[Editor’s note: The following article is based on excerpts from an address by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on September 16, 2018, at Union Temple Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. The theme of the Men’s Day program was “Righteous Men, Ready to Rule,” and Rev. Willie Wilson, pastor of Union Temple, was inspired to honor Min. Farrakhan during the program, which was also devoted to Reviving the Spirit of the Million Man March. To view the program, visit www.noi.org. To order this message in its entirety on MP3, DVD and CD call 866.602.1230, ext. 200 or visit store.finalcall.com]
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, I bear witness to the Oneness of God, the Oneness of His prophetic community and the Oneness of His People.
There have been many religions, many sages and wise men and each one that taught us, taught us something good. But what God demands today is not a religion that is truth mixed with falsehood, not a religion that is somewhat good, but this is the time that God would give us One Faith, One Lord, and One Baptism.
I, too, with my brother believe in Jesus, the Christ. We say Muhammad but Muhammad is an Arabic name which means “one worthy of praise and praised much.” Jesus is worthy of praise, not the Jesus that they taught us of. Sorry. I know you love him, and you have every right to love Jesus; but it’s time that you get to know Him. Not as a White man hanging on your wall but a Black man born from your loins and from your womb.
Jesus of 2,000 years ago was 2,000 years too soon to fulfill what Jesus, the Messiah, would be born to do. I’m honored to be among my Christian family. Jesus of 2,000 years ago talked about one coming. He said, “When He comes.” He didn’t say “when I come back.” He said, “When He comes, the spirit of truth, He will guide you into all truth.”
Why do you think the enemy has given you a White Jesus to worship? Because indirectly and subtly, he wanted you to worship his image so that when he as King Jesus called, you would answer. He made you to love him because he gives you nothing. You’ve been catching hell ever since you have been in America from the same White Christians that you say is your brother. He’s not your brother. He can never be your brother, not by nature, but if he accepts to bow down to God, we can be brothers in faith.
You give them nothing to submit to other than your love for them and your desire for them to accept you as their own brother, which they have never done.
Rev. Willie Wilson said, “I’m not a Christian. I’m a follower of Jesus, the Christ.” In the Book of John, Jesus said many things about who he was, but you can’t read that he said, “I’m a Christian.”
We need to talk, and we need to stop this spooky preaching to our people. “He’s somewhere up in heaven.”
Why are you looking up for Jesus and heaven? The enemy has taken the earth out from under your feet and made you love it. He doesn’t look up in the sky for Jesus. He looks to himself, his ability to think, his intelligence, his knowledge and he creates.
Jesus, the Christ. Christ is not his last name. Christ is his title: The anointed of God to crush Satan and take his world out of existence.
Can you walk with that Jesus? Can you walk with Christ who does not love this world? If you walk with Him, the world cannot ill affect you.
If you walk with Him, you can stand and say, “Greater is He that is in me than He that is in the world.”
None of you preachers preach like Farrakhan. When you preach with one eye on your enemy to get approval, you start watering down the word of God because you want acceptance from the enemy of God rather than honor coming to you from God and His Christ.
I feel very much at home in this place with my brother, and I thank him for the honor that he has bestowed on me for asking me to be the speaker for Men’s Day on the subject, “Righteous men ready to rule.”
Let me stop here and just say thank you. I cannot accept the honor. I certainly cannot accept the praise for the Million Man March. I would be one of those arrogant, self-aggrandizing nincompoops if I tried to steal credit from God, thus fulfilling the scripture “Will a man rob God”? Rob him every day, not only in tithes and offerings, but we rob him when we do things in his name but don’t honor him by telling the people that what you did, and what happened, you’re a product of God.
I love Mayor Marion Barry. I will die with that man in my heart. A warrior spirit is the spirit of Jesus, the Christ. Jesus doesn’t come back to play with you, and he’s not coming back to teach you. He did that already; and made disciples to continue to teach. But the Bible that I read, he came back with a sword in his hand, a sword in his hand, dripping with blood. Some of you foolish Jesus lovers. How could you be foolish and a lover of Jesus? Because you don’t understand him. You don’t really know him. So, you draw close to him with your lips, but your lives are a testimony of your rebelliousness against the same Jesus that you say you love.
You can’t fool me with praise, jumping up and down and beating a tambourine to get me excited that you really love Christ. He said, “This is a people that draw nigh unto me with their lips.” But in our daily lives we deny the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Christ is God in the person of man. Christ was a living human being. Jesus, he was born of a woman. So, we can have men that are righteous, men ready to rule, but where did they come from? None of us that are ready to rule that are here came without the agency of man and a woman.
