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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

Book Keeping for Life

Good to be back at Advent Hope and this is the last 3 times I've been here we've met somewhere different so obviously good things are happening.

Father God, we thank you Lord for bringing us together on this your Holy Sabbath day.

Father God, we are aware of our unworthiness.

Lord, even our righteousness is as filthy rags.

But, Father God, great is your mercy towards us.

So I just ask right now, dear God, that your Holy Spirit would fill this place.

That Father God Eric Walsh would not be seen or heard.

Instead, Father God, give us a message from the throne room of grace.

I want to ask you to turn with me in your Bible to 2 Samuel chapter 12.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled bookkeeping for life.

Let me read our scripture for this first, Daniel 12.1, I'll just read it as you turn to 2 Samuel.

The scripture says, and at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time.

And at that time thy people shall be delivered everyone That shall be found written in the book Bookkeeping for life we start in the book of 2nd Samuel chapter 12 Starting at verse 1 The scripture says And the Lord sent Nathan unto David.

And he came unto him and said unto him, There were 2 men in 1 city, the 1 rich and the 1 poor.

The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds But the poor man had nothing save 1 little ewe lamb Which he had bought and nourished up and it grew up together with him and with his children it did eat of his own meat and drank of his own cup and lay in his bosom and was unto him as a daughter.

And there came a traveler unto the rich man and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him, but took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the man that was come to him.

The scripture says, and David's anger was greatly kindled against the man.

And he said to Nathan, as the Lord liveth, the man that has done this shall surely die.

And he shall restore the Lamb fourfold, Because he did this thing and because he had no pity Nathan said to David Thou art the man Thus said the Lord God of Israel I anointed the king over Israel and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul and I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah and if that had been too little I would have moreover had given unto thee such and such things.

Here is 1 of the great confrontations in scripture.

In fact, 1 of my books I read to be a leader as the director of the health Department for the City of Pasadena is a book called Crucial Confrontations.

It's a book that teaches you how, in time of difficulty, to sit and face people who you really don't want to have to confront.

He also has a book called Crucial Conversations.

But Crucial Confrontations is a book that tells you when you have to tell someone something difficult, what is the strategy with which you use to sit in front of them and to approach them and to have to actually bring them where you want them in terms of dealing with a difficult subject.

Because he approaches King David in such a manner as to actually have David help in the process of diagnosing not only the problem but then rendering the verdict.

You see David had succumbed to what so many fall prey to.

He was a most successful monarch and king over Israel and Judea.

David was so successful after slaying Goliath the women when he would come back to town would sing Saul has killed his thousands but David has killed his tens of thousands.

David was so successful that all of the empires and nations and tribes that would come against Israel were now beginning to just either fall prey to the military might of Israel, or they were bowing and just surrendering.

David was becoming a superstar, as it were.

He was a man of legend and folklore not just in Israel or in Judah But but his name now was being broadcasted all around the globe And I submit to you as Christians that there's a dangerous cocktail created when fame, fortune, and ease all come together in 1 person.

There's a dangerous cocktail that is created when fame, fortune, and ease come together in 1 person.

It is very easy for even the most spiritually and emotionally grounded individual to begin to believe the hype about themselves.

Not difficult when you're Kobe Bryant to actually begin to believe that you can win every single basketball game at the last second.

You can believe like Evander Holyfield that even though you are now probably a grandfather, you can still come back in box.

You begin to believe the hype that somehow you are more than human, that you exist on another plane, and partially that is the fault of the society around us, because especially in America, we live in a place where for whatever reason Americans have bought the bug of bowing and worshipping people.

There are people that walk around with the pictures of people like Malcolm X or Che Guevara or whoever on their shirt.

We idolize individuals and yet you don't see too many people really walk around with a shirt with a Bible verse on it.

We live in a time when we want to elevate people so when Michael Jackson dies with all of the problems that he had, even in the choir lofts of America.

Whole choirs put on 1 glove and began to sing songs like I'm Looking at the Man in the Mirror.

But I submit to you that as Christians, we have to be very careful.

Even inside of Adventism, even our great preachers, we must be careful because it is an intoxicating potion.

People are always singing your praises and life begins to seem easy and you can quickly begin to believe your hype.

And instead of being at war with his army like he was supposed to be, he was on the top of the roof of his own house.

And as David is there, he looks over and sees a woman bathing.

Now, I have to believe that Bathsheba was a pretty good-looking woman.

So because David didn't just have 1 wife behind in the house underneath him.

I heard 1 man say, as we were talking about it, he said, that's why he was on the roof.

And I can't imagine that the king picked or was given too many unattractive wives.

But somehow this disease that happens when you have riches and fame and your name is broadcasted like this.

So he's on the roof and he looks and sees her bathing.

Something happens to David and he calls for her and they bring her and he lays her, a long story short, and eventually she gets pregnant.

When David gets word that Bathsheba is pregnant, he begins to do what sinners do.

He begins, rather than to confess his sin and ask God to help him, he begins to try and fix it himself.

And so he calls for her husband to come back from the battlefield and he brings her husband back and assumes that a man who's been in the battlefield that long with a woman that looks that good, that the husband would quickly want to go home to his wife but when he brings Uriah back he would rather to sleep at the doorstep of the king.

He says how can I go and lay in my comfortable bed with my wife when the armies of Israel are pitched in tents?

They're sleeping on the ground and at war how can I go and live in luxury that should have been a rebuke to David all by itself?

David tries all of his stunts and when he realized none of it's going to work he actually gives Uriah the Hittite the very letter that is his own death sentence to carry back to the battlefield.

1 of the most cruel things in all of scripture is done by David And as he brings this thing back and goes out to the battlefield, not only do they put him in the hottest part of the battle, but the letter actually describes that then the troops should withdraw from him.

So that not only is it the worst part because he was such a valiant fighter that with the support of the troops they might have won.

The mandate was that then they back off of him.

That's what you called orchestrated murder.

They back off and he's killed and and the spirit of prophecy really breaks the thing down nicely.

Ellen White says that that in fact David began to think that that after that he could marry Uriah's wife and actually weep forever the benefit of his sin.

So twisted did he become in this plot that that David now began to look at it like wow what a good thing has happened.

Her husband's gone, she's pregnant with my child, and I got 1 of the prettiest girls in all the land.

And to Nathan, as David is sitting on his throne, contempt that his sin has been okayed, hidden, that no 1 will ever know the difference.

In fact, we are told by the inspired pen that in fact, the rumors had already begun to swirl around Israel.

That unless his sin went checked, This 1 sin could have brought the entire empire down So Nathan comes in and notice that Nathan does not come in and and and quickly as some of us do start throwing stones you adulterer You murder See some of us do that we don't We haven't read the book Crucial Confrontations yet.

So we throw stones at people in their sin.

What do people do when you confront them the wrong way?

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Book Keeping for Life

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