A Rare Appearance by Berean Pastor James Lamb, PhD

10 Days of Prayer Begins at Berean SDA

The Wednesday night prayer meeting at Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church marked the beginning of ten continuous days of nightly sessions. It marked the ending of ten hours of exhausting physical effort by myself. I tried to note the speaker’s main points, but was so knackered I just managed to jot down some scriptural citations. The main address was by Berean Associate Pastor James Lamb, an academic administrator who meticulously prepares his talks. His record of the sermonette will be the one that is fit for posterity.

The service began with a brief speech by the Berean Prayer Ministry Coordinator. There is no program, brochure, or videotape of Wednesday night services. She did not mention her name. Since I am not a serious reporter, I did not seek her out after the service in order to get her name. I hoped it would be in my copy of the Nominating Committee Report back at home. It wasn’t. She said that tonight was the beginning of the ten day stretch of nightly prayer, slated to wrap up on the 16th of this month. She then listed a seven day syllabus of subject matter: Epistles, Law, History, Psalms, Poetry, Prophecy, and the Gospel. Two prayer days are Sabbaths. That leaves one more, in order to make a total of ten. That day was today, the “Introduction.” It took several minutes for my exhausted brain to apprehend this.

The new kid on the block, Pastor Danielle Pilgrim, followed the Prayer Coordinator with a short message about “confessional prayer.” I recall a Wednesday night service a year or so ago where Pastor Jeremiah Sepolan had us write down our abiding sins on a piece of paper. At the close of the service, everyone assembled outdoors, at the front of the church, to incinerate the pieces of paper. It was highly theatrical. Tonight confession assumed a simpler complexion, as we just paired off to speak and pray about our sin. I have already confessed on FaceBook that I ate some scallops this Christmas. I have muttered some four-letter words in desperate moments. That is about it, but sin is sin. These are two bad situations I have need to repent of.

Only God has the power to forgive sins. This has been stated as a good reason why the scenario shown above in ineffective. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned…”

Pastor Pilgrim thus dispatched the subject of “confessional prayer.” It was now time for Pastor James Lamb to cover the subject of “intercessory prayer.” He set the stage for the “Ten Days of Prayer” project with a fifteen minute discourse on the subject of the Holy Spirit. He spoke of a passage in scripture that cites an instance of Jesus Himself praying. It is the incident where Jesus says to Peter that the Devil wishes to “sift him like wheat.” Pastor Lamb told us that “sifting” was a violent operation back in Bible times. But Jesus braced Peter by asserting that He would “pray for him.” This was a case of “intercessory prayer” by none other than Christ. Pastor Lamb told us that “right now, Jesus, in the Heavenly Sanctuary, is interceding on our behalf.” This statement served to remind me that I was in an Adventist, and not a Baptist or Episcopal church. I aspire not just to being a good Christian, but to being a good Adventist as well. I have started a amateur gloss on this week’s Sabbath School lesson. It is practically an Ellen White quote-a-thon. Chapter 3 of “Patriarchs and Prophets” appears to be one of the sources for the lesson, “Crises in Eden.”

Here the sermon paused in order for the congregation to again team up for intercessory prayer. Pastor Lamb noted that, when we are praying for others, we don’t worry about ourselves so much. I was paired with Cheryl, who requested me to pray for her cousin Denise, a person on the verge of losing her house. I requested Cheryl to pray for my sister’s bad back, a condition that has recently proved debilitating in the extreme. She can take pain medicine, or she can work, but she can’t do both at once. She has to work, so she is always in pain. Cheryl said that by this time next week she hoped to hear news of the cure of my sister’s condition. That, indeed, would constitute a miracle.

A screen capture from the French silent film I purloined for the YouTube video “The Childhood of Jesus,” featuring John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

After prayer, Pastor Lamb resumed his sermon, with a new emphasis upon the Holy Spirit. He said that this was our greatest need, and that God was eager to grant the spirit to us. An example of God’s generosity was given in the form of a statement made by Jesus in Matthew 7:11: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” The “good thing” the Pastor meant is the granting of the Holy Spirit. I was now so exhausted I could barely listen, and I missed most of Pastor Lamb’s commentary. I did have wit enough to recognize the verses of scripture cited, however. They are so familiar, a few key words from each will suffice to bring them to the reader’s remembrance. 1: “if I go not away, the comforter…”  2: “will guide you into all truth…”

How do we acquire the Spirit? We ask for it. This second reference to the word “ask” is from Luke 11:13, which is so similar to Matthew 7:11 that the match is almost word for word. Referring to these passages, I once told my former employer that I had asked him for a fish, and he had given me a serpent. I once told an incompetent optometrist that I was “blinded on the road to Damascus.”
Pastor Lamb asserted that “a revival is to be expected only in answer to prayer.” He promised that those who attend the projected prayer meetings will enjoy a “precious experience.” But he added that this promise was conditional, for we must first surrender our souls to God in order to receive the gift (of the Spirit). If David Trofort were at the keyboard, at this point he would have begun to quietly play “I Surrender All.” But, tonight, he was not at the  keyboard. Pastor Lamb ended with a quote from Jesus found in John 14:12: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do…” He conjectured that the disciples would have been surprised to hear such a comment, that they could, on their own, actually accomplish “greater things than Jesus.” But this is true. Jesus said it. And we can accomplish “greater things” too. Those in attendance were now excited about the next “ten days of prayer.” Pastor James Lamb’s pre-game “pep-rally” had served it’s purpose admirably.

Pastor James Lamb. I wish that he would speak more frequently, but his attention is mainly directed to his role as an administrator, and not to preaching.