This is the best one i've seen yet. I'm considering escaping my earthly passions to follow God and i have great hopes i can follow god in his footsteps to heaven so i can meet him in the end. I'm a music maker, i have made an earthly song made for dancing, but you know what? I want to inspire people to make music. I don't want to make music to just make money. I could have all the money in the world and still not be happy. NOW i have a plan for my musical career, thanks dad for giving us truth
While I don’t doubt David Asscherick’s sincerity, I think it is important for all SDAs to know that our early pioneers were actually materialists - they rejected the idea of non-physical existence and promoted the idea that everything is purely physical/material. Here is just one statement from James White in which he rejects immateriality and promotes materialism: “Immateriality - This is but another name for nonentity. It is the negative of all things and beings - of all existence. There is not one particle of proof to be advanced to establish its existence. It has no way to manifest itself to any intelligence in heaven or on earth. Neither God, angels, nor men could possibly conceive of such a substance, being, or thing. It possesses no property or power by which to make itself manifest to any intelligent being in the universe. Reason and analogy never scan it, or even conceive of it. Revelation never reveals it, nor do any of our senses witness its existence. It cannot be seen, felt, heard, tasted, or smelled, even by the strongest organs, or the most acute sensibilities. It is neither liquid nor solid, soft nor hard - it can neither extend nor contract. In short, it can exert no influence whatever - it can neither act nor be acted upon. And even if it does exist, it can be of no possible use. It possesses no one, desirable property, faculty, or use, yet, strange to say, immateriality is the modern Christian's God, his anticipated heaven, his immortal self - his all! … What is God? He is material, organized intelligence, possessing both body and parts. Man is in his image.” - James White, Personality of God If you want more information about early SDA materialism, please let me know and I will be happy to share more.
One of the early and significant teachings of the SDA pioneers was that of philosophical materialism in contrast with spiritualism (which they defined as belief in the immaterial). Early SDAs were much ridiculed by the rest of Christianity because of this and were accused of being Atheists due to their teaching that there is no non-physical reality. There are many articles written by our SDA pioneers which can easily be accessed in the pioneers section of the EGW CD-Rom or the EGW writings website. James White published a striking poem about the topic. You can find it at the end of his article titled “Personality of God.” @The Seven Angels’ Messages shared an excerpt from that article in a previous comment. I’d like to share a few selections from these Adventist pioneers on the subject. POEM published by James White: “We choose all substance, what remains, The mystical immaterialist gains; All that each claims each shall possess, Nor grudge each other’s happiness. An Immaterial God they choose, For such a God we have no use, An immaterial heaven and hell; In such a heaven we cannot dwell. We claim the earth, the air, and sky, And all the starry worlds on high; Gold, silver, ore, and precious stones, And bodies made of flesh and bones. Such is our hope, our heaven, our all When once redeemed from Adam’s fall, All things are ours, and we shall be The Lord’s to all eternity.” Following, is an excerpt from: B. F. Robbins “MATERIALISM “THERE is scarcely a subject in the range of Bible investigation more unpopular, and which excites more opposition in the professed Christian world, than the subject at the head of this article. It is called infidelity and atheism, while its believers are looked upon with suspicion and contempt. A minister of my acquaintance who a few months ago was favorable and publicly committed himself to the Scripture view of death and consequent unconsciousness, retracted upon the ground that such doctrines avowed must of course lead to materialism. This we of course admit, and the other conclusion which he also avowed we admit, that materialism is opposed and subversive of the faith of the professed Christian world, because that faith is based upon immateriality or nothing.” -- J. N. Loughborough wrote on the subject in an article titled “An Examination of the Scripture Testimony” and said things like: “There is at least one impassable difficulty in the way of those who believe God is immaterial, and heaven is not a literal, located place: they are obliged to admit that Jesus is there bodily, a literal person; the same Jesus that was crucified, dead, and buried, was raised from the dead, ascended up to heaven, and is now at the right hand of God. Jesus was possessed of flesh and bones after his resurrection. Luke 24:39. "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I, myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." If Jesus is there in heaven with a literal body of flesh and bones, may not heaven after all be a literal place, a habitation for a literal God, a literal Saviour, literal angels, and resurrected immortal