by Bishop Missick-Freeport, Bahamas
This testimony was given on the Bishop’s radio program.
Today we are thankful to God for having just returned from Washington DC attending a conference with my wife. Truly we thank God for His goodness and Blessings, for what our ears have heard and our hearts have felt. We attended the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace, and the address was given by the founder, Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife. We don’t know his church so much but we give thanks to God because we learned a lot of things, and we have seen a lot of things.
Now, some folks say that the Rev. Moon only believes in God and doesn’t believe in the Son, but the problem is we have a lot of churches in the Bahamas which preach only about Jesus rather than about God. We understand that if the Son set you free you’re free indeed. You might not believe in Rev. Missick but if you come to my son for something and he tells you can get it, then I’m not going to say you can’t have it when my son just told you that you could. We might not agree with Rev. Moon’s religion, but at this conference I saw such a lot. There were people from over 100 different countries representing over 100 different religions from all over the world and I didn’t know we had that many different religions.
We were addressed by many different religious groups including Catholic and Protestant. The chairman of this particular meeting was an Anglican from California.
We gained a lot from the address given by Rev. Moon. Some people say that he says he is Jesus, but he never claimed such a thing according to the speech that I have here. He told us about how Jesus came into the world and made his presence felt, and how he had to leave his work to his disciples. Rev. Moon claims to be one of his disciples and doing all he can for the sake of people, preaching to the young people, which is good. He’s trained young people around the world, trying to teach young girls to stay out of the way of getting pregnant, and that marriage comes before sex. I think he’s getting his message across very well. We need that in the Bahamas, too-because we have got young girls 20 years old already with three or four children, and so we need someone to each them how to deal with that. A young girl goes and gets pregnant and then she has problems raising that child on her own, needing money, training and education. We can’t have a world of peace whilst these sorts of things are going on. If the family can keep together we can have peace within the world.
The conference meeting on Saturday was led in prayer by a bishop from the Church of God in Christ. We had ministers from all over the world who came to Washington DC to support Rev. Moon in the work of this Inter Religious Federation for World Peace. For Jesus said, "Peace I give unto you-through my Word." We may be separated by our different religions. In Bahamas we have all kinds of religions right now: the Church of God, Seventh Day Adventists, Anglicans, Catholics, Baptists. When the Baptists just started they had problems, because that’s the reason we have "Meeting Street" today-because that was their meeting place and they had to hide. So it is like this every time you come up with something new. Jesus came to set us free. He told us to go out into all the world and preach the gospel.
Every year there seems to be a new religion, a new leader, now this, now that-but it seems to me it’s all the same, because you know you believe that Jesus came to save us after Adam our forefather took us into darkness.
Jesus came to give us life and that we might have it more abundantly-therefore you have been born again-you don’t have a different religion, yet we understand and agree with Rev. Moon that God made the family.
God wants families to be together and then everything will be all right. If we are mixed up in the family there is no peace in that family. If we are mixed up in the home, there can’t be any peace.
There are so many mothers, where a man dropped his seed and left that girl and then she has to go nine months, and then another 18 years before that child is enough to help him/herself. So we need people to teach on these important matters, Amen! So I’ve learnt a lot, Amen!
Now we also saw the wedding ceremony, too, Glory be to God! We have seen so many people, black, white, brown, yellow, red-Rev. Moon believes in mixing the races, not in segregation. So we saw black marrying white, brown marrying pink, all kinds of colors and races.
This seven days spent in Washington attending the conference, thanks be to God, has been a great experience. Jesus was with his disciples one day when they started to grumble: "Look, these people are using your name and yet they are not with us!" but Jesus rebuked them, saying "Let them be!"
We can’t help Rev. Moon, because he has already gone so far. On Saturday that stadium was packed with people. 40,000 of them and just 15 or so demonstrating outside. We had many events take place with religious leaders from all over the world, and this was transmitted live on 56 different channels in the U.S.A. and across the world. Therefore, it has spread so far, all you can do is stay and serve the Lord.
Jesus is coming so, regardless of what religion you are, hold on to your faith, and secondly, have a strong family. If we have strong families we can have a strong nation. We have strong belief that God sent His son to die that we might have a right to Life. Jesus spent 33 years and then left his disciples, died on the cross, laid out his life. Many will come and go, but thank God for Jesus.
Stay with God. He promised to be with us, to keep us, Amen! So hold on to your belief! Glory be to God!
I remember when the Church of God came to the Bahamas they had problems. I am thinking about that old man, Mr. Rolle, in Exuma, who was put in jail up there-and his hair turned white overnight. So everyone is faced with separation when they’re starting off a ministry.
I always say if it’s for God it will stand, but if it’s not for God it will come up today and be gone by tomorrow. Jesus said, "Let them all grow together until the reaping day, and then the tares will be separated from the wheat."
Jesus will come by the grace of God, if you’re wrong you’re wrong and if you’re right you’ll get paid for whatever you do. So, let’s all stand for holiness! Without holiness no man shall see the Lord! I don’t care what any man’s got, I don’t mind what they have or what they’re offering you, Amen!
You hold on to God and Jesus’ hand. You may not agree with the fellow, you might not like his religion-there are many religions in the Bahamas we might not like-but we can’t do anything about it, because here in Bahamas we have freedom of religion according to our constitution and until that is changed we have to allow people to come and help us in this country-we need the gospel to be spread.
I registered at the conference as the Holiness Church of God, so they know I stand for Holiness, and the next minister registered as the True Faith Church of God, and the next as Church of God in Christ and everybody registered their religion. That is why it is the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace.
Everyone has to be at peace with one another, you can’t argue with one another, we’ve got to come together. We can’t have strong families if the wife is separated from the husband or the husband is separated from the wife and the children in that situation. If it is like that, we can’t have a strong church. So we want to pray, we want to love one another, Amen!
God created us to be together not segregated. At least in the U.S.A., things have changed far from what it was in the ’50s. You used to go in the hotel and you would see a black sign and a white sign and we had to go different ways. Today, all those signs are down, everybody is one. So, all denominations were there in Washington DC and I give God thanks that I went and gained that experience. I’m going to talk about it for a long time and so may God bless this morning and may I have said something which will wake something up inside of you, today!