[Editor’s note: The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a sobering message to the City of Grand Rapids and world from the pulpit of True Light Baptist Church Sept. 24. His visit came five years after the mysterious death of Student Minister Robert Dion Muhammad, who served as the local representative of the Nation of Islam. Below is an edited transcript of his words and warning but we urge readers to get the lecture in its entirety from store.finalcall.com, or call 1-866-602-1230, ext. 200. The message is available on MP3, DVD and CD.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
I bear witness that God is one, His people are one and his aim in removing this world of evil from power is to make the human family one again. So, the scripture will be fulfilled as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the ending of this wicked world.
To my dear brother and Rev. Carl Pace, Jr., and to the deacons, board, and the parishioners of this beautiful church, thank you for the honor and the privilege of being with you in this sacred place. Thank you, Brother Sultan Muhammad, for your beautiful introduction.
Thank you, Sister Yreva Muhammad. You preach like your husband, and to the family, thank you all. To brother, he used to be called Berve Power, but he’s now, Sa’ad Alim Muhammad, a brilliant lawyer. But when you’re dealing with the wicked, it doesn’t matter how many facts, how much truth you put out to aid in the establishment of justice.
In the book of Isaiah, it says, “Justice stands afar off and equity cannot enter because truth is fallen in the streets.”
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, when truth fails to bring justice about, truth should always lead us to a just conclusion. But if the forces of evil are so strong that truth falls in the street and is not allowed to bring about justice, then the God of Truth and the God of Justice must physically remove from power the forces of injustice. And that time has arrived.
I’m so happy to be in this beautiful city of Grand Rapids at a time when justice for us stands afar off. We are not worried because we know Him who is present to answer the cry of the people for justice. The Bible says it so beautifully. It says, “He heard the moaning and the groaning of the Children of Israel because of their wicked task masters.” And He said, He was not going to send somebody, but He said, “I think I will go down to see the cry that I have heard. And if I see that the cry that I’ve heard is exactly what I’ve heard, I will avenge them.”
I don’t come to this city or any city in America like a beggar who doesn’t know power to remove the wicked. No. I came here tonight to let you know the end has come. I want you to listen. The subject that I want to take up with you is from the Book of Revelations, 11th Chapter, 18th verse. Listen to the words: “The nations are angry and thy wrath has come. It is the time of the dead that they should be judged and given justice.”
I want to parse those words for just a moment.
“The nations are angry.” We’re living in an angry world and the nations are angry and the storm clouds of war are gathering not only over America and the Middle East, and other parts of our globe, but the whole earth is agitated now. “The nations are angry.” Well, what is anger? Having a strong feeling or showing annoyance and displeasure or hostility. I think we can bear witness that there’s anger, strong feeling of annoyance and displeasure, hostility everywhere.
A few years ago, our sister Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez and the women rose all over the earth. All over the earth women stood up saying to men and saying to those who have been in power, they want justice. They want fairness, equity.
Linda and Tamika recently were voted out of their positions in the Women’s March Movement because they have some love for and respect for Louis Farrakhan.
I came here a few years ago at the invitation of Min. Robert Muhammad. I was with Rev. Wooden at his church. And the people of Grand Rapids came out and heard what we had to say and nobody went away feeling, “wow, this is a hater.” They all went away saying, “this is much different than what I thought.” But this time when Brother Minister Sultan went to meet Rev. Wooden, the board rejected our visit to the church.
What was the reason for my rejection? “He has views that we don’t agree with.” If I could ask, Reverend, what views do I have that you as a Christian disagree with? Do you mean to say if Jesus visited Grand Rapids, you would tell Jesus, “the way you talk, Jesus, about homosexuality or lesbianism, you can’t come to this church that bears your name?” This didn’t mean that Christ did not love the homosexual community. That’s not true. He said he came to save his people from their sins. He didn’t come to judge us for falling away from the glory of God. He said, “Even though your sins be like scarlet, yet, he would wash them white as snow in His blood.”
Would you tell him, “Master, you’re not welcome here.” Something is wrong with that picture. Jesus didn’t come to judge and punish people for their sins. He came to save them from their sins. So, the Jesus that I know, the Jesus that I am familiar with, he wouldn’t turn a homosexual away from him. Yesterday at the United Nations, a young girl of 16, Miss Greta Thunberg, from Sweden, chastised the rulers of the nations over climate change. I listened to her and I said, “first came the mothers now come the children.”