saints! Oh no, says one, "God is a Spirit." So Christ said to the woman of Samaria at the well. It does not necessarily follow because God is a Spirit, that he has no body. In John iii, 6, Christ says to Nicodemus, "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." If that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, then on the same principle, that which has a spiritual nature is spirit. God is a spirit being, his nature is spirit, he is not of a mortal nature; but this does not exclude the idea of his having a body. David says, [Ps. 104:4,] "Who maketh his angels spirits;" yet angels have bodies. Angels appeared to Both Abraham and Lot, and ate with them. We see the idea that angels are spirits, does not prove that they are not literal beings. […] “If God is an immaterial Spirit, then Moses could not see him; for we are told a spirit cannot be seen by natural eyes. There would then be no propriety for God to say he would put his hand over Moses' face while he passed by, (seemingly to prevent him from seeing his face,) for he could not see him. Neither do we conceive how an immaterial hand could obstruct the rays of light from passing to Moses' eyes. But if the position be true that God is immaterial, and cannot be seen by the natural eye, the text above is all superfluous. What sense is there in saying God put his hand over Moses' face, to prevent him from seeing that which could not be seen. “Says one, I see we cannot harmonize the matter any other way, that that there was a literal body seen by Moses; but that was not God's own body, it was a body he took that he might show himself to Moses. Moses could form no just conceptions of God unless he assumed a form. So God took a body. This throws a worse coloring on the matter than the first position; for it charges God with deception; telling Moses he should see him, when in fact Moses according to this testimony did not see God, but another body. A person must be given to doubt almost beyond recovery, that would attempt thus to mystify, and do away with the force of this testimony.” {MPC 3.1} - George Storrs wrote: “What is immateriality? Strictly speaking it is, not material - not matter. In other words - it is not substance. What is that which has no substance? - What kind of creation is it? If the Creator formed "all things out of nothing," it would seem that man's soul has taken the form of its original, and is nothing still; for it is not matter, we are told. If it is said - "It is a spiritual substance" - I ask, What kind of substance is that, if it is not matter? I cannot conceive, and I do not see how it is possible to conceive, of substance without matter, in some form: it may be exceedingly refined. I regard the phrase, immaterial, as one which properly belongs to the things which are not: a sound without sense or meaning: a mere cloak to hide the nakedness of the theory of an immortal soul in man; a phrase of which its authors are as profoundly ignorant as the most unlearned of their pupils.” (Six Sermons on the Inquiry Is There Immortality in Sin and Suffering?, p. 29) - J. H. Waggoner wrote an article titled “Angels are Real Beings” which can be found in his booklet titled “ANGELS: Their Nature and Ministry”In it he writes: “The angels of God are not mere incorporeal phantoms, as is generally taught. They are real personal beings, possessing form and substance. The tendency of investigation, in the present day, is toward Spiritualism; there is, on almost every hand, a needless and very unreasonable prejudice existing against the idea that all created beings must be material. The Spiritualistic view is not at all the theory of the Scriptures. {ATNM 10.2}[…] “But Jesus is the first fruits, the example of the saints in the resurrection. He ate with His disciples; and so He promised them that they shall eat and drink with Him in His kingdom. See Matthew 26:29; Luke 12:37; 22:16, 18, 29, 30. And speaking of the new earth, where the immortal saints shall dwell, the Lord says; “From one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me.” Isaiah 66:23. The saints will be called flesh in the kingdom of God. And as Christ is, and the immortal saints will be, material, so also we conclude that the angels are material beings.” {ATNM 14.2} - R. F. Cottrell deals with the question of what the mind is and in closing his argument on the subject, he writes: “But while we mourn over the fact that our friends are unwittingly aiding the cause of Spiritualism, the present, and most popular form of infidelity, and therefore the most dangerous; they, in turn, feel deeply over our supposed tendency to ancient, materialistic, Epicurean, infidelity, a thing that has had its day and run its race, is unpopular, and is now discarded even by Satan himself; he having discovered a more plausible form of deception for this age, suited to the prevailing philosophy.” {ARSH November 15, 1864, p. 198.17} I have a great concern over this video’s promotion of spiritualism by teaching immaterialism since they are, in essence, the same thing. I encourage everyone to read these articles I have referenced in their entirety and see what our SDA pioneers really taught on the matter. Let’s try to help our dear brother who is unwittingly teaching spiritualism and restore our foundation of materialism to the pulpit.
