ASI 2012: It's Time... To Be About Our Father's Business

ASI 2012 Seminar: It's Time

Christian Berdahl

Distraction Dilemma - Exposing Distractions & Dangers in Music

My name is Christian Berdahl, and we're going to spend a little over an hour together.

And what I'm going to attempt to do, as my friend Neb said, was I'm going to attempt to make sense out of a very large subject.

In fact, the shortest time I could compact it down for it to still make sense was 12 hours.

So our 5 DVD set is 12 hours of education.

And when you go through that course, it's amazing how you'll come out on the other end.

In fact, we have young people, we've had amazing testimonies of academies, every student buying their own copy so they can take it home and watch it with their parents, praise God.

So I'm going to try to compact this down to a little over an hour, and I'm going to have to move right through.

So I'm simply calling this the music overview, because we're not going to get through all the material.

I would like to have an additional word of prayer real quick though.

Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we just ask that you would put your hand over this entire seminar.

We know that the devil does not want us to chase this rabbit.

Lord, I pray that you would please help us to expose the dangers that you have revealed to us in just 1 area of life, music.

And Lord, I ask that you would bless us with the Holy Spirit, even the samples that we listen to, help us to be educated by them and not entertained.

In Jesus' name we plead for the Holy Spirit, amen.

So a couple big questions in the Christian world.

So, there are proponents on 1 side saying, doesn't matter what we listen to, music is amoral.

Others say, no, wait a minute, music is moral and it does matter what we listen to.

Another big question that we have is, is it just the lyrics that matter most or is it the music bed that matters most?

Is it moral or amoral and is it the lyrics or the music bed that matters most?

So we're just going to take 2 of the questions out of the entire seminar, and we're just going to look at that today.

So let's see what some people in the contemporary Christian music movement say.

Sandy Patty, music is a very powerful force.

But a lot of artists are taking that very powerful tool and putting negative, horrible lyrics to it, and those lyrics are getting into the hearts of the listeners and shaping their values.

Why can't we, for example, contemporary Christian musicians, take that same powerful force, music, and put positive lyrics to it and begin shaping values that way?

Is there anything wrong with what she's saying?

However, she's limiting what she's saying.

And that is what most every single contemporary Christian music artist does.

They say, it doesn't matter the music bed, what style it is, it's just the actual lyrical content that matters.

David Meese, another CCM artist, back in the 80s and early 90s, he says this, basically you have to focus on the lyrics and what the song is saying.

That is my criteria to decide whether the song is right or wrong.

It has nothing to do with the music style.

It has to do with the lyrics, what the song is saying, what are the words saying.

As Christians, we can objectively judge it from that standpoint.

And if you have Jesus lyrics, it doesn't matter what type of music you listen to.

Now conversely, we can look at someone like Professor Marshall McLuhan, and he has a very different view on this.

Now understand that his work is viewed as 1 of the cornerstones, cornerstones work on media.

He's a professor, philosopher, and scholar.

But here's what he said, the medium is the message.

That is to say the music, its melody, harmony and rhythm all by itself disposes a man to virtue or vice by moving the emotions.

So we have 1 side, the Christian saying, no it's just the lyrics, then we have academia and science saying, no, it's the way that the actual music, the melody, harmony, and rhythmic structures alone move the man, And they're even using the word virtue or vice by moving the emotions.

Therefore, the way in which they move the passions should serve as a principle basis for judgment on whether any given piece of music is good or bad.

So what he's saying is it has nothing to do with the lyrics, it actually has to do everything with the music bed.

Richard Pellegrino said, he said that, he declared that music had the uncanny power to quote, trigger a flood of human emotions and images that have the ability, listen, to instantaneously produce very powerful changes in emotional states.

So he's saying instantaneously music can change emotional states.

Take it from a brain guy, in 25 years of working with the brain, I still cannot affect a person's state of mind the way 1 simple song can.

So what he's saying is, The music is so powerful, I can change, as a scientist, I can change the emotional state of a person quicker than if I go through even a therapy session with them.

