Barry Black Finding a Guide in this Sin Sick World

good evening my name is Celeste Ryan blieden and I serve as your vice president for strategic communication and public relations and I have the happy privilege and honor to introduce our keynote speaker this evening dr. Barry Clayton black he's no stranger to us but he is the 62nd chaplain of the United States Senate he serves he has served in that role for 16 years since 2003 prior to that he served in the US Navy for over 27 years ending his distinguished career as chief of Navy chaplains chaplain black is a native of Baltimore and a son of the Columbia Union he's an alumnus of Oakwood University pine forage Academy and grew up in Baltimore's Berea temple he's an Allegheny youth member after his mother accepted the Advent message at an evangelism series as a pine forged student he was featured in the Columbia Union visitor your favorite magazine for for winning an oratorical contest where the president of the Columbia Union at that time was elder Neal and C Wilson presented the award dr. black believes in education he has earned several master's degrees two doctoral degrees a host of awards and has four books to his name he is married to a local church elder in the Potomac Conference Brenda Pierce all black and they have three adult sons Barry the second Brendon and Bradford who he loves to talk about when he's when he's speaking as chaplain of the United States Senate dr. black pastors the Senators and their families officiating at their weddings funerals and all events in between he leads prayer breakfasts weekly Bible studies interdenominational gatherings and provides spiritual counseling and each day he opens the Senate with prayer anybody ever see him pray at the Senate a man recently our president's counsel had the opportunity to visit with him at the US Capitol and he told us about how he came to know that God wanted him to be a prayer warrior he said you know God told me and I make the baby prayer phrasing here dr. Blakk but he said God told me I may not be known as you know the smartest or from my intellect I may not be known as the handsomest chaplain but I should be known as an intercessor and that he has done we've all watched him pray for major events like the inaugural luncheons for our US presidents and just like Daniel and the courts of Nebuchadnezzar God has placed a prayer warrior a seventh-day Adventist prayer warrior in the halls of power so since we're focused on the Bible this weekend right Sola scriptura I asked chaplain black what's your favorite Bible text if you know that you hear him speak he recites Bible passages throughout his speaking but he said to me Romans 8:1 if you know what you can say it with me it says there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to flesh but according to the spirit dr. Blakk we welcome you to the Columbia Union Leadership Summit Sola scriptura we're thankful for the way in which God is using you and blessing you your church loves you we pray for you and we're thankful that there is a Bible preaching seventh-day Adventist Columbia Union prayer warrior on Capitol Hill welcome crazy what everyone what a blessed privilege it is to be in God's house for where two or three after your chapter 18 are gathered together in his name he is there in the mid so we are in God's house Celeste mentioned that I have written four books Celeste edited my first book from the hood to the hill so she's a marvelous book editor and about a month ago Celeste there actually was number five Bible wisdom for better living so that's available now as well I love the Word of God and as Celeste was giving you my background 27 years here 15 years here and that kind of thing I remember a woman after hearing my introduction she approached me after my presentation and said how old are you chaplain and I said madam I'm a military man that information is classified I could tell you but I'd have to kill you after I told you and she said don't joke don't joke joke done to the tack and figure it out myself she said tell me a little bit about yourself I said I I was a missionary to South America she's writing said I pastored 11 churches in North and South Carolina in the southern Union I said I was a military chaplain for 27 years she's scribbling scribbling and I said I am entering my 17th year as the chaplain for the United States cross that I carried that yes I've got it you're 89 years old is the Lord praise the Lord so I am so happy that you have invited this octogenarian who is approaching decrepitude to share in this wonderful experience I want to talk about winning with God's Word winning with God's Word my mother was the daughter of a South Carolina sharecropper and some of you may not know what sharecropping is Martin King described it as a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity my mother watched my grandfather Earl settling up with the man whose plantation he had worked for a year and my grandfather Earl discovered that he old the man who field he was working money instead of receiving any money and that was when my mother decided with very little money and only a fourth-grade education to migrate to Baltimore Maryland when she was there with very little money it was very very difficult she was on public assistance we called it welfare in those days and she from time to time worked as a domestic for six dollars a day one day someone put a handbill for a tent meeting an evangelistic meeting in my mother's mailbox and when I get to heaven I want to meet that brave soul who walked into the toxic pathology of the inner city put that hand bill in our mailbox and then went into run Forrest run mode to get out of Dodge but my mother read that hand bill and the title of the message you know how we do to draw people to our meetings we have attractive messages and the title was the day money will be thrown in the streets of Baltimore Maryland and nobody will stop to pick it up okay now my mom had a fourth-grade education because the daughters if you didn't have a lot of Sun you had to work the field okay so you didn't see fifth sixth grade subsequently she went on graduated from high school and a variety of other things after she got us through church school but fourth grade education she said I'm going to that meeting I only have two existential questions she didn't put it