Wonderful sermon David. ...It surprised me that you started with such a narrow definition of idolatry. Of course you know, as I believe I've heard you preach, that idolatry is not limited to worshipping non-cogent matter, yet indeed arises when we place any in-inamate matter, animal, human, activity, philosophy, organization, country etc., in the place of God. That is to say that anything which interposes itself between us in a correct (worshipful) relationship with our Creator God - is an idol. Sadly you slammed the "Big Bang". It should be realized that when Einstein's general relativity equations were bolstered with empirical evidence from astronomy that the universe had a beginning; this was very hard to swallow for much of the scientific community and its non-theistic worldview. In their disgust, they termed this the "Big Bang theory". The heavens declare the glory of God, and the creation of space and time (dimensions) vieweable to our astromical instruments point to the fact that there had to be a beginner. So the Big Bang is a good thing, and a topic I can always use to 'go after' an evolutionist. An astrophysics pastor acquantance of mine in fact told me that 75% of the astrophysicists were Christians, because the various evidences surrounding this Big Bang are so compelling. HOWEVER, in the popular science press, and science community decided to lessen the theistic impact of "Big Bang" by ONLY talking about the time after t=0; what they have chosen to call a "quantum singularity", or other nepharious terms - which represents the time period only after the creation event, after which this matter expanded out (as indicated by the bible) at an explosive rate. So the Big Bang should be lauded, as clear evidence of creation, but we need to educate the populace on its full meaning and clear theistic implications. You contrasted attributes of a theistic vs. non-theistic (materialist) universe; but just as a theistic universe has properties of matter, a non-thiestic universe can have non-material properties. The problem I would pose to non-theists is that there are CONTRADICTIONS regarding certain non-material aspects of our world which many consider materialistic. The use of abstract representations are not of themselves antithetical to a material world; but there is a 'missing link' so to speak in that how does this logical intellegence stem from random chance. Yet, even this is non-conclusive. Perhaps the most glaring disjunct between material/theistic worldviews is an almost universal human feeling that when a loved-one dies, ...that somehow this is 'Wrong'. In a materialistic 'Darwinistic' universe death would be de-rigueur, and thus no emotional content. Of course there are other specifics. And in a material world, why is it that we cannot define, much less recreate life. If it arose randomly from materialistic interactions with matter; - then why can't we in the best laboratories under guidance of leading biologists recreate something living. Liked your point on minds/consciousness being unseen although we believe it to be true, but when it comes to God, we want all this evidence. As for consciousness evolving from matter, I agree that it's presence is unexplainable from a material worldview as is 'life' itself - but it does not necessarily follow that it is contradictory to materialism - they would just argue that it was not yet understood. Materialism is unlivable - Sooo true. I grew up an atheist, if that paradigm is followed to its conclusion you quickly come to the point that NOTHING really matters - we are all just attempting to apply a meaning to meaninglessness. In that context I was an extremely risky teenager, (God sparing me miraculously many times), even trying to take my own life - my brother did take his own life. Anyway it was science that brought me to the Bible (or better said the Holy Spirit using science to point me to the Bible). And the Bible brought me to the foot of the Cross and the immeasurable mercy and Grace of Jesus. Living the Christian life, albeit difficult in some ways, has opened my world to complete Joy, no more worry, no more meaninglessness. I'm so thankful for our God and the truths He's made aware through scripture. Lovely C.S. Lewis quote -- Thanks David for your stimulating sermons.
Just to note: It is a little shallow to think that he could cover every angle in such a short period of time. Sometimes a sermon or lecture has t just make one point because that is all there is time for which means the other explanations get pushed aside but does not negate the point being made. In many of David's other lecture series he covers the quickly mentioned items in a much thorough sense. Not arguing. Just saying. I've seen enough of David to know he is on point every time I have seen him speak.
David's sermons have opened my eyes for the past 4 months my god continue is work trough you mr. Asscherick.
This is the best one i've seen yet. I'm considering escaping my earthly passions to follow God and i have great hopes i can follow god in his footsteps to heaven so i can meet him in the end.
I'm a music maker, i have made an earthly song made for dancing, but you know what?