So, the time is just not for men to rule. Men have been messing up rulership for thousands of years saying that a woman’s place is in the home. No, her base is the home, but her place is wherever her gift will take her if she’s free to be who she really is.
When you saw me at Aretha Franklin’s funeral, you asked, “Farrakhan, why didn’t you speak?” Sometimes you can speak more powerfully by being quiet. I didn’t have to say anything.
I love my Aretha and I said, “I just want to be one of the mourners of our great loss.” I told the family, “I don’t want to speak.” Speakers like to keep speaking. Speakers like to hear themselves speak. I’m a speaker but that day God didn’t give me the spirit to speak. I was in heaven watching my sister’s homegoing. Tears fell out of my eyes when I saw my cousin Cicely Tyson and Reverend Jackson at the casket and they were lowering the lid, and I felt something for Aretha that I have not felt before.
We were not close in the sense that I knew how she cooked and had dinner with my sister. So many of us are just surface dwellers. We say a eulogy, or we say nice things about our little experiences with great ones that pass but we don’t see deep enough. I didn’t want to speak. I wanted to enjoy the mourners because I was one of them. Everyone that sang, I felt so good watching the soul of Black people. I felt so at home and comfortable listening to people preach.
I did not wish to speak but everybody that started writing said, “You didn’t have to. You spoke very loudly.”
They talked about these men looking at singer Ariana Grande’s posterior. I was not in that conversation. I held Ariana, but I held her like a father or a grandfather would hold his granddaughter; and I saw a beautiful woman just looking and staring. And I said, “Ariana, is that your mom”? She said, “Yes.” I said, “Mom, come over,” and the three of us took pictures. The enemy tried to crop me out of the pictures.
T.D. Jakes, I love that man and I told him. I said, “Brother, you are one of the greatest Gospel preachers in this nation and in the world.” He said, “Coming from you, I accept that.” I tapped him in his chest. I hugged him around his arms, and I kissed him on his cheek. Why you do that? You a sissy? No, but I’m in love. I’m in love with you. I’m in love with the people that you would think are the worst of our people, but I bow to them in love because I know who they really are. You say, he’s a homophobic man. Stop it.
I have people in my family that are lesbian and gay. What? I love them. That’s my family. I wasn’t sent to judge them. I was sent to look beyond their faults and see their need. Reverend Wilson can tell you, if he remembers. I was down in Georgia with Tavis Smiley and one of those discussions he holds. A gay brother was in back of the stage, and I walked up to him, Mr. Keith Boykins. You know him very well, and I hugged him.
I said, “How are you doing, brother?” That didn’t take anything away from me. There was one great singer. I went backstage to his dressing room and he said, “Farrakhan, I’m gay.” That didn’t stop me from hugging my brother. He loved my beautiful alligator shoes. I said, “You like these shoes”? He said, “Yes.” I said, “Okay.” Next time I saw him, I gave him a pair of alligator shoes, gave one to singer Donnie McClurkin. I didn’t have shoes for Yolanda Adams. (Smile).
They say I’m a hater. You have never been loved until you’ve been loved by Christ. And if I follow Jesus, I could never turn my back on a gay person, a lesbian, transgender, whatever you call yourself. Tell me something, which one of you in this room could say you’re holy? Don’t start lying because I know what I’m looking at.
See, we like to look at somebody that is doing something that we are not doing and point them out as the sinful person while you blind yourself to your own evil. The Jesus I know, he said He came into this world to save his people from their sins. Stop it. If you know that we are sinners, all of us, all of us, even the holy ones.
I need salvation. Don’t you?
That’s why Jesus is so special because he’s not like Moses bringing the law. If you violate the law, stone him to death. Moses did that. You remember Jesus finding the woman in adultery. Isn’t it interesting no man was involved? I don’t know what kind of adultery she could commit. They didn’t bring the man and all of the Jews of that day had a stone in their hands. Jesus was so beautiful.
He looked at the people ready to fire their stones, like they were ready to fire their stones at Mayor Marion Barry, fire stones at Bill Cosby, fire stones at people that are doing some stuff now, but they never pick up a stone and cast it at themselves. Jesus knelt down and said, “Which one of you that is without sin, you cast the first stone.” Everybody had a stone, they dropped the stones; and Jesus said to the woman, “Woman, where are your accusers”? But then he went further.
Since he came to fulfill the law, he said, “Neither do I condemn and accuse you.” And, look at his words, “Go and sin no more.” That’s why you love Jesus and rightly so. You just don’t know him yet deep enough because if you really knew Jesus deep enough, it would be reflected in the way you live your life.