quite that way but that's what she meant I want to know when the money will be thrown I want to know where the money will be thrown as soon as I have that vital information see you don't want to be yeah I'm out of there okay and she went older w a Thompson sister Thompson we just lost her at a hundred and three and I was able to say a few words that at her celebration of life ceremony but elder W a Thompson was and and what a wonderful thing happened to my mother as she discovered Jesus at that meeting she discovered the Advent message at that meeting she discovered the Word of God at that meeting this woman who if you had asked any social worker what is the probability of her being extricated from a general you know cycle of poverty and pathology and the response would have been it's it's not gonna happen what about her children she had three Stairsteps and one in the oven and so you know how that is there's a woman with three small children and she looks like she's five or six months pregnant coming to this evangelistic meeting but she came night after night after night and when they baptized her in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit she was immersed as we say in the watery grave of baptism she asks for a special anointing of the Holy Spirit on her unborn child and I was that child in her womb as she was baptized because of the word of God now my mother knew about the pathology and the poverty of our background and she she saw that she needed to do something to inoculate her children in that environment there was prostitution pimps you could sit on your front stoop and watch domestic violence and it wasn't always the man beating the woman okay some serious stuff okay you could hear the staccato bark of gunfire during the weekend so how would she knock you late her children and so she provided she was only getting six dollars a day but she provided a monetary incentive for us to memorize the Word of God and she promised us five cents big money in those days big money okay you could get the big Snickers bar for five cents in those days I'm praying that those days will come back but I don't know if they will the big Baby Ruth you know we called it the daddy roof for five cents okay and so if you would go to my mother's home you would see the fur round eventually I had seven siblings but this was when I had four there were five of us and we would be searching the Word of God for short verses okay we were looking for low-hanging fruit and when you come to our family reunions we all quote scripture okay my siblings and I we know all of the short verses not Celeste asked me what was my favorite scription I gave our Romans 8:1 but actually my favorite scripture for many years was Jesus wept John 11:35 powerful word powerful word I was also very partial to Luke 1732 remember Lot's wife wonderful wonderful wonderful wonderful scriptures like that you know despise not prophesying and quench not the spirit and pray without ceasing all the four that we knew them okay when I turned 13 I fell in love with the book of Proverbs the verses are short I had run out of the very short verses so I had to get the Maxim's the Proverbs and one day I memorize proverbs 110 I was very partial to verses that said my son because I had to put it kindly a nomadic father he was not around very often okay and proverbs 110 says my son if sinners entice thee my mother insisted on the King James Version she said if it was good enough for Jesus it's good enough for us you didn't argue with my mama okay yes ma'am yes ma'am even after I got a doctorate in theology I did not have the heart patella mom it wasn't around and our Lord's time but no no no no just say praise the Lord this is his version okay my son if sinners entice thee consent thou not two young men I actually googled these the these n thank out for cyberspace you can find out anything to get the specifics and the names and that kind of thing two young men invited me to go along with them to get back at someone and the words of proverbs 110 reverberate it in the corridors of my spirit almost audibly my son if sinners entice the consent thou not and in spite of the peer pressure okay I said no I'm not going with you all well these two young men didn't just get back at someone they killed someone and night after night on WBAL TV channel 11 WMAR TV channel to their sad saga was played out the gentleman who invited me said I didn't do it he did it it didn't matter it was the same judicial consequence life in prison now it is pretty difficult to become the only African American Admiral in the history of the United States Navy chaplain Corps with murder on your resume I said difficult because Moses had murder on his resume and David was not removed from the throne with murder I'm talking about point-blank range cold-blooded murder on his resume because he gave the man the note to take to Joab but difficult difficult to become the only seventh-day Adventist chaplain of the United States Senate the only african-american chaplain of the United States Senate in the history of the Republic with murder on your resume I literally owe my life to the Word of God and we need to hear this because we sometimes underestimate the power of evangelism we underestimate the power of the word of God to change the trajectory of the lives of families and send it in a positive direction all of a sudden my relatives were asking why don't you all eat meat you know as my mama all you had to do was say is in the Bible or an Ellen White and we were doing it ten minutes later okay this was just it this is it children you know new rules I mean did this was this is something okay pearline here we are on public assistance you got to put those children in church school all of your children should be taught of the Lord and each of my mother's children matriculated at seventh-day Adventist schools from grade one through graduate school eight of us okay so we not only got the word at home but we got it at school okay and and and that was real Christian education back in the day you couldn't take a subject rithmetic they had Bible illustrations oh you know you had to add up if Gideon had 22,000 I mean they they incorporate it this was really Christian education and as Ellen said Ellen said these schools are intended to serve as a barrier against the wide spreading corruption