Maybe they're sad and depressed, and instead of talking for an hour and spending $150, let me play a happy song, I can change your emotional state like that.

In fact, music is medicine and we'll get into that a little bit as we progress.

So can music alone influence the listener?

I'd like you to close your eyes in just a moment.

And when you close your eyes, I want you to listen to the music, to the piece of music I'm going to play.

And then when we're done, I want you to raise your hand and tell me how that made you feel.

And if you simply understand the language, you'll know what everyone's going to feel.

So is this moving our emotions and our feelings and our thoughts?

ASI 2012 Plenary Sessions

Shawn Boonstra

My Father’s Business

You have no idea how good it is to be at this convention.

I always have to check in case she left me.

Just come through 2 of the toughest years of our lives together, And it was the prayers of this crowd that held us together.

A special thank you to my family at It Is Written.

And to the folks at Eden Valley, who actually helped me bounce back.

Now, this morning, I was going to preach a sermon called, Whatever Happened to the Lost?

But as you came into the auditorium this morning, it had become an article in the Adventist Review, and so everybody already has the sermon.

And so we could probably take our time, and I could get everybody to pull out their copy of the review and we could quietly read the article, and when we're done, I'll come back up and have the closing prayer.

But I suppose that would make for bad television unless I were to hold up 1 copy in front of the camera and very slowly pan it for the TV audience, too.

It'd be like 3ABN reading theater, wouldn't it?

I'd like to take a look at the Word of God.

And in the time we have together, I want to explore it a little bit.

It's in the book of Jude, right before the end of your Bible, just before the book of Revelation.

It's the last few It's the last few verses, verse 22 of the book of Jude.

And on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

Father, as we've opened the Bible, we know in our hearts that we are not about to listen to human opinion.

It's the voice of our Almighty God, our Creator, our loving Savior.

And hearts are changed by the Word of God, and it's our prayer that our hearts would be changed by the Word of God this morning.

I feel like a toddler handling the fine china when I come out and preach.

I have no right except that you call us to tell the story of what Jesus has done.

And so it's my prayer that what I say would not be human opinion, but that you would bless me from – with thoughts from the throne room, and that above all else we would see Jesus more clearly, that we would become a little more like Him.

And when He speaks to our hearts today from the Word, it is our covenant with you that we will follow Jesus.

So take this time, bless it with your presence, I ask in Jesus' name.

I read this story the other day about a Very, very successful man who worked very hard for a very long time.

And he came to the end of his long and very successful career and the time had come for him to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his labor just a little bit.

And it was something he had earned because he really was very successful.

In fact, this guy was so successful that when he got up in the morning and looked out of his bedroom window, he literally owned everything he could see.

He could not see past the boundaries of his property.

And that's not because he was on some large ranch somewhere in the state of Texas, as impressive as some of those ranches are.

It's because this guy had something bigger than those.

Oh yeah, the big ranches for small potatoes compared to this man.

As a matter of fact, he could get on a horse and he could ride in any direction for a week or 2 and never leave his property, Ever, because this man is Nebuchadnezzar at the end of his career in Daniel chapter 4, the man who quite literally conquered the whole known world and gave us the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

He managed to conquer the Assyrians and put an end to their domination of the Babylonian people, and then his son Nebuchadnezzar took it a little bit further.

And before he knew it, he was down to the south and to the west, and he was knocking on Egypt's door.

And by the year 597, He'd been to Jerusalem a couple of times and utterly conquered it He was in Daniel 4 at the end of his career the king of the world and everybody still remembers him to this day in almost every culture and in Daniel chapter 4 after huge success on the battlefield and after a very impressive reconstruction program in the city of Babylon, fixing all the damage that had been caused by the Assyrian hordes, he was rightfully proud of everything that he'd accomplished.

The old temples to the Babylonian gods that were in disrepair, he rebuilt those.

He created a revival of Babylonian religion.

He was a spiritual man at the heart of things.

The royal palace, the 1 his dad had started building, he finished that.

And according to history, he spared absolutely nothing.

He decked it out in a way that nobody else could afford.

It was covered with cedar and bronze and gold and silver and precious stones.