I want to inspire people to make music. I don't want to make music to just make money.
I could have all the money in the world and still not be happy.
NOW i have a plan for my musical career, thanks dad for giving us truth
I was made for another world. Thank you Jesus
Beautiful sermon !
While I don’t doubt David Asscherick’s sincerity, I think it is important for all SDAs to know that our early pioneers were actually materialists - they rejected the idea of non-physical existence and promoted the idea that everything is purely physical/material. Here is just one statement from James White in which he rejects immateriality and promotes materialism:
“Immateriality - This is but another name for nonentity. It is the negative of all things and beings - of all existence. There is not one particle of proof to be advanced to establish its existence. It has no way to manifest itself to any intelligence in heaven or on earth. Neither God, angels, nor men could possibly conceive of such a substance, being, or thing. It possesses no property or power by which to make itself manifest to any intelligent being in the universe. Reason and analogy never scan it, or even conceive of it. Revelation never reveals it, nor do any of our senses witness its existence. It cannot be seen, felt, heard, tasted, or smelled, even by the strongest organs, or the most acute sensibilities. It is neither liquid nor solid, soft nor hard - it can neither extend nor contract. In short, it can exert no influence whatever - it can neither act nor be acted upon. And even if it does exist, it can be of no possible use. It possesses no one, desirable property, faculty, or use, yet, strange to say, immateriality is the modern Christian's God, his anticipated heaven, his immortal self - his all! …
What is God? He is material, organized intelligence, possessing both body and parts. Man is in his image.” - James White, Personality of God
If you want more information about early SDA materialism, please let me know and I will be happy to share more.
One of the early and significant teachings of the SDA pioneers was that of philosophical materialism in contrast with spiritualism (which they defined as belief in the immaterial). Early SDAs were much ridiculed by the rest of Christianity because of this and were accused of being Atheists due to their teaching that there is no non-physical reality. There are many articles written by our SDA pioneers which can easily be accessed in the pioneers section of the EGW CD-Rom or the EGW writings website. James White published a striking poem about the topic. You can find it at the end of his article titled “Personality of God.” @The Seven Angels’ Messages shared an excerpt from that article in a previous comment.
I’d like to share a few selections from these Adventist pioneers on the subject.
POEM published by James White:
“We choose all substance, what remains,
The mystical immaterialist gains;
All that each claims each shall possess,
Nor grudge each other’s happiness.
An Immaterial God they choose,
For such a God we have no use,
An immaterial heaven and hell;
In such a heaven we cannot dwell.
We claim the earth, the air, and sky,
And all the starry worlds on high;
Gold, silver, ore, and precious stones,
And bodies made of flesh and bones.
Such is our hope, our heaven, our all
When once redeemed from Adam’s fall,
All things are ours, and we shall be
The Lord’s to all eternity.”
Following, is an excerpt from: B. F. Robbins
“MATERIALISM
“THERE is scarcely a subject in the range of Bible investigation
more unpopular, and which excites more opposition in the professed
Christian world, than the subject at the head of this article. It is called
infidelity and atheism, while its believers are looked upon with
suspicion and contempt. A minister of my acquaintance who a few
months ago was favorable and publicly committed himself to the
Scripture view of death and consequent unconsciousness, retracted
upon the ground that such doctrines avowed must of course lead to
materialism. This we of course admit, and the other conclusion which
he also avowed we admit, that materialism is opposed and subversive
of the faith of the professed Christian world, because that faith is
based upon immateriality or nothing.”
--
J. N. Loughborough wrote on the subject in an article titled “An Examination of the Scripture Testimony” and said things like:
“There is at least one impassable difficulty in the way of those who
believe God is immaterial, and heaven is not a literal, located place:
they are obliged to admit that Jesus is there bodily, a literal person; the
same Jesus that was crucified, dead, and buried, was raised from the
dead, ascended up to heaven, and is now at the right hand of God.
Jesus was possessed of flesh and bones after his resurrection. Luke
24:39. "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I, myself; handle me,
and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." If
Jesus is there in heaven with a literal body of flesh and bones, may not
heaven after all be a literal place, a habitation for a literal God, a
literal Saviour, literal angels, and resurrected immortal saints! Oh no,
says one, "God is a Spirit." So Christ said to the woman of Samaria at
the well. It does not necessarily follow because God is a Spirit, that he
has no body. In John iii, 6, Christ says to Nicodemus, "That which is
born of the Spirit is spirit." If that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,
then on the same principle, that which has a spiritual nature is spirit.