Reverend isn’t it sad that Jesus had to rebuke his disciples over children. Did not he tell them, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:14)
Jesus only wanted to lay hands on them because his hands were healing hands. The Bible said, “He had healing in his wings,” meaning that in the knowledge that he was possessed with, fired with the Holy Spirit of God, all he needed to do was put his hands on this rebellious generation and they would come away changed.
Many pastors don’t realize the value of the youth because the youth don’t tithe a lot because they don’t have jobs. But what they do have is energy. And to dare to think that we elders, in all of our wisdom that we might spell it foolishly, we could keep children away from us and not listen to their cry. Children today are not the fools of yesterday. If you are humble enough to incline your ear to the children, you’ll hear God speaking forcefully and strongly through them.
The young girl, Miss Greta Thunberg from Sweden, was addressing the rulers and I have to tell little Greta, they hear you. But they don’t have the power to change the climatic conditions. But you went to the right people because the rulers have created the climate of war and hatred and bloodshed on the earth so the response from heaven is now answering the cry of the children. Let me say it like this: “The nations are angry and Thy wrath is come. It is the time of the dead that they should be judged and given justice.” Wow, the nations are angry but look at the next words, “Thy wrath is come.” Thy is capitalized because it’s not nations now it’s God whose wrath has been kindled. He’s angry and his anger is strong and vengeful. Its retributory punishment for many offenses, it is the beginning of a Divine Chastisement. …
“Thy wrath is come.” That led me to the 29th Surah of the Qur’an called “The Spider.” You cannot think that because you’re a Christian or a Muslim that you shouldn’t be tried. We’ve come under a time of great trial. So, the Qur’an asked the question: “Do men think that they will be left alone on saying ‘we believe’ and will not be tried while others were tried before you. This is so that we may know those of you who are liars from those who speak truth.”
Sister Yreva Muhammad is a Believer. Her family are Believers. Don’t you ever think that because you try to do righteousness that God shouldn’t try you. This is how God knows whether you’re His. He’ll bring misfortune into your life and watch to see how you handle it. Some of us can only follow God if He does everything we want him to do. I don’t know what kind of God you think you have. Especially a Christian, you should be ashamed of yourself thinking you should have it easy when the master, at 33 years of age, according to Christian scholars, and 36 according to the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he was sentenced by God to be scourged in the synagogues, to be hated by the Jewish authorities of that day and by the Roman authorities.
God allowed him to be arrested and crucified and his finest hours were not the hours in Galilee or by the river side. His finest hours were not as he was casting out demons. His finest hours were when he was on the cross. Oh, Christians, I want you to listen to your brother since they don’t want you to believe that I know Jesus. That’s why they hate me because I know Jesus, very well. …
What did he do to deserve such a horrific punishment in front of the people to be stripped with only a little lambskin to hide his shame? People gambling for his robe. And while he was there, hanging in front of the people that he once gave strength to, that he healed from their many afflictions, his own disciples ran away.
Peter, who was a chief disciple, led in the running. That’s kind of hurtful after you’ve taught people, washed their feet, suffered their ignorance, then to watch them run away and deny you. “Weren’t you? Hey, wait a minute. Were you with that guy?” In that day it was Jesus. “Were you with him?” Peter: “I don’t even know the man.” See usually when government authorities arrest you and say all manner of evil against you, look at the people who run away from you. “I don’t even know the man.” I wonder how many of you are like that? How many of us talk about love and how we love our teacher? Then when the enemy comes, we run away as though we didn’t know him at all. On the cross was his finest hour. How can a man hanging, “water, give me water” and they give him vinegar to drink? “Water. He’s the king of the Niggers, I mean the Jews.”
Put the crown of thorns on his head. Pierce him in his side. And he looks down from the cross and sees his mother. Look at his words, “Woman, behold your son.” I just want you to put yourself in his shoes. “Woman, behold your son.” And she’s looking at this boy that her womb blessed the world with. The whole world was blessed from that woman’s womb, and some Baptists say that Mary couldn’t come up here. She isn’t holy enough, but she gave you a savior—but she can’t come up here. But her children can come up here. Her sons can come up here.
