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Skip Heitzig: Somebody beat me to the punch many years ago just to show you there's nothing new under the sun. Here's a kid's book called *Hey, That's Not What the Bible Says*. So when you open it up, it says, "In the beginning, God created everything else. Then God created Adam and Eve."

Aren't you glad I'm reading to you out of a children's book? "Perfect people in a perfect world. The only thing that God asked of Adam and Eve is that they not eat of the fruit of a special tree. So they didn't. And all the people of the world lived happily ever after forever and ever. The end."

Then you turn the page and it says in big letters, "Hey, that's not what the Bible says!" Then it gives you the real story. Then the second story in the book: "Years later, a whole bunch of people lived on the earth. The people wouldn't quit sinning. So God told a man named Noah to build a giant boat called an ark. All the people of the world got on Noah's ark.

"Then God made it rain and rain. It was so boring on the ark that the people learned their lesson and never sinned again." You get the gist of it. You turn the page, "Hey, that's not what the Bible says!" And so the book goes. Very inventive, actually. So I didn't come up with it.

One of the most common refrains in our culture, whether it's in books or movies or songs, is the little saying, "Follow your heart. Follow your heart." Several bands I found out have that as one of their signature tunes. They simply call it "Follow Your Heart." Other songs that are popular: "Listen to Your Heart" and another one "Your Heart Doesn't Lie," which itself is a lie.

Singer Celine Dion said, "If you do follow your heart, I think you can't go wrong." Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, his most famous piece of advice was, "Follow your heart." In fact, he said, "There's no reason not to follow your heart." Well, I want you to hold that thought because I'm going to give you a few reasons why you shouldn't follow your heart.

All of this sounds on the surface like good, helpful advice. It sort of sounds like, "Yeah, that's being authentic" to say follow your heart. But what it means when you strip away the music, when you take away the Hallmark card art, it means do what you want to do. It means do what you feel is right at the time. Listen to your intuition. Make emotional decisions.

It sort of goes along with other slogans that are similar, like "Be true to yourself" or "Follow your passions," which by the way is not great advice. Let's say you're an engineer and you happen to be very good at being an engineer and you're making a good living at it, but that's not your passion. You'd rather do art, but you happen to be a very bad artist.

If you follow your passion, you're going to be broke. You're going to have to sell your home. You're going to put your family through misery and you could end up on the street. All because you followed your passion. So when you get down to it, to follow your heart means that feelings should take the place of logic or reason or social standards or God's truth.

And I want to show you why that is not a good plan. You see, the problem with all of our feelings is they are just that. They are feelings and they are temporary and they go up and they go down and they shift like the sand with the wind. What we are basically talking about here is making decisions.

How do you make the choices that you make? What is the criteria that you use in making your decisions? On one hand, you could use intellect, rational analysis. You could gather the facts, you could weigh the pros and the cons. Add to that prayer, add to that God's word. On the other hand, you have intuition, emotion, trust your gut, right brain instead of left brain.

So what I'd like to do is sort of just get the pot stirred and offend everybody at one time and then explain myself. So I'm going to throw out a principle and then we're going to see an example of it in the scripture. And here's the principle: Proverbs 28:26, words written by King Solomon, the son of David.

He said this, maybe even thinking of this incident we are about to read. He said, "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool." There it is, got it out there. "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered." Now what I'd like to do is we're going to look at 2 Samuel chapter 7, a few of these verses, and I want to show you three components of David's decision-making process.

Three stages. And it almost went really bad, but of course God redeemed it. Three components of David's decision-making process: it begins with a good intention and then some bad advice and finally a better plan. Let's look at the good intention, verse 1. "Now it came to pass when the king," the king here is King David, "so it came to pass when King David was dwelling in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies all around, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, 'See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells inside tent curtains.'"

In this scene, King David is at home. He is in his own personal palace. It was a time of great relief for him. He built that house with the help of a friend of his who was also a king up north in Tyre, up in modern-day Lebanon, named King Hiram, who shipped to him cedar logs, the cedars of Lebanon.

So David had a palace, the halls were lined with cedar wood. And we are told in verse 1 that the Lord had given him rest from all of his enemies all around. So it's not only a time of personal peace, it's a time of national peace. The Philistines, the great enemy that plagued them for years, they have been defeated.

There are no enemies knocking at the doors of the city of Jerusalem. Heck, I'll take it a step further. Maybe David even had a plaque over his fireplace that said "Shalom," peace. He could breathe a sigh of relief because it was finally a time of peace. And as he is just enjoying leisurely moments walking through his cedar-lined hallways of his palace, that dream that he has had for so long keeps coming to the surface.

