US National Prayer Breakfast

[Richard Myers]

Seventh-day Adventist, U.S. Senate Chaplain Dr. Barry Black gave the keynote address at the National Prayer Breakfast in DC last Thursday.

[colporteur]

What are your thought on this , Richard ?

[Richard Myers]

Not sure what to make of it, cp. There is something going on. Two consecutive years they chose Seventh-day Adventists to give the keynote address.

It is my prayer that both men will become faithful witnesses of the gospel message. They both have much influence. We need to pray for them. To whom much is given, much is expected. They both were reared in the church, so they have been greatly influenced by the culture of "Adventism".  That does not mean they cannot escape that influence and be a part of finishing the work. I believe they are both "good" men as was Nicodemus. I believe they both want to help others.

Heavenly Father, we know that you understand the hearts of these two men. We pray that you will send an extra measure of your Holy Spirit to minister to them both. Reveal your great love for them that their hearts may be totally yours, that whatever temptations come might be resisted, we pray in the precious name of Jesus, amen.

[colporteur]

I did not listen to much of it as I don't think it is edifying or even based off of what I have seen from him in the past. Some have critiqued this message and said that he makes fun of the law of God. I did not listen to enough of it to hear that. Chaplains do not give the trumpet a distinctive sound because they are geared to be ecumenical. I have seen Black down on his knees quivering and yelling " I feel the holy ghost!"  The audience was reacting very pentecostal if you know what I mean. Standing up, mouths open, hands waving etc.. We have observed him several times when he is very excited with his lips moving and a low key garble coming out howbeit not as loud as say Copeland does. While some say that this could be dubbed in in order to discredit him I have read from people where they say they were their and observed this personally. Another said that Black has claimed that this just bubbles out on its own and he does not have control over it.

 Regarding chaplains recently I visited with an SDA  Spanish prison chaplain of a large nearby prison. He is a divorced man who spends almost all of his time at the prison. He was recruiting SDAs to come in and do a program as the Mormons and JWs were doing that and he thought there should be an SDA program.  Great ! I called him up and said I was interested. We set up a time to get together in the afternoon at my house. Three hours after the appointment time I called him as he did not arrive. He said he fell asleep  and would be right there.

I was not impressed with our visit. One of the first questions he asked me is "what if I asked you to preach on Sunday?"  I replied, " am I limited in what I can preach?"   He said "ah no" but it turned out very much "yes." I said that I am SDA and I will not preach a Billy Graham sermon. Turns out that that is what he wanted. He said that we need to build a relationship with people before we give them doctrine. I asked him if he thought I went into homes and offended people with doctrine and then sold them $500.00 worth of books. I said that when we discern how to do so we can share many things with non SDAs. It turned out that he was playing mind games with me and playing the psychiatrist as this is how he was trained and I needed proper training. He said that he asked my daughter a question just to see how I would respond. He came across very condescending  and said if you will not do this or that "I cannot use you." I thought, "do JWs ands Mormons come in with their program and give Billy Graham messages ? Why should SDAs ?  He asked me if I thought we as SDAs ought to be in their as chaplains ? I replied, " that depends on what they are doing there." To try sound SDA he told me that he told another chaplain there that if he does not stop eating pork and  worshipping on Sunday he's going to hell. He could do this because he "has a relationship with him." I don't think this man trusts anyone else to have discernment enough to do an SDA program at the prison for fear we might get too much into doctrine. He has been recruiting at the churches and from what I hear no one is "being used" by him. A lot of that probably is because many do not want to do prison ministry  and #2 those who are more interested are not pliable enough or they are too SDA.