to promote the physical mental spiritual and social welfare of the youth and to provide prosperity to the nation by furnishing it with people qualified to act with the sphere of God reverential awe as leaders and counselors I teach senators every week and doing it for 16 years okay what I teach them goes up to what I learned by the time I graduated from pine forge we didn't even get into the Oakwood stuff and the Andrew stuff to provide prosperity to the nation by furnishing it with people qualified to act with the fear of God I had a senator tell me after he had been to a briefing regarding terrorism and the intent of of terrorists from rogue nations to eviscerate population centers and he came and he said chaps I don't know why they call me chaps but they'll chaps is God going to permit people to destroy the world here's a man with a Harvard Law degree I said senator you surprised me so I said you're not familiar with the prophecy of Daniel - I know I'm not that's gonna be the Bible study this coming Thursday bring some friends they piled in there leaning forward you know like I had classified information okay I was telling it was like I hate to say it but almost like children's story at church okay John Jesus loves the little children leaning forward and I talked about Nebuchadnezzar and how the boys I called him the boy Shadrach Meshach and Abednego okay there were wonderful people powerful probably some of you'll get that on the way home but anyway they're powerful and and here they were and then Daniel said why is the king you know we get all upset about who's in the legislative branch and judicial branch and and and you know executive branch but Daniel 1:1 says and God gave Jehovah Kim into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Israel and never kanessa was certifiable he said when they couldn't interpret a dream he had forgotten he said kill them all kill their families make their homes dunghill and smooth Daniel who had the Word of God inside of him said get my Posse and and me just no time okay to have a little talk with Yahweh okay and we'll get it and Daniel is now able supernaturally to tell the King what he dream and here's it that's not okay and then what else happens yeah come on can you say I said she said you are the head of gold went to the chest of silver the belly and thighs of Rast the legs of iron the feet of iron mixed with my then that stone comes out of the mountain smite the image fills the earth I said some female senators have come I said ladies and gentlemen before God permits humanity to destroy this earth he will hang up a sign closing time okay I said now make no mistake about it this earth is going to be destroyed but not the way you pay for revelation 21 verse 1 through 5 says and I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first Earth were passed away and there was no more sea but we'll get to that in the next Bible study that's how you do it they put bait out for my momma and got her and I've been putting bait out ever since the power hallelujah of the word of God now it is critical for us to understand that we win through God's Word because one God's Word is truth John chapter 17 verse 17 says sanctify them through thy truth thy Word is truth reasoning apologetics essentially involves syllogistic reasoning Aristotelian syllogistic reasoning major premise minor premise conclusion the premise is the reason if the reason is false it can't be a valid argument and so to try to help you to know truth the true from the false you got all of these Latin names for fallacies argumentum ad hominem on and on and on they've been talking a lot of Latin on Capitol Hill with quid pro quo but we're not going there today we're not we're not going there okay you don't need Latin all you need to know is does this premise align itself with biblical admonition eyes 822 the law to the testimony's if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them and what happens is you develop the reputation for being far smarter than you cause you can chow it just by asking questions I pulled the Columbo just one minute sir I just felt it just become you know and probe because his word is truth what an edge to have as you navigate through this world and talk to people from different different experiences they I was with a bunch of senators and other folk Ravi Zacharias was there and oz Guinness and all of them and they were on up we were on a program and they were talking about you know these are the most challenging times in the history like the history of the world but they were saying in the history of the Republic and I was startled by the premise anybody who knows anything about history ok knows that these are not the most challenging times in there so when I started out I said you know I understand your premise but I said let me suggest slavery was pretty bad too ok you know world war ii was no picnic i mean why are we so hyperbolic we should be light illuminating the darkness with the truth of god's word and then we need to win through God's Word because God's Word is a guide I don't know what I would do without my breakfast of a psalm every every day I have one of the Psalms for breakfast you got 150 up so I get a good nourishing breakfast you pray one of the Psalms it's powerful ok for lunch I have one of the proverbs 31 chapters in Proverbs one for each day so I have a proverb for lunch powerful powerful greatest success manual ever written in the evening for supper ok I don't have the beyond burger I have one of - beyond Gospels okay I have either Matthew Mark Luke and John and let me tell you something you get that kind of word in you on a regular basis it becomes a GPS a godly positioning system now I'm navigationally challenged okay that's a polite way of saying I get lost driving around the block okay everybody knew that but thank God the GPS is were invented and for my birthday many years ago my family after an intervention gave me a Garmin GPS okay dad it is a now if this doesn't work we may have to talk to the government authorities like a day here is a carrot and suddenly someone who spent his life terrified by the words and you can't miss it okay because that I knew I'd miss it because you know and then you do that and turn it and you can't miss it okay I became the most confident in fact I had a little swagger about