God is a spirit being, his nature is spirit, he is not of a mortal nature;
but this does not exclude the idea of his having a body. David says,
[Ps. 104:4,] "Who maketh his angels spirits;" yet angels have bodies.
Angels appeared to Both Abraham and Lot, and ate with them. We
see the idea that angels are spirits, does not prove that they are not
literal beings. […]
“If God is an immaterial Spirit, then Moses
could not see him; for we are told a spirit cannot be seen by natural
eyes. There would then be no propriety for God to say he would put
his hand over Moses' face while he passed by, (seemingly to prevent
him from seeing his face,) for he could not see him. Neither do we
conceive how an immaterial hand could obstruct the rays of light from
passing to Moses' eyes. But if the position be true that God is
immaterial, and cannot be seen by the natural eye, the text above is all
superfluous. What sense is there in saying God put his hand over
Moses' face, to prevent him from seeing that which could not be seen.
“Says one, I see we cannot harmonize the matter any other way,
that that there was a literal body seen by Moses; but that was not
God's own body, it was a body he took that he might show himself to
Moses. Moses could form no just conceptions of God unless he
assumed a form. So God took a body. This throws a worse coloring on
the matter than the first position; for it charges God with deception;
telling Moses he should see him, when in fact Moses according to this
testimony did not see God, but another body. A person must be given
to doubt almost beyond recovery, that would attempt thus to mystify,
and do away with the force of this testimony.” {MPC 3.1}
-
George Storrs wrote:
“What is immateriality? Strictly speaking it is, not material - not
matter. In other words - it is not substance. What is that which has no
substance? - What kind of creation is it? If the Creator formed "all
things out of nothing," it would seem that man's soul has taken the
form of its original, and is nothing still; for it is not matter, we are told.
If it is said - "It is a spiritual substance" - I ask, What kind of substance
is that, if it is not matter? I cannot conceive, and I do not see how it is
possible to conceive, of substance without matter, in some form: it
may be exceedingly refined. I regard the phrase, immaterial, as one
which properly belongs to the things which are not: a sound without
sense or meaning: a mere cloak to hide the nakedness of the theory of an immortal soul in man; a phrase of which its authors are as
profoundly ignorant as the most unlearned of their pupils.” (Six Sermons on the Inquiry Is There Immortality in Sin and Suffering?, p. 29)
-
J. H. Waggoner wrote an article titled “Angels are Real Beings” which can be found in his booklet titled “ANGELS: Their Nature and Ministry”In it he writes:
“The angels of God are not mere incorporeal phantoms, as is generally taught. They are real personal beings, possessing form and substance. The tendency of investigation, in the present day, is toward Spiritualism; there is, on almost every hand, a needless and very unreasonable prejudice existing against the idea that all created beings must be material. The Spiritualistic view is not at all the theory of the Scriptures. {ATNM 10.2}[…]
“But Jesus is the first fruits, the example of the saints in the resurrection. He ate with His disciples; and so He promised them that they shall eat and drink with Him in His kingdom. See Matthew 26:29; Luke 12:37; 22:16, 18, 29, 30. And speaking of the new earth, where the immortal saints shall dwell, the Lord says; “From one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me.” Isaiah 66:23. The saints will be called flesh in the kingdom of God. And as Christ is, and the immortal saints will be, material, so also we conclude that the angels are material beings.” {ATNM 14.2}
-
R. F. Cottrell deals with the question of what the mind is and in closing his argument on the subject, he writes:
“But while we mourn over the fact that our friends are unwittingly aiding the cause of Spiritualism, the present, and most popular form of infidelity, and therefore the most dangerous; they, in turn, feel deeply over our supposed tendency to ancient, materialistic, Epicurean, infidelity, a thing that has had its day and run its race, is unpopular, and is now discarded even by Satan himself; he having discovered a more plausible form of deception for this age, suited to the prevailing philosophy.” {ARSH November 15, 1864, p. 198.17}
I have a great concern over this video’s promotion of spiritualism by teaching immaterialism since they are, in essence, the same thing. I encourage everyone to read these articles I have referenced in their entirety and see what our SDA pioneers really taught on the matter. Let’s try to help our dear brother who is unwittingly teaching spiritualism and restore our foundation of materialism to the pulpit.
