coming. And if I remember right, there was messages made that kind of making fun of Hezekiah that he was like a bird caught in his own cage there in Jerusalem, in the city of Jerusalem. So he knew it was coming and the people knew it was coming. And so he used all of his God-given creativity and strategies to fortify the walls.

I think there’s some writings, I don’t know if they’re biblical or not, maybe extra biblical, that he even was trying to acquire mercenaries to join the team. He had the underground water streams, made sure that the Assyrians couldn’t get to that, rerouted that into the city of Jerusalem as examples. So he did everything he could, which kind of reminds me of the story of the fish and loaves. He gave what he could give, but it wasn’t enough.

And then if I were to do it chronologically in my mind of what makes him a hero to me is, so he’s leading because he’s obviously had to direct the people of Jerusalem to do these things, the water, the wall. I would imagine that they were shoring up their ability to defend themselves, you know, those kinds of things were going on. That seems to be pretty clear.

And then there’s part of the text where he recognizes that this is a grave situation. What I really love about this is he tears his clothes, which was a public sign. I don’t think he did it in the square, but he did it in the witness of someone, maybe his internal court or cohort or whatever. Of course, that would spread out. What I like about him tearing his clothes is he called it like it was. I think a lot of leaders still struggle with that. They struggle with just telling the truth. He tore his clothes as a way of mourning, distraught, humility, and then he prayed. So the third thing he did is he prayed.

First thing he did is he did everything he could. Second thing he did is he acknowledged his position in all of this, which wasn’t enough by tearing his clothes. Third, he prayed. Fourth, he sent messengers to Isaiah, I believe it is as if Isaiah didn’t know, I assume, but basically, asking for guidance, asking, and maybe Hezekiah was at a place where he felt he wasn’t hearing from God. God was deaf, we go through times like that in our life.

And so whatever that story was, the point is he went to Isaiah and then got the message back from Isaiah that he’s not going to have to worry about this one, God was going to handle this one. And then the story goes on. Have you been able to figure out where in the life of Hezekiah in relationship to him being told that he had what, x years to live he was going to die? Are we being presumptuous to think that when he asked for more time, and God gave him more time, was it 15 years as I recall?

Timothy Rowe: Yeah.

Jim Piper: Top of my head. Is it presumptuous to say that this was about the time maybe that that was going on? Or was this a completely different time do you think?

Timothy Rowe: Yeah, that’s a good question. I looked at that. But my thinking is, I think that it happened shortly thereafter when Babylon was invited.

Jim Piper:  Oh, he screwed up with Babylon. They made a mistake later. Yeah.

Timothy Rowe: I mean, his son– I think about this a lot. He had a son, Manasseh, that wasn’t the greatest either. So, it gives us some hope with our children, I think. I think how I’ve worked it is I think that it happened shortly after this occurred.

Jim Piper: Yeah, and the mistake he made there as a leader. That’s the other thing that we can talk about here with leadership is even in the book that I just recently released, Story, I think there’s two chapters in the book where I talked about a span of leadership in my life where I did some things really well and I talked about those. And then I did some things that weren’t so great. I talked about those and maybe even looking back at it, why I think they weren’t so great and what led to them.

This story isn’t about me, but I do wonder, the Book of Proverbs talks a little bit, it doesn’t refer to Hezekiah’s mistake, but it does illustrate Hezekiah’s mistake where– I’m not going to be able give us a chapter and verse, but I know you recall these kind of sometimes talks about the foolishness of flaunting what we have. It also talks about many of the wealthy act like they’re poor, but in fact, they got a ton of money. It kind of gives that contrast where, in this case, Hezekiah kind of holds up his wealth in front of the Babylonians. That wasn’t smart.

Timothy Rowe: No, no, and it kind of teaches us that we could have the greatest victory in the world. And then a year or two later, be really challenged on something. And Hezekiah didn’t make a real wise decision.

Jim Piper: Yeah, spiritually and psychologically, I’ve always been taught and have experienced that it seems like we’re most exposed to mistakes right after a great victory in our lives. You would think it would be during the low points in our lives and certainly, there’s temptation for that, right? There’s the temptation of survival of lying, cheating, stealing and whatever form that looks like for survival purposes. So you can say that would be the some of the temptations there. Revenge even maybe would be another example at a low point. But also, at the times where we have achieved an amazing victory, what happens there? We get filled with pride maybe, take our eye off the ball. I’m not sure how you would say it.

Timothy Rowe: I think we get prideful and for whatever reason, I think we just need to be on guard all the time. Because I think that that is a real temptation to sit back on our laurels and think that we’ve really accomplished something. That’s when we really get attacked and we have to determine at that point in time that pride may not be the best way to handle it.

Leadership and Personal Reflection

Jim Piper: There was a time in my life, Tim, that– What kind of law do you practice, by the way?

Timothy Rowe: I did general initially because I started my own law firm out of lawschool, but I do personal injury primarily.

Jim Piper: Personal injury. So you’ll probably find this to be humorous. I think up to the age of about 45 years old, I had been hearing going to leadership conferences, etc, etc, etc. I’ve been hearing about how so many leaders go through– You know, when someone stabs you in the back, what do you call that? Help me, Timothy.

Timothy Rowe: I’m trying to think but I’m kind of drawing a blank too.

Jim Piper: Yeah, goodness. The listeners are yelling at us right now, “This word.”

Timothy Rowe: Probably so.

Jim Piper: But betrayal. That’s what I was thinking of betrayal. I’ve heard all these story about inner circle betrayals and then looking back at it and why and all these stories. I remember thinking to myself, “Man, I’m glad that’s never happened to me.” And I’m never going to think, “Well, I must be better than the rest of those leaders,” because I’m just not going to think that. I’m not going to think that. I’m going to be humble. And I’m just going to be grateful that that hasn’t happened to me.