Jesus, while he was among us, said, “Let this mind be in you.” What kind of mind is that? The same that was in Christ Jesus. How could you be a follower of Jesus and a loser? You don’t know him. Because the mind of Christ should be in us because that is what his father wanted him to bequeath to us. The White man has had us for 463 years and he worked to put his mind in us. That’s why I came here one Sunday, and I talked about the Black-White people. You’re Black on the outside, White on the inside, and deny it. Some of you are superstitious. Don’t you bring nothing Black in my house on the first day of the new year, but you know Jesus. You need to stop lying to yourself.
Did you see singer Fantasia? I talked to her backstage. She had her husband with her. I said, “You know, brothers. Aretha sang a song called, Angel, and in her song she was looking for an angel.”
You didn’t much find one, did you? She didn’t either. So, she was still looking. She wants an angel in her life. She deserved an angel in her life. When I listened to my sister sing, I felt the power of her spirit. Ain’t no way in heaven or hell a man could have a woman with that kind of spirit and that kind of soul and not try to be an angel.
So, I said to Fantasia’s husband, “Brother, Fantasia is looking for an angel.” He said, “Well, she’s been an angel to me.” I said, “I know, but I want you to be an angel for her.” We take advantage of our women. We use them. We corrupt their gifts. You need a man, Sisters, made in the image of God, not in the image of your former slave masters and their children.
At the funeral, I didn’t have to talk, and my enemies seemed to go crazy. Did you notice that? Have you ever asked yourselves why are they like this toward Brother Farrakhan?
The Million Man March was ordered by God and God had given me the heart that would allow his spirit to come through me. Every one of you that preach, the heart of Jesus is always exposed. You see the pictures. Paul said, “The Jew is not the Jew by the circumcision of the male organ. The Jew is the Jew by the circumcision of the heart. Our people are dead. You might as well pick out a plot of land. Oh, God, no. It’s too expensive. Let’s go to the local crematorium. Righteous people should never burn. That’s what God promised the wicked.
This body, once you die, the cells die, the body begins to decompose. As much as Cora Masters Barry loved Mayor Barry, when death came she couldn’t keep him in the bed. So once death comes, the dead have to be separated from the living. Lord have mercy, and they put the dead in a grave and then the Prophet Isaiah said, “And the grave cannot praise God.” A living dog is better than a dead lion.
When death claims us, the spirit of life that he breathed into us returns, but the body goes back to the earth. Stop saying that your loved one that played the trumpet in life, is up in heaven playing the trumpet. Stop saying that your lovely grandmother that used to sing in the choir with the melodious voice is up in heaven singing in an angelic choir. Singing with what? Spirits don’t have vocal cords. Just stop speaking the White man’s garbage and calling it religion.
Why can’t you stomach the truth that Jesus offered everlasting life, not because you gone live forever. Death takes us out of the picture. If you live on a farm, you really understand things better. You see the bugs come young, the trees come young. The bushes come young. They age. They die. They’re gone. But every one of us has been given the ability to reproduce ourselves.
When you look at these cowboy movies and they’re depicting a horse back in 18-something, that horse ain’t here no more; but a horse that looks just like that is here for you that are here to ride it. Do you understand what I’m saying?
So, your children are your workshop for a better future for you. If you don’t want children, that’s okay. Every tree doesn’t bear fruit, but if you don’t bear children, your seed, your lifeline dies. We’re going on into the future and what Jesus represented was a kingdom that will never die. So, when you come with Jesus the Christ, you enter a circle of life. Like my son said, you came here from a chain of infinity and you’re just for a moment, but you’re linked to infinity through your children.
White folks know that. They never wanted George Washington Carver to have children. He was like a castrated man because he was so brilliant they did not want him to bring children into the world. And right now they’re killing our youth. The life germ in you is being corrupted by the foods that you eat and your whole body, even if you learn to eat good food, is being corrupted by the thoughts we think. We need a complete makeover. So, God says, “I’m going to take out of you a heart of stone and I’m going to give you a heart of flesh.”
We talked about this wonderful man, Jesus. He opened the eyes of the blind, made the deaf hear, the dumb speak, raise the dead to life, cleansed the lepers. The Qur’an adds “by God’s permission.” He didn’t do it on his own, but Jesus represented the indwelling presence of God in a human being. That same spirit can reside in all of us if we submit ourselves and become obedient to God and a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
You saw how White folks went crazy. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t do anything. I just sat there for nine hours. All these so-called lovers of Aretha, they couldn’t stay until the end of the service. They were busy. They had other things to do. But the Minister got there at 9:30 in the morning, and I didn’t leave until the benediction was said. I love my Aretha.