GOD BLESS YOU BROTHER..STAY STRONG..LOVE YOU...
good one.
Wonderful sermon David. ...It surprised me that you started with such a narrow definition of idolatry. Of course you know, as I believe I've heard you preach, that idolatry is not limited to worshipping non-cogent matter, yet indeed arises when we place any in-inamate matter, animal, human, activity, philosophy, organization, country etc., in the place of God. That is to say that anything which interposes itself between us in a correct (worshipful) relationship with our Creator God - is an idol.
Sadly you slammed the "Big Bang". It should be realized that when Einstein's general relativity equations were bolstered with empirical evidence from astronomy that the universe had a beginning; this was very hard to swallow for much of the scientific community and its non-theistic worldview. In their disgust, they termed this the "Big Bang theory". The heavens declare the glory of God, and the creation of space and time (dimensions) vieweable to our astromical instruments point to the fact that there had to be a beginner. So the Big Bang is a good thing, and a topic I can always use to 'go after' an evolutionist. An astrophysics pastor acquantance of mine in fact told me that 75% of the astrophysicists were Christians, because the various evidences surrounding this Big Bang are so compelling. HOWEVER, in the popular science press, and science community decided to lessen the theistic impact of "Big Bang" by ONLY talking about the time after t=0; what they have chosen to call a "quantum singularity", or other nepharious terms - which represents the time period only after the creation event, after which this matter expanded out (as indicated by the bible) at an explosive rate. So the Big Bang should be lauded, as clear evidence of creation, but we need to educate the populace on its full meaning and clear theistic implications.
You contrasted attributes of a theistic vs. non-theistic (materialist) universe; but just as a theistic universe has properties of matter, a non-thiestic universe can have non-material properties. The problem I would pose to non-theists is that there are CONTRADICTIONS regarding certain non-material aspects of our world which many consider materialistic. The use of abstract representations are not of themselves antithetical to a material world; but there is a 'missing link' so to speak in that how does this logical intellegence stem from random chance. Yet, even this is non-conclusive. Perhaps the most glaring disjunct between material/theistic worldviews is an almost universal human feeling that when a loved-one dies, ...that somehow this is 'Wrong'. In a materialistic 'Darwinistic' universe death would be de-rigueur, and thus no emotional content. Of course there are other specifics. And in a material world, why is it that we cannot define, much less recreate life. If it arose randomly from materialistic interactions with matter; - then why can't we in the best laboratories under guidance of leading biologists recreate something living.
Liked your point on minds/consciousness being unseen although we believe it to be true, but when it comes to God, we want all this evidence. As for consciousness evolving from matter, I agree that it's presence is unexplainable from a material worldview as is 'life' itself - but it does not necessarily follow that it is contradictory to materialism - they would just argue that it was not yet understood.
Materialism is unlivable - Sooo true. I grew up an atheist, if that paradigm is followed to its conclusion you quickly come to the point that NOTHING really matters - we are all just attempting to apply a meaning to meaninglessness. In that context I was an extremely risky teenager, (God sparing me miraculously many times), even trying to take my own life - my brother did take his own life. Anyway it was science that brought me to the Bible (or better said the Holy Spirit using science to point me to the Bible). And the Bible brought me to the foot of the Cross and the immeasurable mercy and Grace of Jesus. Living the Christian life, albeit difficult in some ways, has opened my world to complete Joy, no more worry, no more meaninglessness. I'm so thankful for our God and the truths He's made aware through scripture.
Lovely C.S. Lewis quote -- Thanks David for your stimulating sermons.
Just to note: It is a little shallow to think that he could cover every angle in such a short period of time. Sometimes a sermon or lecture has t just make one point because that is all there is time for which means the other explanations get pushed aside but does not negate the point being made. In many of David's other lecture series he covers the quickly mentioned items in a much thorough sense. Not arguing. Just saying. I've seen enough of David to know he is on point every time I have seen him speak.
Awesome
Even demons believe in God & tremble