But I do think when you hear a lot of those stories for a long time, you can’t but help begin to think, “Well, maybe I am a little bit better than all those guys out.” And then, of course, it happened to me. Then you go through that. It’s just so important with this book that you have written and the things that we read about and things that we study that there, not to make people weird or think there’s a devil behind every bush, but there should be a defensive side to leadership, should there not, when we’re on guard?

Timothy Rowe: Yeah, I agree. Because I think we naturally want to be our own hero. We want to be the hero of our own story. I tried to say that self-sufficiency is not always the best route because then we leave God out, we think we’re our own gods. That’s where we run into problems. When we start thinking we’re better, I’m thinking about Jesus. I mean, Judas, he prayed all night and picked Judas and Judas wasn’t faithful to him.

I think about how the disciples were arguing who would be the greatest among them. Jesus was saying, well, if you really want to be a leader, if you really want to be someone be a servant to all people. You know, it was common to Jesus and it’s common to anybody that steps out into a role of leadership, because you’re going to have to deal sometimes with people that may not have your best interests in mind. Again, I don’t think pride is the way to handle it. I don’t think beating our chest is the way to handle it. I think that we need to go to a greater power, God, and ask for wisdom on how to handle the situation.

Jim Piper: As an attorney, you have to be a logical thinker. You have to be a process-oriented thinker. You mentioned the Jesus Judas thing. What do make of that?

Timothy Rowe: It’s amazing. Yeah, it’s amazing. I mean, he probably knew. I mean, I would think he knew pretty quickly that Judas’s heart wasn’t in the right place. In fact, there’s a verse in John that said that he was in charge of the money and he was stealing out of it. And then to portray Jesus too, it’s just– I sometimes I can’t wrap my mind around it to think that somebody that was in the inner circle of Jesus would betray him like that. It’s hard sometimes to wrap the mind around it, but it does happen. I think it’s something that we need to be on guard about.

Jim Piper: I think your book has a lot to do with leadership. When I walk through leadership philosophy, this is kind of what I think about. I think it was the Stoics that said that the more one knows themselves, the more they know God, the more a person knows God, the more they’ll know themselves. Meaning that if you want to understand yourself, what better source than the one who created you? What better source? And then, of course, that creator is the engineer, the author. God obviously wants us to understand our purpose and our why.

To me, leadership does start with kind of a curiosity of why am I here? How did I get here? Who’s responsible for that? And what am I to do with that? I remember Dr. Dan Spader, was somebody that I met when I was in my mid 20s. It’s probably one of the things I can be most grateful for is the kind of people that that God or for those of you who are still trying to consider whether there’s God or not, you can throw the word fate in there. I’m fine with that. That God or fate has put into my life just people who have sometimes just shared with me a nugget even that just has stayed with me.

I remember Dr. Spader said to me when I was thinking about my approach to ministry, he said, “There’s really only three things to talk about. Who is God? What has he done for us? And then what should our response be?” I really appreciate things like that. I’m not limited to those three, but it seems like every good question comes from those three. To me, leadership starts there with that sense of self-awareness. And then leading self.

I remember one time I gave a talk in a Christian environment where I talked about the importance of leading oneself. I had a young man whose heart was in the right place come up to me afterwards and said, “I really struggled with your message because I thought we were to be led by the spirit of God.” And I said, “Well, gosh, what did I say that would cause you to believe that that’s– Who makes a decision that they’re going to follow the ways of God?” That’s where he gives us his incredible will of ours.

So the point is, if I’m not self-aware, and if I’m not leading myself well, what makes me think I can lead others in the right manner? It is a humble process. It really is a serving process. It’s a curiosity process. To your point about Jesus and Judas, sometimes we just have to scratch our head and continue to walk in curiosity, walk in faith.

Timothy Rowe: Yeah, I think what you said is it’s really a partnership. If God has had numbers, the hairs of our head, he’s concerned about every detail of our life, which includes how we lead others, what position and purpose that he set for our lives. I think I talk about in my book, the importance of working together with God as a partner and how he’s so concerned about every detail of our lives. I definitely agree with you that there’s a partnership involved there. And I think if we really want to accomplish what we want to accomplish as leaders, I think that we can go far beyond what we even think we can go on, like Ezekiah did, by letting God be our partner.

Conclusion and Call to Action

Jim Piper:  If you’re looking for a book to read, you’re one of the few and you’re like us and you like to read, I want you to get this book. Like I said, I’m going to order it because I’ve read enough of it in the excerpt that Timothy has provided for us on Amazon. Is that the place for us to get the book? Give us the name again one more time.

Timothy Rowe: The Spirit of Rabshakeh is Alive and Well in America. You can get it on Amazon. I also have a website called faithofhezekiah.com. You can order it through that also. I think it will bless you because I tried to write it in everyday language. I’m the only attorney in my family. I don’t come from a long list of silver spoons. I’ve done everything from making pizzas to pumping gas to cleaning toilets. I’ve done it all. I think it’s just a real simple approach to what God set forth in His Word.

Jim Piper: Well, there’s a right way and there’s a wrong way to make pizza. I respect those who have taken up that craft. I’m kind of a pizza Nazi. I have a certain way that I like mine done. Yeah, like you, I have done different things in my life too. Timothy, I appreciate it. It’s good meeting you. Yeah. Thank you for writing the book. I think it’s a good book that helps people think. We certainly need that today and all of our lives.

Timothy Rowe: I appreciate you having me on the show and I appreciate your show. I think people will be blessed with a book. I encourage them to get it and let me know what you think.

Outro

Winston Harris: Thank you for joining us here at The Today Count Show. Be sure to like and subscribe on whatever platform you listen to or watch, so you don’t miss any content. Stay tuned for more coming soon.
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