The average population couldn't afford it, and the whole world talked about this palace.

The city wall, you've heard about that in the prophecy seminars.

The triple wall to keep the enemies out of Babylon.

She literally sat as a queen, a triple wall, too high for the enemies to go over, too thick for the enemies to dig their way through.

Nebuchadnezzar also built an underground passage that connected the 2 halves of that city.

There might be 1 in the back of some Bibles.

If you remember it, the city was roughly bisected by the Euphrates River.

And so he built a tunnel to connect the 2 halves of the city, a real engineering feat given the time period that we're talking about.

Then he also built a bridge over the river with specially constructed pilings that would not wear down in the current of the river.

And it was also engineered so that when the river came out the other end of that bridge, it slowed down the current enough that it would no longer erode the foundations of the city.

That happened because 1 day his wife came to see him.

Nebby, she said, and only his wife could call the king of Babylon Nebby.

I've been living here in Babylon for quite a while.

We're living out here on the plains, and out here on the plains last week I watched our dog run away for 5 days.

I can still see him out there on the horizon.

And I'm from Persia, and we had mountains.

Now I can identify with Nebuchadnezzar's wife.

They have something there they call a mountain.

Let me assure you, Marylanders, that is not a mountain.

She was lonely for her mountains, and so he built the hanging gardens of Babylon.

He gave her an artificial mountain right in the city.

When Nebuchadnezzar was finished building that town, it was absolutely stunning and it is no accident that the world still remembers that city to this day.

When people say that ancient Babylon was 1 of the wonders of the world, that's almost an understatement.

It was so mind-boggling, so beautiful, so impressively engineered that we really don't have much that rivals it to this day.

Not when you compare apples with apples, not at all.

And now At the end of his career in Daniel chapter 4, it is time for the king to rest.

And he did what any of us would probably do.

Jim Ayer

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

He Shall Lift You Up

This is a topic tonight that I believe that everyone absolutely needs to hear, know, understand, and apply to your own life.

Now, at 1 time, this is kind of what I looked like.

I was actually, prior to this time, I was a drug dealer, an alcoholic, and a thief.

I was called to the ministry and started going that direction.

And then 1 day, I began studying less, praying less.

And when I actually had a call to pastor a church, I said no.

Turned a whole different direction and started into real estate, became extremely successful.

So successful that, you know, as the world looks at success, I was very successful.

I lobbied on Capitol Hill, the congressmen and the senators rubbed shoulders with him.

I wrote a newspaper column and had lots of money.

Sitting in church 1 day, you know, and I had my Harley Davidson and was out there and goofing off in the world.

Sitting in church 1 day, the Lord said, Jim, the Holy Spirit may be poured out all around you and you're never going to recognize it or receive it.

Sitting in church with my name on the church books, and I was lost.

And I accepted that chance, totally turned around and went a whole new direction.

And in that situation, in that time, I realized that it's all about God.

I wrote this little book, He Shall Lift You Up.

Well, after I wrote that book, I began realizing that there was, you know, and kind of how you grow in life.

And I began realizing there was even more to it.

I started going through my Bible and highlighting every place in my Bible that it talked about the power of God to change us, the power of God to transform us, His desire to lift us up, His desire to to take us higher and higher and higher.

When I got done, a big chunk of my Bible was highlighted.

And then I started going through Ellen White And I began building a PowerPoint presentation.

Well, after the first hundred slides, I started looking and say, well, let's see, okay, this one's better than this 1.

I did this for 2 years, going back and forth, and I realized there were thousands, literally thousands of quotes on what God wants to do in our lives now today.

Not someday in the future pie in the sky when Jesus comes, but today.

Then I realized, hey, we've got a real problem.

The devil wants us to believe that we've got another chance when he comes, and it's totally untrue.

This is our opportunity to have a character that's befitting the character of Christ to go to heaven with.

And so I began combining all of that and came up with a presentation.

Now recently, Review and Herald asked me to write a book.

We're working on a study guide, and I hope a TV series that we're working on too, because this message desperately needs to get out to everybody.