myself because when they told me Celeste gave me a call and I told her I was on my way put it in my little GPS looking around enjoying the scenery you know unfamiliar territory it didn't matter when I needed to hear that voice hallelujah okay the guidance of that GPS okay in eight tenths of a mile bear left okay and even in my sometimes obtuseness I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box even with a GPS it says recalibrating okay you know please state the first legal u-turn okay and sometimes you get so frustrated with me do you know what you're doing you know so anyway but we had that guidance 119 Psalm 105 your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path and God knows we need that guidance today I was talking to my Bible studies I teach for Bible studies a week and many of you know that we're dealing with the whole impending impeachment crisis from the Word of God I talked about Acts 12 in the little house of Mary and some women praying for the impossible that Peter would be delivered from prison Herod had already killed James and Peter is chained between soldiers and it looked impossible and these people were praying with just a little faith because when Peter knocked on the door and the answer for prayer was knocking I said Gert wrote it would you please look we're praying okay Peters that would you please it's not Peter well what are you praying for and then I reminded senators and staffers let us not be intimidated by the demonic and let me remind you lawmakers that we wrestle not against flesh and blood Ephesians 6:12 but against principalities powers the rulers of the darkness of this world spiritual wickedness in high places and let's ask God to do something special let's ask God to let his will be done lest God let's ask God to let the counterintuitive happen and I've seen time and time on Capitol Hill people who believe the Word of God trust me Philippians 4 there are Saints in Caesars house okay we we opened the government up after it's been shut down for a record time fasting and praying sighing and crying for the effectual fervent prayers of the righteous avail and his word his word guides us but then we win we win with God's Word because his word gives us victory over temptation Wow I mean we've got to be honest with us about this we've got to be honest about it we put up a good front you know we we stand as if we have not sinned we do not know sin we are ready for translation but I want you to know that my autobiography is not a tell-all book because you can't handle the truth okay it's that going I had to airbrush it six or seven times to clean it up you know for God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil Ecclesiastes 12 13 and 14 but the reality is because I live in the condemnation free zone and in Christ Jesus there is now no condemnation I can stand before you and preach like I was immaculately conceived you know because of what Christ did on Calvary Jesus gave me the victory through the power of his word when he fought the devil in Matthew 4 it is written it is written it is written in Ephesians 6 the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God it it's a defense when those thoughts comment you need to straighten the devil out and correct bring those thoughts into captivity but it is also a weapon for offense when you need to take on those who try to gain say the truth of the word of God and so the verse that means the most to me when it comes to winning with God's Word is in Hebrews chapter 4 verses 12 and 13 I love this passage for the word of God is quick and powerful sharper than any two-edged sword piercing the dividing asunder of bone and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the human heart you do not so much search the scriptures as the scriptures search you like heat-seeking missiles it finds out the areas of correction that are needed and trains you in righteousness and equips you for telling our spiritual maturity so that you can press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus so what are you saying chaplain I'm saying remember that the Word of God is alive that's what it means by quick you've heard of the quick and the dead the alai the living and the dead it is alive I was when I became a minister president Wiggly I had a I had a fear that no one would ever accept Jesus Christ if I made an invitation to discipleship come to Jesus just because I asked them just just terrified of that I didn't realize that I was dealing with something that was alive my father was an alcoholic many years not around very much I preached when I came home made an invitation to discipleship I was startled when people got up and responded but even more startled when my father whom I didn't even know had come to the surfs came in coveralls in the back didn't even know he was there got up and accepted Jesus as Lord and the Adventist message because of the power of the Living Word of God the transformative power of the word of God stopped under estimating the power used the force Luke use the Force it's alive [Applause] and then it is effective the Word of God is alive remember that the Word of God is effective women would not have the status that they had today were it not for the Word of God what happened at mother Emanuel would not have happened and I've met with the families of that that horrible tragedy that happened but Dillon ruber they said we forgive you my God my god were it not for the power of the word of God it's effective I I was trained in seventh-day Adventist schools one the oratorical contest Blue Mountain Academy twice won the r-dog eleventh and twelfth grade yeah but when I went down to Huntsville Alabama in the 60s Brown v the Board of Education was being implemented with all deliberate speed and there was still colored and white water fountains but I was so naive I went down to the seventh-day Adventist Church God's remnant Church you know but that my church this is the church I love this is the church I grew up in and I was turned away and with all of that Christian education and all of that Bible memorization it was like someone flipped a switch and I was suddenly agnostic I went to the Dean of Students office you go to the Dean of Students office when you did something that qualified you for expulsion I went to the Dean of Students office 11 times after that