Women have been catching hell a long time. And I’m not going to let anyone who is with me continue to make women suffer out of the ignorance of the world in which we live. “We, the people.” When did that take place? Women aren’t part of the people? We, the people and women just got the right to vote a little more than a hundred years ago. But it’s just “We the people.” Women are not people? Women that produce people are not people? There has to be a revolution in the world to let the world know that the mistreatment of women has sentenced this world to death. So, you have the MeToo Movement. How many women have been abused by men even men that they respected and honored, their own fathers? How many women and girls are being abused while we sit here, girls being trafficked throughout the earth. Men selling young girls to be put into sex trafficking. That’s real. That’s going on. How do you think they should be handled?
The nations are angry, but the wrath of God has come. Even our young brothers that were selling dope. Now, dope will get them more time, so they start selling girls in the neighborhood.
Jesus looked at the people, he looked out at those that walked with him then condemned him to crucifixion. Look at his heart, “Father, father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” What kind of man was that? That could have so much love not stupidness, so much love that he could ask God’s forgiveness for those who put him on that cross? “Thy wrath is come.”
So little Greta Thunberg, she spoke like the ancient Israelite prophets rebuking men in power. Do something. Our dreams are being destroyed while you sit around arguing over money and power. What does that scripture mean “… when a little child shall lead them.” Naturally as a foolish person, you feel kind of shamed that your children have wisdom to rebuke your foolishness. You would be wise to leave from this church and pay attention to your children. You would be wise to listen to them. Hear what they’re saying. Perhaps there’s wisdom coming out of their mouths. Me, too.
The little girl was talking to the rulers because it’s the rulers who have brought down the wrath of God. They can’t change the weather. None of the rulers, none of the scientists, none of their meteorologists, none of them can accurately now tell the weather. Something is going on. Six hurricanes lining up one behind the other in the Caribbean. “What you are doing, father?” “I’m destroying your playground.” “Please don’t touch Mar-a-Lago.” He’ll let you worry about what you think you have but I’m here to tell you, the Day of Judgment has arrived.
I’m here to tell you in this beautiful city that will be reduced one day to rubble. Those of you who think you got away, and you boasted the courts upheld you—not the universal court. Some of you that delight in doing evil, God wants to save you, but you won’t let him. My teacher said to me, “Brother, it’ll take more than teaching to get our people up out of the condition that they’re in.” “Thy wrath is come.”
You see how the hurricane sat over the Bahamas. Didn’t move. Winds gusting to 220 miles an hour, just sitting, like a hen sitting on an egg. When that hurricane lifted, nothing was left. People lost everything. Surely man is in loss. This is the Day of the Manifestation of Losses.
We have to pay today for every offense that we do after knowledge has come to us. Do you really think that God does not see us? The chastisement of God has already begun.
When I looked at the Bahamas and saw all my Black brothers and sisters, I wept and I begged God to show mercy. He waited for me to calm down as if to say to me, “have not you seen the abundance of mercy that I have sent to all of you?” Do you think you’re alive because God has not shown mercy? And you continue to go your way and do evil as though you never have to pay for that.
He wants to forgive you but some of us will not allow him to because we won’t repent. Mr. Donald Trump do you know your role in prophecy? Mr. Trump, I thought I would share a few things with you, sir.
Let me quickly say that this is the time of the visitation of the Son of Man. The Son of Man—why is he called the Son of Man? Why did Jesus use the name Son of Man before ever he used the term Son of God? As by one man, sin entered into the world and death came also by sin. All men have sinned so all men are under the curse of death.
Who was that one man that messed up all of this? Some call him the Devil, some call him Satan, some call him the Serpent, and some call him the Dragon. But whatever name you call him isn’t it interesting, everywhere that God was he was too?
Did you ever think about that reverend? God is talking to Adam telling Adam, giving him instructions, orders, and he walks away. Eve sitting around and a snake comes up—talking. You can believe it if you want to. …
So how did Satan get here? He came in the origin of God. When He created Himself, Satan was right there. How else can somebody listen to what God is saying unless he is present? But he (Satan) had to wait for the proper time because truth will always win.
Satan only comes after the God absents Himself from the scene. But he (Satan) comes as a snake.
I’m going to introduce you to your snake. You say, “I have one?” Oh hell yeah, you know him quite well. “I do?” Have you ever started out thinking you’re going to do something right and then a still small voice speaks, there is nobody there but you, God and Satan. But he (Satan) isn’t outside of you, he’s inside. You just have to give him an opening.