The pictures that I chose of her to put in The Final Call Newspaper were pictures that dressed her in her divinity. She was a beautiful soul. Reverend, you have to come and see you are part of God, you are a member of the Creator’s nation. Former President Bill Clinton did the best he could, but he fell asleep a few times. It was very difficult for him to hang out with us and you had the nerve to say he was the first Black president. Stop talking like a fool. He was the worst president for Black people and you should never, ever forget that.
After the Million Man March over a million and a half Black men registered, voted and changed the direction of the 1996 election. The vote is important. You have a whole new set of Black people that are desirous of our vote. Brown people and White people that want to do this job better. Me Too. Women are the strongest force for change. And, if you help a Black woman to go to Congress, or to become a major officeholder or whatever, she’ll do the best that she can. But I want to warn you: if you get in bath water that dirty people have used and had a ring around the tub, you don’t get in that water until you’ve cleansed the tub and put fresh water in the tub.
Go ahead and get as many of our people as you can to vote; but I want you to be realistic. The system of White Supremacy rules the political, educational, spiritual, cultural, economic, legal, whatever you want, see White Supremacy is ruling. Don’t get it twisted.
God brought the ginger man to the White House because America has to pay for the sins that she has committed, the genocide of the Native people, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade that brought us here, the lynchings, the brutality, the killing of us without any thought of justice coming to us.
Do you think that God is pleased? Just remember Elijah Muhammad said, “Four judgments are coming against America: rain, hail, snow, earthquakes.” These are the four major judgments. You’re looking at one now. Her name is Florence. Last year you looked at Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said 60 years ago that God is going to drop tons, millions of tons of water on America. You have to know what’s happening because it’s coming near where you live. Nobody in America is going to escape the judgment of God. …
Jesus got in trouble with the Jewish community of his day when he raised Lazarus from the dead. He went to the tomb, Mary and Martha were saying Jesus had you been here, he would not have died. He’s been in the grave four days and he stinks. Jesus said, “No, he’s just asleep.”
So, Jesus went to the tomb. He said, “Lazarus, come forth.” That’s a call, isn’t it? Lazarus came up out the tomb and we came out of the tomb he had a blindfold on his eyes. His hands and his feet were bound, and Jesus cried out, “Satan, loose him and let him go.”
I made a call, told the people come out on a Monday, forsake work and school. Some of the old civil rights marchers told me: “Farrakhan, you don’t know nothing about marching. You need to consult with us. Nobody calls for a march on a Monday,” but I didn’t listen to them and we didn’t listen. And, on a Monday, nearly two million men came.
When the White man saw all those Black men standing, shoulder to shoulder, no crime, nobody killed in Washington that day and brother said it today, throughout America. Crime went all the way down. I told the brothers, don’t come with any weapons. The weapon is going to be the spirit of God. Did God’s spirit show up?
If you were a member of the Sadducees and the Pharisees standing by watching this, what would you have said? “We need to stop this man before the whole world goes after him.” For 23 years, they’ve done everything they could to break apart that unity that we had at the Million Man March.
The enemy started calling me everything. “He’s a hater.” “He’s anti-Semitic.” “He’s homophobic.” “He’s a misogynist.” Just think of the names that they’ve called me to stop many of you from coming near me. And if you wanted any public office that they could help you to get or hurt you in getting, you do like Barack Obama, you’d stay away from me. But here we are, reviving the spirit of the Million Man March.
I represent Jesus. The Pope, poor fellow, he said, he represents Jesus. Oh Lord, he has to clean up his house. I think I’m sitting here with one of the biggest bishops of the church, Rev. Wilson. I think we represent the Father. I thank Rev. Wilson and the brother for this beautiful statue.
My sister Chaka Khan said, “I’m going up yonder to be with my Lord.” I’m going up yonder and I’m not going to be no spirit running around in the clouds; but the Jesus that I know he went up and they saw him in the cloud. Evidently, he was in some kind of a Wheel that Ezekiel talked about. I’m guided from that Wheel.
My dear beloved brothers and sisters, go into politics if you wish. But we’ve got to keep our politicians clean. Keep them from being corrupted by Satan.
You know Barack had a heart that he wanted to make America right, not again, because she has never been right. But when they got my brother in there, do you know how many people he sent drones to kill? See, you can’t be with the enemy and still hold onto righteousness. So, John, the Revelator said, “Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins.”
Now, if you go into politics, come out of their mind; come out of their spirit; come out of the wickedness of their unjust doings and don’t let money and the offer of money cause you to betray the aspirations of your people.
Thank you for listening and may God bless you as I greet you in peace: As-Salaam Alaikum.