"I want to build a temple for the Lord." He always wanted to do that. In the previous chapter, we're not going to go back and read it, just trust that I have actually read it, in the previous chapter, David manages to bring the Ark of the Covenant into the city of Jerusalem. It is literally in a tent-like structure next door to his palace in Jerusalem.

And so David in this time of peace just gets to thinking, "Here I am in this beautiful palatial building lined with cedar, and the God of the universe is camping out in a tent. What's wrong with this picture? I need to get God a house. I need to build him a temple." That was common protocol, by the way, in ancient times.

Kings, when they would get into a time of peace, would build a temple to honor their god or gods. But more than just David following protocol, I think what happened is that David had done the hard work of bringing peace to the land. Now he wants to focus on spiritual priorities once again. So he brings in, verse 2, Nathan the prophet.

You will remember that Nathan will be the one after David commits adultery who will point his finger at David and say, "Busted. You're the man." But at this point, David is not in that kind of a situation. Nathan is not in a mood to confront. Nathan is simply an advisor, he is simply a friend to David. And so the good intention is to build God a temple.

And I'll say that David's intention was pure. I don't think he had an ulterior motive. It's not about making his own name great, it's about glorifying and honoring God. All of that is a good intention. However, good intentions do not always produce good results. In fact, good intentions are not always God's intentions.

Just because you have an idea that is a good idea or a good intention does not necessitate that it is God's will. And you're about to find that out. Let me put this thought in your mind before we go to the next: Good intentions are the seeds of good deeds, but they must be watered by God's will. Good intentions are the seeds of good deeds, but they must be watered by God's will.

And I'm going to show you how to do that before we end this message. So we begin with a good intention. David has a great idea, something he has longed for for a long time. The good intention is followed by some bad advice. Let's look at it, verse 3. "Then Nathan said to the king, 'Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.'"

Nathan the prophet is following the advice of Steve Jobs and Celine Dion. He is saying to David basically, "Follow your heart, David." He's a good friend, he's an encourager. "Yeah, man, do it. Go for it." Now he is speaking as David's friend. He is not speaking as God's prophet. The words that Nathan speaks are his own, they are not the Lord's.

The advice that Nathan gives him is based on emotion, based on a very limited understanding, not instruction from God. "Follow your heart, David. Follow your heart." Even though he adds, did you notice what he added at the end, "Go do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you"? Now I'm going to suggest to you that that little ending phrase is just God talk.

It's sort of like, "Yeah, man, whatever's in your heart, go do it, dude. God bless you." Just add that because after all, he is a prophet. Now I'm also going to suggest that the very reason that David wanted Nathan's advice is because Nathan was a prophet. And David was hoping that Nathan would give him solid biblical, godly advice, giving him perhaps some word from the Lord on this rather than just reflecting back to him what he himself wanted.

But he says, "Go do all that is in your heart." Now let's pause for a moment and let's understand that good people can sometimes give bad advice. Moreover, God's people can sometimes give bad advice. There are so many different examples of this. Let me just give you three right out of the Bible.

There was the time when Sarah advised her husband Abraham to take her handmaid and have sex with her to produce the son that she was incapable of producing. Is that good advice or bad advice? Bad advice. We're still experiencing ramifications from that decision to this day. Here's another one: Mrs. Job advised her hubby, Mr. Job, after he lost everything and got a loathsome disease.

She had that wonderful, sweet counsel, you remember: "Honey, just curse God and die." Good advice or bad advice? That's pretty bad advice. Here's a third example: Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, the grandson of King David, has a group of guys around him who are young bucks who gave him advice.

And their advice to him is, "Once you're the king, you should be harder on the people and more oppressive on the people than even your father was. Show them who's boss. Flex your muscles. Put them in their place." Good advice or bad advice? Bad advice. It split the entire kingdom into ten tribes in the north and two in the south.

So all of that to say this: Advice that is not rooted in biblical truth or bathed in prayer is going to be bad advice. Advice not rooted in the Bible or bathed in prayer is going to be bad advice. In Psalm 1, David said, "Blessed are those who don't follow the counsel of the ungodly."

I've got to tell you something. I've even heard ungodly counsel from godly people. So just because they're God's people, godly people, doesn't mean everything they say is like, do it. It can be bad advice. So let's look at what happens, verse 4. "But it happened that night that the word of the Lord came to Nathan saying, 'Go and tell my servant David, "Thus says the Lord, 'Would you build a house for me to dwell in?'"'"