incident Barry what are we going to do with you Barry Barry there and then finally they heard we're gonna let one of your students be a missionary this is the first time Oakwood University was gonna have a mission er but it is a dangerous mission in the jungles of Peru there lot mountain lions alligators the whole nine yards and the faculty sat down and said do we have an expendable student IB god forbid that anything tragic should happen but if if we just had to lose someone which student could we afford to lose and it was unanimous I became Oakwood University's first student and it was robbed I woke up one time and there was a mountain line we were walking through the jungle compa Amma waka Peru Indians is amazing extent when I came back to school I'd been transformed by Sikh freed Neuendorf and some of you may know Siegfried he's still out he was a minister out in Southern California Sikhs read a German blue-eyes was a member of Hitler's youth brigade and his wonderful wife Eileen and they loved me they they smothered me with Christian love I'm coming with the two / - I'm quoting Malcolm and they just ignored me and smothered me with so much love that at the end of my tenure I said if this is what Christianity looks like there must be a god somewhere if they could take what I put on them and then the Word of God you need to remember it is alive it is effective it is penetrating and in that verse it talks about Sookie and numa it separates the physical the biological and connects us with the transcendent and has us thinking about the life to come how would we know why we're here where we came from where we're going without the Word of God it gives us a raison d'être a reason for being in penetrates like the parable of the four soils in matthew chapter 13 and the seed says the scripture that's the Word of God penetrating and germinating who would have ever thought that that woman with three children and one in in her womb come into a meeting would end up with a gospel singer when it would end up with three Christian educators would end up with a computer expert would end up with a gospel singer and would end up with somebody working on Capitol Hill fourth-grade education Oh because of that sixty-six book library transform but probably the most amazing thing that the scriptures did for me it made me fall in love with Jesus Christ I remember I was ten years old when I got a nickel for one of my longer verses first first Peter 1:18 and 19 for we are redeemed not with corruptible things such as silver and gold but with the precious blood Jesus Christ and in my little 10 year old mind I was able to deduce that the value of anything should be based upon the price someone is willing to pay and when it dawned on me that God sent his son for Barry black no one can make me feel inferior anymore I had something different happen in my heart because that word it penetrates and I started looking for that man in scripture John 5:39 says search the Scriptures for in them you think he had eternal life and these are they that testify of me and I kept finding him wherever I went even Paul says the rock that the Israelites got water out of that rock was Christ Genesis I found out he was Shiloh and Exodus the I am and numbers the star and Sceptile Deuteronomy to rock Joshua I found him as captain of the Lord's hosts and enjoyed the redeemer I know that my redeemer lives in Psalms the great Shepherd in Proverbs the beloved I kept looking for that man and I heard Isaiah called him wonderful counselor the mighty God the everlasting father the Prince of Peace and Daniel I saw he's got to be that fourth man in the fiery furnace Micah called him the one who's going forth of old is from everlasting to everlasting Zechariah called him the branch Malachi called him the messenger of the Covenant Matthew called him Savior mark called him sort of man Luke called him the Word made flesh John John said he is the Monogue anis the only one of its kind for God so loved the world that He gave the mono Ganesh his only begotten Son Acts says he's the one who mobilizes us for witness and you will seed acts 1:8 power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses Philippians says at his name every knee will bow you can bow now or you can bow later but every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father 1st Thessalonians 4 says he's the one who will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Archangel and the Trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet him in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord and Jude says he's able to keep you about stumbling or slipping and presents you without fault or blemish before the presence of his glory with unspeakable estatic denied in triumphant joy and exultation and John said I was in the spirit on a Saturday I saw him high and lifted up he is alpha he is omega he is beginning he is ending here's king of kings he is lot of the thing that I loved so much about him as I started one day praying Luke 11:13 if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more is your heavenly father eager to give his Holy Spirit to those who I'm a preacher reading lukla wait a minute Lord I thought that everybody received the Holy Spirit when you accepted Jesus as Lord but you said to those who ask is there a by request only impartation of your Holy Spirit is there another level so in my little prayer closet I started praying Luke 11:13 whatever you're offering I want it abracadabra however you do it I wanted four days into praying Luke 11:13 which I noun have prayed daily for over thirty-five years four days into praying Luke 11:13 some strange stuff started happening to me I was a full manuscript preacher before I started praying Luke 11:13 if I were drive into a meeting and I was 15 miles from home and I realized I'd forgotten my manuscript I turn around and go back to God can't yeah I got to go back and get my manuscript but the Holy Ghost will not let you tether a mind that is fearfully and wonderfully made to a piece of paper for where the Spirit of God is there is freedom and there is liberty and about six days into praying my wife turned to me one morning and said what she's only said one time in our 46 years of marriage we were only two years of age when when they're 46 she said whatever has happened to you I want it to happen