[Editor’s note: The following article contains edited excerpts from a message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on the occasion of the 37th Pastoral Anniversary of Reverend Willie Wilson, held April 25, 2010 at Union Temple Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. To order this message in its entirety on CD/DVD, or MP3, visit store.finalcall.com or all 1-800-602-1230, ext. 200.]
In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. As-Salaam Alaikum.
The Moon has no light of its own; it borrows light from The Sun. When the Earth is in its shadow, we call it “darkness,” but it’s really the shadow. It’s not real; it’s not substance, that’s why the minute the Sun rises, where does darkness go? It flees because it wasn’t real in the beginning. And that’s the way falsehood is: It can only stand in the Absence of Truth.
I want to talk on the subject that my pastor has given me: “Building a Divine Legacy, Ensuring a Blessed Future”; and it comes from I Chronicles, 28th Chapter, 8th verse:
“… Be careful to follow all the commands of the LORD your God, that you may possess this good land and pass it on as an inheritance to your descendants forever.”
Not for a day, not for a week, not for a year, but, “forever.” This scripture is in the Old Testament, and it was given to a people who had been in bondage; who had suffered. And God took them out from Egypt, brought them through the wilderness, and gave them a land, that if they followed His commands, they would be able to have that land, and pass it on as an inheritance to their descendants.
Not for a day, but, eternally. That’s a powerful scripture.
Well, the Jews who were given this warning unfortunately did not follow the commands. So they couldn’t possess that land, and have been scattered throughout the Earth as a result of their rebellion to the Laws and Statutes and Commandments of God.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said we should study that history, because that history of their suffering was to serve as a sign! When you’re on a road, you see signs, and signs point you to, or toward, a destination that you hope to get to.
You don’t stop at the sign—you look at the sign, and it will tell you how much further you have to go.
God’s Plan for our salvation
I want to talk to you about some Commands that we have heard, that we are not following. I want to talk to you about a Promise that was made to you, through Abraham and the prophets, of a land that would be yours after your sojourn in a strange land, among a strange people who tormented the People of God for 400 years.
You don’t want to believe that the Bible is talking about you. You don’t want to believe that from Genesis to Revelation, it is a Plan for your Salvation, for God wants to take that thing that once was a mighty nation, that had been destroyed—and at the bottom; and at the foot of the nations—and bring it out, and set it on top!
A foolish people, but yet, His Choice; a wicked people, but yet, His Choice: God said He didn’t choose us for our righteousness, because we didn’t have it! God would never have had to give The Commandments to the Children of Israel of “thou shalt not steal” if they weren’t crooked. He would not have had to say, “thou shalt not commit adultery”; “fornication”; “thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor”; “thou shall honor thy mother and thy father”; “thou shalt not covet …” if they were good!
But yet, He chose them, and the scripture teaches He didn’t choose them for their righteousness. He chose them out of the furnace of affliction.
Sometimes when you’re afflicted, you think God has forsaken you. It’s natural to think like that when you’re going through something.
But could it be that God is preparing you for something better that He wants you to say “yes” to? Could it be that God wants to bring you to higher ground, and He doesn’t like the fact that you are comfortable in your filth, your wickedness and your ignorance?
God doesn’t like that, so, He’s disturbing you, now: He’s disturbing your grave, because you’ve been dead so long. You’ve become comfortable, as a dry bone in this Valley; and you have forsaken God, even though you praise Him!
The worldwide ‘game of deception’
The scriptures that we read of in the Bible teach us that Satan deceived not a “part” of the world—he deceived the whole world.
Do you live in the world? Have we been deceived? I just want you to think about it, because deception is a game that is played, that makes you think you have something that you really don’t have. It’s magic; it’s illusion that creates delusion.
If you were Satan—and of course, you’re not; you might be a Dumb Devil, but, you are certainly not Satan! We can be in the “House of God,” but if we’re doing the work of rebellion against God’s Will, we are not of Christ! We are of the enemy of Christ. But we think we are “saved” because we’re in the right House, calling on the right name—while we do the wrong thing!
The scriptures that I read teach that there is no name under the heavens whereby man can be saved except by the name of Jesus.
But have we been deceived? Who is this Jesus that offers salvation to the whole world? They know his name all over the planet, but the planet is going to hell, in his name?
I want you to think with me today! If I was Satan, and I knew that a man was coming that was going to upset my world—and I knew it 2,000 years before he arrived—I would be setting traps, wouldn’t you?
You say: “Well, wait a minute! Jesus was here 2,000 years ago!” Yes—that Jesus! You’re living in something, but “looking back.” You’re looking back 2,000 years and walking in the scripture right now!
The Jesus of 2,000 years ago was a prophet. He said, “There are many things that I could tell you, but you can’t bear it now …” You didn’t have a foundation for what Jesus of 2,000 years ago wanted to tell you!
Jesus said, “It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter cannot come unto you. But if I go away, I will send him, and he will come in my name and he will testify of me.”—Boy, this is heavy!
“And he will redo what I have done … He will rebuke this world of Satan because it believed not in me.” Now, if I was Satan, I would have you looking back at the man that came that prefigured the man that would come at the end of Satan’s time. So that you would be looking back and miss the man.
See, that’s deception! Satan knows that Jesus is the man.
***
Now I want to say something about “prophets:” Prophets are styled in the Bible in symbolic language as “the moon.”
The Moon has no light of its own; it borrows light from The Sun. When the Earth is in its shadow, we call it “darkness,” but it’s really the shadow. It’s not real; it’s not substance, that’s why the minute The Sun rises, where does darkness go? It flees because it wasn’t real in the beginning.
And that’s the way falsehood is: It can only stand in the Absence of Truth.
