Some Enlightenment from Scripture on the Nature of Prayer

The “War Room” Is Open For Business at Berean

 

The old sanctuary of Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church, representative of a an era when lots of churches were constructed with glue-lam frames, an attractive system, but no longer relatively economical.

A SHORT PREFACE

Ephesians 6:11: “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Satan, like Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, knows that he is not going to win the war, but he exerts himself to the utmost in order to win the battle. Yamamoto, before WWII, attended Harvard, and had seen firsthand the size and strength of America. But, as a samurai by adoption, he was committed to a war he knew his side would lose.  Allied codebreakers identified the course of a plane he was travelling in, and shot it down. The key to breaking Satan’s code is the “sword” of scripture, and the atomic bomb that can force unconditional surrender is prayer. We are not detached observers of the “great controversy,” but participants, soldiers at the frontlines of the conflict.  The war analogies (shield, helmet, breastplate, etc.) that Paul cites, starting In Ephesians 6:11, culminate with 6:18: “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…” The act of prayer stands in a class apart. Paul does not feel the need to embellish it with metaphors.

The battle between good and evil is such a dominant condition that a description of it as “metaphorical war” is inadequate. When Pastor Fredrick Russell chose “The War Room” as a theme for prayer meetings, he was referring to a real war. People get killed in this war. The inaugural remarks by pastor Russell focused on another room, the “throne room” of God. This is where prayers are processed.

For 200 years Krupps have been manufacturing armaments for the formerly bloodthirsty Germans, In terms of the “great controversy,” I would not place them on the side of the angels.

The inspiration for the name “War Room” comes from the 2015 movie of the same name. Here is a LINK to the Wikipedia article on the movie. It quotes a review by the Catholic World Report that includes the following statement that the movie successfully portrays “prayer… forgiveness, temptation, conversion, and, most importantly, the cosmic struggle between God and the devil that occurs in every home and every heart.” This review could have been written by an Adventist. In this week’s Sabbath School lessons, author David Tasker refers to instances of the “great controversy” that are purely internal, citing the war between good and bad inclinations that raged in the recesses of David’s heart.

Berean’s “War Room” is located, for the moment, in the chapel area of the old church facility. This medium sized space is the aesthetic twin to the larger, adjacent main sanctuary. It features “prairie style” light fixtures (in the manner of Frank Lloyd Wright), in addition to cove lighting. The structure, like the sanctuary structure, is tongue-in-groove planks on glue-laminated frames. The focus of the space has been relocated from an end wall to a side wall, a provision that puts most of the congregation much closer to the podium than does a more traditional layout, The first time I ever noticed this counter-intuitive seating arrangement was in the floorplan of Robert H. Schuller‘s Crystal Cathedral, now renamed (in a rather clever manner) Christ Cathedral, and operated by the highly solvent Catholic church. If you click on the link, the central building is the cathedral itself, the interior of which is well known to anyone who has ever watched former broadcasts of the “Hour of Power.”

This is as good a place as any to display a bad photo of a good design. The lighting scheme in the Berean “War Room” features these fixtures that are precisely in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The design is by Philip Johnson, not a personal favorite of mine, but this church is not representative of his decadent period. The late Robert Schuller took a lot of the credit for this design, but it may be a case of self-delusion. The reverend was a great patron of architecture. On the link, the building seen at far right is by Richard Neutra , the 1968 “Tower of Hope,” part of a group of structures by the California based émigré architect. It was a late addition to Schuller’s Shepherd’s Grove. This last link briefly summarizes the rise and fall of the Schuller empire. The neo-gothic tower at the far left of the “Christ Cathedral” link is something I neither know about, nor care about, but given the track record of Schuller, it was (no doubt) designed by another “name” architect. I would describe it as “high mediocre.”

THE OPENING SALVO. ALL FOUR PASTORS IN ATTENDANCE.

The first of the four current Berean Seventh-day Adventist pastors to speak was Pastor Austin Humphreys. He was featured last Wednesday, but just spoke a minute this evening. Last week he introduced his sermon with a reference to the movie “Mission Impossible.” Tonight he began with a reference to the TV show “West Wing.” I expected a full sermon to follow, but this did not happen. Instead, the pastor just briefly alluded to the “situation room” in the White House, a private place where the characters would take themselves away into in order to talk to the Commander in Chief. It was a most succinct talk, but it went straight to the point.

The projection screen in the “War Room” is of a configuration I have never seen before. It is like a pliable cowhide that has been stretched out in order to cure.

Pastor Danielle Pilgrim (who sang with the praise team at the beginning of the service) followed with some equally brief remarks on prayer (the theme de jour). She stated that she was thankful that she served a God who answers prayers, and can take care of any situation (a serendipitous restatement of Pastor Humphrey’s “situation room” reference). She anticipated a later remark by Lead Pastor Fredrick Russell by informing us that we needed to go beyond simply asking for things in prayer. We needed to be sure to thank God. “Think about the goodness of Jesus, and all that He has done for you,” she said. She quoted Thessalonians 5:18: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Practically a full sermon could be preached on this verse, and I am pretty sure one has been in the last months. My memory is too faulty, however, to pin it down. A statement by Pastor Pilgrim hit me like a ton of bricks, as it relates to last Sabbath’s “substitute” sermon (there was no service at Berean due to inclement weather) by Post-Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards. It raised the issue of freewill versus Calvinistic election. The Edwards sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God,” pondered why God suffered hardened sinners to live. Pastor Pilgrim made a passing statement with some theological implications, “it is of your mercy that we are not consumed.” It also reminds me of a verse used in the text of the “Messiah,” Malachi 3:2: “But who may abide the day of his coming?” The mention of “mercy” gives us hope. In his sermon, Johnathan Edwards speaks of “arbitrary mercy.” This sounds too much like “caprice” to inspire a lot of hope. That John Calvin was an austere man.