to me as it were baby I said I just I came across Luke 11:13 I showed it to her I just pray that every day she started praying Luke 11:13 every day and all of a sudden a big smile came over her because what had happened to me it also happened to her and she is my number one prayer partner you know you got a prayer request you let the black family handle okay but you better watch out Bevell okay the power first Corinthians 6:19 says know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you resurrection power lives in you and you are not your own for you abort with a price for over 35 years I've prayed Luke 11:13 for over 50 years every day including today I have also prayed James 1:5 I prayed those two scriptures for decades now James 1:5 says if anyone lacks wisdom let him or her ask of God who gives it liberally and won't resent the fact that you're asking I call it stupid proof in your life okay God is not going to let you do something long-term stupid on the day you asked him for wisdom so I ask him every day when I leave home to go to Capitol Hill I am armed and dangerous with supernatural wisdom and the power of the anointing of the Holy Spirit I am so armed I don't even know how I get through the metal detectors and so this is what I want to challenge you to do as we begin this time together talking about the primacy of the Word of God I want to challenge you leaders and I declare it will it will transform your life I want to challenge you and this is not for everybody for the rest of your life when a preacher makes a request that has for the rest of your life honored you say the brothers delusional in another for the rest of your life I want you to pray James 1:5 on a daily basis ask God for the wisdom that he offers I am a witness it works and for the rest of your life by the grace of God pray Luke 11:13 and ask God for the by request only impartation of his Holy Spirit I do not believe Elijah would have received a double portion of Elijah's spirit without asking for James 4:2 says you have not because and here is God setting before us a supernatural power and gift gifts wisdom and the anointing it's gonna be transformative God does something like text messaging I call it it's not an audible voice text messaging on my heart I was sitting in a meeting the Holy Spirit Oh text message said I was in Virginia Beach I want you to go to Washington DC and straighten out your military record I wasn't thinking about it I had been there the previous year and straighten out my record it was saying I want you I said Lord my record is fine I was there last year you know it's fine I want you to go to Washington DC and straighten out your record I said my nope you need to pray for me I said my record is fine okay all right I'm good so I mean this is a six-hour drive from where I work I Drive I pull over to the side of the road because I'm sleepy then I drive on in I go in to Arlington the Navy annex where the records are and as I'm walking toward the door there's a chaplain standing there and he says are you chaplain black I said yes I am and the chaplain said I'd like to help you do whatever you're here for okay this this chaplain guided me around and I went into the place where the military records are and discovered that the Navy was going from a paper system to a computerized system and there were people with piles of paper in their laps I'm saying really okay when I looked at my record is an enemy what happens when you pray these things if an enemy had wanted to sabotage my record he or she could not have done a better job my most important awards gone okay assignment evaluations gone I had an attache case with all of the paperwork in it we were able to patch up all of the holes in my record and then Chaplin was they said how was your military photo Chaplin a 10-9 said have you ever had the Marines take your photo I said no he says come on with me I went to the marine nobody takes photos like the Marines okay takes them about 40 minutes just to get your pose and you know I mean nobody takes well it was the best photo I have ever taken in my military record and that was the year that I was selected for Admiral okay they looked at a hundred and sixty-five I'm talking about the power of God a hundred and sixty-five naval officers and one is going to be selected for Admiral okay I was number 164 which meant they would look at a hundred and sixty-three other records before they would even get to mine and trust me had they gotten to my record the way it was before the Holy Spirit said you need to go to DC and straight he's alive he is operating in this world if if it had been they would not they wouldn't have given it five minutes we know that this one is not even competitive God has your back and if for the rest of your life that's my intention how do I mean feel right if the first thing in the morning I'm not on my knees that's my power position my Savior deserves it and asking for that supernatural wisdom and asking asking for that anointing for he walks with me and he talks with me and you know he never calls me Admiral he never calls me doctor the barrier you get yourself up to DC and the joy we share my God my God as we tarry there none has ever known Ellen said not one in 10 have an experiential relationship with Jesus Christ I dare you I double dare you to start praying James 1:5 and Luke 11:13 every day for the rest of your life I could tell you 25 stories of God supernaturally intervening in my life since the time I started praying Luke 11:13 so I want to pray for those who are willing to make what is really a challenging commitment but I believe from the perspective of my wife Brenda and from my perspective it's worth it's worth so much I'm gonna ask if you're willing to make a commitment at this this kick-off of this leadership I want to be armed I want to be dangerous I want the anointing I I want God telling me secret Orman's said that how can we keep this from Abraham what we're about to do and then Abraham starts negotiating but Sodom and Gomorrah gets down to ten and said well it got to be ten there's lot you know there's his wife there's two daughters you know that's you know and then they've got to yonce so if they've been given Bible studies they it got to be ten I stop to him okay I want to have a special prayer so if you're willing to make that commitment