Now it's a question mark here. The other account, the parallel account to this is in 1 Chronicles 17. God is even more plain than this. He says, "Go back and tell David, 'No. No, you shall not build a house for me.'" Now what this reveals to me, well let's go on, look at verse 7. "'Wherever I have moved about with all the children of Israel, have I ever spoken a word to anyone from the tribes of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, "Why have you not built me a house?"'"

What this tells me is that God never asked for a house. God didn't feel the need to have a permanent structure. It tells me that God was okay with camping out in a tent. In fact, do you remember what Stephen in the New Testament said? "The Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands." So here's David, he has this brilliant idea, good intention.

"I'm going to build God a house." Here you've got a prophet saying, "Yeah, man, follow your heart." And God saying, "What? You misspoke. No, he'll not build that house for me." Now back to what Steve Jobs said. Steve Jobs once again said, "Follow your heart. In fact, there is no reason not to follow your heart."

Now what I'd like to do is give you some reasons why you should not follow your heart. And they're going to be rough to hear for some of you. Number one: Our hearts are divided. Our hearts are divided. Back in the book of Hosea chapter 10, Hosea was a prophet in the Old Testament, Hosea is speaking about God's people, the children of Israel.

And he says concerning them, "Their heart is divided and now they are held guilty." Your heart, your emotions, your intuitions are divided. They are inconsistent. They fluctuate. They go up, they go down. A wind changes, they change. A circumstance happens and they change. I found one quote I want to throw up on the screen.

If you're a musician, you'll especially appreciate this. This is from Thaddeus Williams, he's a member of the Gospel Coalition, and he writes this: "The following-your-heart dogma naively assumes our hearts are like choirs, each emotion harmonizing with all the others. In reality, the heart is less like a choir and more like a Guitar Center storefront in which 50 guitarists on 50 guitars and amps are all trying to out-shred each other."

Can you get that picture? You have 50 guys plugged in, turned up to ten, all want to show their jam at one time. That's your emotions. That's follow your heart. Our hearts are divided. David even prayed in Psalm 86, "Unite my heart to fear Your name." That is, give me an undivided heart because he knew our hearts are divided.

So our hearts are divided, that's the first problem with them. Second: Our hearts are depraved. Now I know that's a strong word, but the Bible teaches what's called the depravity of man. Our hearts are depraved. Listen to Jeremiah as he gives a healthy dose of reality. This is Jeremiah 17:9.

He says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?" Ouch. "Follow your heart, man. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?" What does that mean? It means that what happened years ago in the Garden of Eden at the fall with Adam and Eve has so tainted our abilities that we cannot think clearly.

What it means is that we inherited from that one event a sinful nature so that our feelings, our emotions, our heart is not a trustworthy guide in making choices. If we rely solely on our heart for guidance, for direction, for wisdom, we're going to get it wrong and we're going to move from one bad choice to another bad choice to another bad choice because it felt so good at the time.

Back in 1977, there was a hit song written by Joseph Brooks. You've never heard of his name because he didn't sing it, he wrote it. But the song was made famous by Debby Boone. It's called "You Light Up My Life." Do you remember that song? It's a great song. But there are some lyrics in it I don't like.

Part of the lyrics say, "It can't be wrong when it feels so right." Oh yes it can be wrong. Just because it feels so right, it might not feel that right tomorrow morning. It can't be wrong when it feels so right. You see your feelings, my feelings, they're not reliable enough to discern between what is right and what is wrong.

So our hearts are divided, our hearts are depraved, and here's a third, I'm going to go from bad to worse: Our hearts are delusional. In Proverbs 21:2, it reads, "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts." Every way of man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.

Now I want to prove that because it seems that science is starting to catch up with scripture now. One of the best-documented findings in social science is something known as self-serving bias. If you're familiar with that world, you're familiar with that term, self-serving bias. What is it?

Let me give you the definition. It is any cognitive or perceptual process that's distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem. Let me give it to you in English. It means we think we are better than everyone else. That's called self-serving bias.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember that your generosity helps share God's word around the world, bringing truth and hope to people who need Jesus. And this month, we'll send you Lenya Heitzig's powerful book, *Reload Love: Transforming Bullets to Beauty and Battlegrounds to Playgrounds*, as our thanks for your gift.

This inspiring story shows how God can turn bullets into beauty and how love can transform even the most broken places into beacons of hope. Give now at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. We'll see you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig.

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