Then a little whispering comes up, “I shouldn’t do that.” “Well wait a minute why not? Don’t you want to experience this?” “No, I mean yes, I mean … ” before you know it you give in to something whispering from within yourself.
But God never allowed Satan to hold sway over Him. So Satan’s present but he’s absent because he never could manifest himself, the power of God kept him in his place. But when God wanted to show us what is really sitting up inside of us, that we have to learn how to master, He let that which was within come out.
The Qur’an says He gave it form; He gave it expression. So, when you’re looking at this people that you can’t understand how brutal they are, how much of a liar they are, how deceiving they are, and you think you’re just like them and they’re just like you. No. They have deceived the whole world. …
This Son of Man represents the longing of the whole of man. Man is Original Man. Man is the Aboriginal Man. Man is the author of all human beings. So, the people of the earth have longed for a Saviour to save them from the evil of Satan because Satan has the whole world in his grip now. You think that they’re going to be here forever. That’s why you cast your lots to be with them.
God is trying to get you to separate from them so He can bless you with the promise that He promised the children of Israel, a land of their own flowing with milk and honey. But you don’t want to be in your own. You want to be a brother-in-law to the devil himself.
Our people prayed and longed and a child was born. For unto us a child is born, a son is given. The government shall be upon his shoulders and he shall be called wonderful, counselor, the mighty God, prince of peace, everlasting father. Born from the Original Man that’s why he’s called the Son of Man and the Son of Man is coming out of the East in the Book of Matthew.
For even as lightening shineth from the East even unto the West so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. What is he coming out of the East for? Why is he going to the West? Because that’s where the lost sheep are; they’re in the West.
The Son of Man shows up—he has a rough job. The Bible says in the days of Noah every evil imagination in the hearts of the people, they did. God sent Noah to tell them it’s over. You better get on in this ark. … Now that cannabis is legal help yourself. The party is going on now. And then Abraham sitting in a tent in the plains of Mamre and three men approached him, it didn’t say three spirits; three men and one of them was the Lord. … Abraham was shook. “Well what y’all doing here?” He (the Lord) said I just came to tell you that these angels are going down to Sodom and Gomorrah where your relative Lot is and they are going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
Have you heard of Sodomy? I didn’t ask you did you practice it. Is it getting a little warm in here? What I’m suggesting to you is that a merciful God was listening to Abraham. … God told him come back and bring me one righteous one from Sodom and Gomorrah. And he couldn’t find one. The Bible says in that day fire and brimstone fell on Sodom and Gomorrah. …
In the days of Moses when you were caught in adultery, they buried you in the earth with your head sticking out. Then everybody took up a rock and threw it until the person was dead. In the days of Jesus, the Jewish people then found a woman in adultery and they brought her to Jesus. Isn’t it strange she was in adultery; they brought the woman to Jesus? I don’t understand men who do that. But they brought the woman. And all of them had stones in their hands but look at the Master.
This is why I’m saying to you if you really get acquainted with Jesus, he really loves us and wants to heal us from the effect of living among strange people who have infected us with their wicked freakish ways. We didn’t do this in Africa. And the Africans rose up and said to America, we don’t have that in our culture. But America and President Obama told them if they wanted money from the IMF, whatever those letters mean, or the World Bank, they had to accept homosexual life and rewrite their laws. As it was in the days of Lot, Sodom and Gomorrah so shall it be, future tense, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Jesus says nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. Isn’t that happening? There will be earthquakes in diverse places; there will be famine, there will be drought, there will be pestilence. Is it going on now? Shouldn’t you begin thinking that maybe I better get myself right with God? Because something is going to happen in Grand Rapids. Just to let the folks that killed our brother know that God has not forgotten, and we have not forgotten.
So please brothers and sisters, God is angry—you are killing yourself, killing your brothers out there in the street. Black on Black crime; you’re the people of God and you hate each other so much that you’re killing yourself and happy about it.
How do you think God feels? I’m going to tell you what He’s going to do. He’s going to let the White man loose. Since he (the White man) loves to kill, he’ll give you your own blood to drink like water and you’ll realize when the chastisement afflicts you, you should have cleaned up your act when the warning came.
The Son of Man is present, but He didn’t come to play. Surely the shock of the hour is a grievous thing. The day you see it every woman giving suck will forget her suckling and every pregnant one will lay her burden down. You’re going to have to clean up, you’re going to have to do right.