with me would you stand I'm going to pray for those for the rest of my life every day the Lord gives me mine I'm gonna be armed my God my God my god I'm gonna be dangerous I'm going to win with God's Word I'm going to cling to God's promises 84 song verse 11 no good thing will he withhold from the upright heads about Heavenly Father thank you for taking this unworthy vessel and using him to fulfill your purposes on earth glory to your name thank you that our Lord said it is better for you that I go away because if I do not go away the Paraclete the comforter cannot come you are better off with him than having my physical presence he will lead and guide you to the truth and so far the God as these dear ones stand and make the commitment I want to get them started in praying Luke 11:13 and so I want each of you standing to repeat these words after me Heavenly Father thank you for your promise of power I desire the gift you are offering in Luke 11:13 fill me with your sweet Holy Spirit and use me for the rest of my life for your glory in the name of Jesus Christ my crucified king amen and amen give God Thanksgiving for what he has done in this place hallelujah now understand you wanted a Q&A ok all right ok thank you I'll ask you one by the way thank you for the powerful message and I love the promise if your father and mother knew how to give gifts how much more the Holy Spirit God would give but we just simply asked where thank you and your busy busy busy schedule and you're always going how do you make time for time for God in your life thank you so much it was an honor I spend an hour praying the Scriptures a day the only request that I call it my holy hour the only requests our Lord ever made of his disciples when his soul was exceedingly sorrowful unto death was can you watch with me one hour we don't have a problem with an hour of NBA basketball and when it in the double-overtime now we don't have an hour when the Washington we don't have problem when the Washington National to plan and I'm in the man cave and a seating for them I tell my wife as long as I'm here and I stay here they're gonna continue to win okay so I give him let me tell you praying the Scriptures that my my fourth book make your voice heard in heaven has a chapter on praying the Scriptures it will it will put your prayer life on steroids okay without an open Bible I have about a minute and a half worth of good prayer material before I start repeating myself lord thank you for this day bless the Senators blast my children by smile why bless the senators oh I already said that and I'm out I'm out of material but when you open up the book and give God the courtesy of starting the conversation the Lord is my light and my salvation whom then shall I fear okay lord I like that but if you are indeed my light and my salvation why am I afraid I start unpacking that now you'd walked in before I open that bad and I pray it like I said I saw him for breakfast you know a proverb for lunch and the Gospels for for for meal if you walked in and said Barry write down 50 things that you want to talk to God about my fear would not be on that list but the Holy Spirit triggers that heat-seeking missile that penetrating okay okay so you do that and you won't want to miss it you know and I've been doing that now for the 16 years that I've been in the Senate I haven't missed a Holi oh okay okay and I I do audio Bible you know you can get the Christian book distributors out of Peabody Massachusetts 1999 and you've got James Earl Jones reading the New Testament use the force no that's it and I'm sorry I meant for God so loved the world letter gave you yeah yeah so that's it you've got to take time to be holy and the Word of God is transformative okay yes sir I want to ask a question that doesn't really speak to the main point of Sola scriptura but something that you shared your experience of being turned away from a church I had this question for you what advice would you give to a youth who wants to leave the church because of a bad experience based on you being turned away from church because of racism the advice I would give is give God a chance to demonstrate his power to you and claim the Bible promise in Romans 8:28 that in everything God is working for the good of those who love Him who are called according to his purpose is so that's the first thing I would say the second thing I would do is challenge that individual to share in the suffering of our Lord Philippians 3:10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the Fellowship of his suffering and to say you have a eventually you will have a stronger bond with our Lord he knew what it was like when there was no room for him okay he started out that way but even before I made those that made I would make those two suggestions I would pray with that individual and I would ask God I would shoot up a prayer for wisdom again and ask the Holy Spirit to direct me in my response but those two have been very helpful in situations where people have had challenges like that thank you this is Emmanuel Columbia Union so how do you make the Word of God come alive in a person's life in other words how do you make somebody fall in love with the Word of God I tell them first of all realize that there is something in the Bible called a table of contents okay so just because you can't find a book look at the table of contents and you can find the page okay and then with the smartphones it's absolutely second I would tell him or her find a translation that really moves you and I recommend that they go to a Bible bookstore and pick a passage that they like the 23rd psalm and start picking up translations and reading the 23rd psalm in the different translation I love the New Living Translation it's just lyrical for me but you're going to read a passage and something inside of you will say now that's what I'm talking about okay that's the Bible that you should begin to read and then the third thing that I would tell them to do is to get an audio of scripture Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing I know that's I searched at a copepod anyway okay but there's a guy called the voice of the Bible this Brit who it's just an amazing voice and pray for me I'm I'm an Anglophile I love the British accent but it's Scourby Alexander Scourby I could listen to Alexander Scourby