Michelangelo’s “Moses,” a man who spoke to God “face to face.” Pastor Russell came pretty close to this, from the sound of it.

Pastor Russell was nervous about the inaugural night at the “War Room,” losing some sleep over it. A remarkable breakthrough in his prayer life was the principal topic of his remarks. He began his talk by declaring that, should the “War Room” require a larger facility, Berean had access to a couple. Tonight’s crowd was just the right size for the space. The meeting was no standard Wednesday night prayer meeting. It enjoyed the production values of a Sabbath service.

Pastor Russell told the crowd that two Wednesday mornings ago he was up early, talking to God. The pastor was attempting to resolve an issue that was personally painful, one that had bothered him since he was a child. For twenty minutes he argued with God. “You know how much pain it has caused me,” the pastor lamented. Two hours after this heated exchange, the remarkable nature of the incident struck him. The pastor had actually experienced a real-time, contemporaneous conversation with God. The pastor had been praying for an encounter like this for years. God had slipped it in, so deftly that it did not even initially strike the pastor as something unusual. In his rear-view mirror, the pastor was able to grasp the enormity of this incident. THAT is prayer!

“The Vision By John of Heaven” by Matthias Gerung, circa 1530. This is not fine art by any stretch, but you can see the golden bowls Revelation describes.

Pastor Russell shifted the scene to heaven. He quoted from Revelation 5:2 and beyond as prelude to a description of the “throne room” of God. “Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?” The “Lion of Judah” proves to be worthy. Here is a self-serving LINK to my song, “Unsealed,” which picks up the story at this point. Pastor interrupts the narrative where the “throne room” is being described. Christ takes the scroll, whereupon the four living creatures “fell down,” an attribute of true worship. The pastor then described the twenty-four elders, they each “having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints” (pastor used the NIV, but I am one of those King James nuts).

Apropos of the theme of “prayer,” the pastor now focused on the golden “bowls,” the NIV improvement on golden “vails.” The pastor made a humorous allusion to the misuses of incense in his youth, as a mask for less socially accepted aromas. Real-world incense is strongly identified with Roman Catholicism. I have encountered it in “high church” Episcopalian worship. I have almost finished an essay entitled “The Church of Christ Ban On Musical Instruments.” It is an unintended defense of instruments, one that surprised me, as I don’t really care that much one way or the other about the issue. But the Church of Christ argument is so flawed, that just pointing out the flaws sounds like a refutation of their views. Here is an insane extract from the forthcoming piece: “The description of instruments in heaven is acknowledged. M.C. Kurfees’s [primary apologist for the church’s doctrine] scholarly rejoinder? So what! They got incense too! You want incense? These Church of Christ folk really seem to have a thing against incense.” This facetious extract faithfully mirrors the tone the apologist adopts. I love Church of Christ people, and regret that my reaction to their polemic makes it sound as if I don’t.

The golden altar of incense in the tabernacle, a sweet-smelling aroma offered unto the Lord.

Pastor Russell assured us that our “prayers are a sweet smelling aroma in the nostrils of God.” (Here is a LINK to the recipe for “holy incense” found in the Book of Exodus) This is where Pastor Russell repeated a thought stated earlier by Pastor Pilgrim. “You pray a few minutes of thanks, and then a half-hour wish list!” This aside is pretty much always guaranteed to hit a target, no matter who says it, or when they say it. It represented the briefest of digressions.

Overwhelmed by the idea of talking to God in “real-time,” the pastor asked himself how he could have that experience all of the time. He said that sometimes God speaks to us in a clear voice, and sometimes God speaks to us in His Word. He concluded by reiterating that our prayers ascend like sweet-smelling incense to the throne room of God, and quoted from Jeremiah 29:13: “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”

Some fervent and voluble prayers, and a few heartfelt testimonies, followed the pastor’s remarks. The pastor requested that we “call out” our prayers, as they did in the Book of Acts (some old criticism of Pastor Russell by an internet crank likened spoken prayer to “talking in tongues,” and seemed to have the same kind of grudge against the latter as Church of Christ apologist M.C. Kurfees has against incense. Both spoken prayer and talking in tongues are 100% scriptural).

Pentecost, painted by Jean II Restout, 1732. This French work makes “Pentecost” seem like some female allegorical figure.

Pastor James Lamb, the last of the four “officers” present in the “War Room,” closed out the service with a prayer. He ushered the congregation from the “throne of heaven,” where our prayers are received, back down to our earthly operations center, the “War Room.” The great controversy continues to rage. Pastor Lamb cited the famous bit of scripture regarding warfare that was on everybody’s mind, including mine when I jotted down the preface to this post Tuesday night. It is an extended metaphor, but easily comes to mind when just the first verse is quoted, Ephesians 6:11: “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”