If you need further help PLEASE be more specific. "I am struggling with how I implement the methods" makes it sound like you're not understanding basic Java
Not sure what you mean by "its purpose is not for that", it's literally the vanilla command for managing the whitelist.
You can just reflectively invoke the methods you need to use.
I don't know... there's nothing in your log even indicating that you entered a world, much less which mod might be slowing down the server thread that much.
It means the server half (all the concrete logic that matters) of your singleplayer game froze but the client half (GUIs, controls, what the client guesses the server will say) continued on
It looks to me like the server thread may have stalled while the client thread ticked on, but if that's the case surely the watchdog should have killed the server.
From what little information you've provided I can only assume you've downloaded a 1.16.1 mod and are expecting it to work on other versions.
Edit: Threads merged... please don't make duplicate threads.
You didn't specify the full path, you changed the working directory from the server to Oracle's preferred Java installation, which I suspect is Java 15.
Forge and mods do not work across Minecraft versions.
If you want further assistance you'll need to provide more info, preferable in the form of debug.log (more info in my signature below, just expand the spoiler)