It is something that the church, let me tell you, in and around 1844, the Lord wanted to return.

He'd begin putting out the message of growing in Jesus Christ, not only justification, but sanctification as well.

But the church membership didn't want to accept it, and God withdrew the latter rain.

The loud cry ceased, Ellen White says, and there we were for many more years.

In 1888 to about 1904, again, the message came forth to accept Christ and His righteousness to transform us in this life today.

Church leadership began bickering back and forth and fighting over this and there was lots of infighting, there was lots of politics going on and Ellen White said the latter rain had begun to be poured out.

Now you know when the loud cry starts that means that the Lord is about ready to turn because the message goes around the world like wildfire.

But there was a problem and she said God withdrew the latter rain, the loud cry ceased, and she made the statement, we may have to remain in this world many more years.

And I get excited because I see many pastors in the church for the first time since I've been in the church talking about this message.

Starting to come forward, talking about it, membership as I go around and I do revival series.

People are hungering to be changed and that tells me God is working on the hearts and lives of people and I hope He's working on your heart and your life as well.

Listen to this, we must abandon sin according to Jesus.

He urged men, upon men, the necessity of prayer, repentance, confession, and the what?

Charles Finney, who was the 20th century revivalist, said to persist in sin is not to abandon it.

If we continue in sin, that's not abandoning it.

Hebrews 12, 29 says, for our God is a consuming fire.

And then I came across this, and all who submit to his power, the Spirit of God will do what?

You think about this, you invite God into the house, your temple.

He's got this, and excuse the analogy, but this multi-billion gigawatt light.

He comes in and everywhere that light turns, if there's a sin in that spot, poof, it evaporates it, it destroys it.

He goes through it, poof, there's another sin.

Comes around the corner of the next room, poof, he burns out every sin because sin cannot exist where there's light.

Sin cannot exist where there's light, but all of a sudden he gets to 1 room and says, Lord, man I don't know if I want to give you entrance to that room or not.

And when he comes, his brightness is so glorious, so wonderful.

If it's still in your life, if you've not allowed God the opportunity to cleanse it, then poof, the same happens to you because it's integrated into your DNA.

When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning." And Isaiah says, "...and I will turn my hand upon thee, and will purely purge away thy dross, and take away thy tin." I'd sent this to a friend when I originally completed that and he said, oh you made a mistake down here, he said that should be sin.

I said no, it is tin because tin is the dross, tin is a base metal and God wants to make each 1 of us gold.

You remember the lady caught in adultery, I believe it was Mary Magdalene, they brought her, cast her before Jesus, Jesus doesn't say a word, but he bends down and he begins writing in the dust of the street and pretty soon all the general conference leadership and all the church you know they kind of peek over Jesus shoulder and poof they leave.

They leave because he's writing their own sins in the dust and soon he looks at the woman and said, woman where are your accusers?

She finally dares to look up, she looks around and says there aren't any Lord, and he says neither do I condemn thee.

Wow praise God, can you say praise God for that?

He takes his righteousness and he wraps it around this woman and he says, I don't condemn you either.

Randy Skeete

Drunk and Drunker

It's a privilege for me to be with you this weekend.

I say that from my heart and I thank God for it.

And I believe that God will bless us through his word as we listen to it, not simply with our heads, but with our hearts.

I just came back yesterday actually, we got in last night from the Philippines where we had a mission assignment on the island of Boracay.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Distraction Dilemma - Exposing Distractions & Dangers in Music

1h 29m

My Father’s Business

1h 35m

He Shall Lift You Up

45m

Drunk and Drunker

41m

Increasing Your Capacity to Learn, Retain, and Apply Knowledge

54m

Abraham Lincoln, Ellen White, Emotional Intelligence & True Leadership

55m

Self and Salvation - The Two Emotional Attributes Necessary For Salvation

51m

Romans 1—The Totality of Justification

1h 16m

Romans 2&3—The Totality of Human Depravity

1h 7m

Romans 4—Fully Persuaded

29m

Why Pray?

42m

Eight Secrets of a Happy Home

59m

Sound Doctrine