read the phonebook okay I mean this is this guy is absolutely don't have phone books anymore all right so those would be some suggestions that I would make and I would do the I would tell them about the Psalms proverbs wonderful and start I'd start them out with Mark cuz that's the shortest gospel although there's some very long chapters in mark but you know get them get them going like that you know you're in a non-partisan position but you have been able to you know when you pray you you've had some loaded prayers you know prayers with messages in them you know how does that work and and what kind of feedback do you get well anybody here been to my office let me see your hands okay so a lot of you have been in my office and you know I've got a view to die for okay it's it overlooks the mall America's front yard the Washington Monument is straight ahead the reflecting pool is behind it the iconic Lincoln Memorial where the I have a dream it's it's all before me if you can't pray with that view you need psychiatric care okay so I'm sitting there I I write my prayers out of the overflow of my devotional life so when I am praying the scriptures I am writing my prayers I am literally getting the Word of God under the radar into the hearts and minds of our lawmakers the soil of their hearts they don't even know it's in there but it's coming in okay but this Holy Spirit who's been with me in this special by request only way text messages he text messages prayers to me so during the 2013 government shutdown ad I had written some nice little pablum like prayer saying you know eternal Lord God who alone spreads out the heavens and rules the raging of the sea bless our lawmakers in this area that's not what I want you to say well this is a pretty good prayer no no no no no no Barry they said and you can YouTube the and no one I'm going rogue okay I want you to tell our lawmakers have mercy upon us O God and save us from the madness I said Lord you don't talk to senators that way I'm not finished berry deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable cover our shame with the robe of your righteousness forgive us reformer and make us whole okay okay so they are literal downloads you know they say Mozart it was like taking dictation for him it is a that is when you when the Holy Spirit has been living in you that long many a long time that that power and that anointing you can feel the power of the Holy Spirit some of you I don't know any of you who saw the 2017 prayer breakfast Swedes anybody in here saw that okay some of you seen it I I did the keynote address for the 2017 National Day of Prayer okay with President Trump vice president Pence King Abdullah from Georgia members of the Ukrainian Parliament members of the Romanian Parliament okay heads of state from Africa I get to the podium and the teleprompter material for the president is all over the podium there's nowhere to put anything and I'm looking out at about 4,000 people and I'm thinking oh my god and I get a text message why I'm standing you can YouTube it and see it trust me with this one okay ice I'm tingling from the crown of I don't give you 25 them I'm tingling from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I step into a wave of the Holy Spirit my first words are president Trump you want to start a speech it and you don't have you don't know where you're going with it president Trump vice president Pence King Abdullah okay and the speech make your voice heard in heaven I was literally moving the pieces around as the Holy Spirit was giving them to me a download okay the peroration I've had rhetorician calling me and saying talk to me about how you structured it had nothing to do with me okay you know Pope comparing it to Chesterton and you know I said that the peroration will be you know like the I have a dream peroration the whole nine yards okay that is what God does for you when you you you do on a daily basis what you've already done and that is to say what you're offering I want in Luke 11:13 and it makes you dependent on him okay you receive power acts funny when the Holy Spirit is come upon you okay time for one more question who will who will bring up the caboose here I gotta get back to capital by the way mine I I did an ancestry.com deal and I've discovered that I am 85% Ghanaian so I met my Ghanaian brothers here today so I got to go to the home country now that I know who I am you know in terms of my African ants ancestry good okay here is the last question first I thank you so much for just sharing with us god bless you thank you what did you find to be your biggest challenge my biggest challenge is to maintain ethical congruence the higher you go I tell my wife with every promotion I get better looking okay all right there is people are drawn to power okay and people will begin to make overtures monetary overtures because they know that you have access and could you and Chaplin understand well you know according to the ethics let me explain it to you another way I will give you $25,000 you know okay so for you to be inside and in your actions what you profess to be you know and not have a freezer filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars as one of the and I mean is there throwing stuff that you know we already got the banners out and what I'll do is send my chartered plane does that and you start you go from hanging out with millionaires to hanging out with billionaires you know I didn't even know how many millions were in billing and I had a billionaire okay so to be ethically congruent and to have your enemies who do Oppo research say about you as they did about Daniel and Daniel six verse five we can find nothing against this Daniel except it'd be concerning or connected with his religion edgar guests put it this way I'd rather see your sermon and here in any day I'd rather it should walk with me than merely tell the way the eyes are better pupils and more willing than the ears fine counsel is confusing but example always clear and best of all the teachers are the ones who live their Creed for to see good put in action is what everybody needs god bless you and God keep you [Applause]

Channel: ColumbiaUnion

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Id: 1p70MFTl_20

Length: 79min 14sec (4754 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 18 2019