When Truth comes, Falsehood has to vanish, and it is forever a vanishing thing! Maybe that’s why Jesus said, “You shall know the truth … ” I think in English, in the sixth grade, we learned tenses: Present tense, Past tense, Future tense, Present Perfect tenses, etc., so when Jesus was present, he’s telling the people, “you shall know,” and “what you shall know will make you free.”
Boy, that’s interesting. Jesus knew that he was 2,000 years ahead of The Time to establish The Kingdom of God that he had the spirit of, so Paul saw Jesus as a man born out of due season, which means that when you plant, and somebody comes out of season, they can’t harvest because the time has not come for harvest.
Jesus was 2,000 years ahead of the end of Satan’s world, so the scripture teaches “God’s coming.”
God: He’s coming; He’s got to come, because this world is no good.
Rejecting divine legacy for worldly acceptance
If you read scripture, then tell me: Do you love this world? You can’t tell me you don’t love it if you’re in it, and of it, because James the Prophet said, “The love of this world is enmity with God.”
How could you love a world that has done this to you? And you don’t pass on a divine legacy, but you pass on to your children the legacy of your ignorance and your cowardice to stand up like men and women, and fight for your liberation instead of bowing down to the forces of enslavement?
You’re not like Jesus. Who do you belong to? If you belong to Christ, he sets you free. I’m talking about this divine legacy, see? Because the enemy knows—and the Jews know—that the Jesus of 2,000 years ago was a prophet. That’s why the Jews never accepted him as their Messiah.
However, you can walk with a Jew, but you can’t walk with me? I believe in Jesus, but they don’t.
Why do you reject me? Why can you sit down with “Weinberg” and “Steinberg” and “Hoffman”? Is it because they have money? They have influence? They have power? Then tell me you’re not a worshipper of God!
You worship the power of this world, that’s why you can’t walk with a free Black man.
Revealing the man of sin
Now, if you were Satan, and you know that God had come and chosen Black people to be the cornerstone of His Kingdom, would you let them go—or, would you try to hold onto them like Pharaoh did until the matter was decided?
Can’t you see that you are being held hostage?
God wants to give you land—but you’re asking for a job. That’s what the enemy brought you here to give you! It was a job.
But Pharaoh has already let you go. He doesn’t have anything for you to do. Elijah Muhammad asked the question: “Do you think that your former slave masters and their children will be able to furnish jobs for their millions of unemployed and your twenty million at the same time?” He asked that 50 years ago. Look at you now, looking for a job. There are no jobs!
And guess what? There aren’t going to be any.
God is after you, and your enemy, now that a Black man (was) in the White House. There are people saying: “We’ve got to take our country back!” Are they saying it because they think you’ve got it?
Since Barack Obama was elected, 100 new militias formed and they have sold more guns and more bullets to White people since then. Now go through the cities and see how Black people are being treated because Barack is in their White House. They are trying to tell you: “Look, n—a! I wanna put you back in your place!”
Now the police are no longer police! They are soldiers. Do you see what they are wearing? Do you see the type of weaponry they have? Soon they are going to turn it loose on you. …
See, I know what I am facing, because I’m about to expose Satan fully. I was born into this world for that purpose. You don’t know Satan—but I know him. And now, I am going to bring Satan face-to-face with you, so you are going to have to make a decision whether you want to be with them, or whether you want to be with God.
When you know, and you are not afraid, then God will stand with you. If I die, so what? Better men have died before me. But I’m going to call Satan out. I am going to force them to come after me so that God will kill all my enemies.
You know brother, you can’t have God prove Himself if you won’t step out. Peter was in the boat, buoyed up by the buoyancy of the water, but Jesus told him: “Come out! Step out on faith, and walk on the water.”
When you know God is with you, you don’t tempt Him, but you step out. Satan must be revealed, and that’s in your Bible: “… That day shall not come except there be a falling away first and the man of sin”—not a spirit, but a man of sin—“be revealed.”
That’s my job. That’s my assignment. Now if that’s my assignment, don’t you worry about it. I’m going to carry out what I have to carry out. But there is a cross for me; I can’t go to my Father except I first go to the cross.
Is there a cross for you? Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free? There is a cross for you, and there is a cross for me.
***
The scripture teaches that He is going to give you a new name. How are you going to hold on to the White man’s name? Is that the legacy you want passed on to your children? The name that your slave master gave you? That is not a divine legacy. Why don’t you want to let go of the White man’s name that says you are still his property. That’s not your name, and whatever you do in that name, that legacy goes to that name.
You’ve got to give up the slave master’s religion. To make you a better slave, they gave you a religion, so you have to give that up because that’s what made you like you are. You can be a thief and still call yourself a “Christian”—that isn’t Christ’s teaching! You’ve got to clean up.
Are you willing to say: “Yes! I want land! I don’t want no ‘job’! ” God wants to give us some of this Earth that we can call our own.
And when you find out what you’ve done to make the slave master rich at your expense; when you find out what we’ve done to build the capitals of Europe and the Western Hemisphere on the slave labor of Black people picking cotton, tobacco, sugar—you made them wealthy! Don’t you ask for a White woman and a job as “payment”! Turn her down, and look for one of your own women that have been catching hell for us and with us for 450 years.
Stand by your woman, uphold your woman, protect your woman, respect your woman and fulfill the Commandment of God that will be your divine legacy. God will give you a land that you can give as an inheritance to your children, and they will inhabit that land if they keep those Commandments forever. That’s God’s Promise to you, and He never breaks His Promise.
May God bless you; may God keep you. May He shine His light upon you and remove darkness and evil from you and me, and us, that we may fulfill His Promise.
