[Editor’s Note: This is a reprint and was published online May 2004; and The Final Call will continue to publish articles by our beloved brother and friend, Student Minister Jabril Muhammad.]
Dr. Benjamin Mays made clear in his book, “The Negroes’ God,” that the Black man’s ideas of God and Jesus from their slavemasters kept them submissive, humble and obedient to them. The slavemasters’ teachings produced confusion deep in the Black man’s heart. They were taught to see God as operating in another world that could only be reached after death. So they did not see God as connected in a realistic way with the real world.
Yet, the Black man sought divine help to enable him to bear up under the hellish pressures of real everyday life. Real help was sought in this hellish world from a God not in this world. This was satanic teachings.
Tired of living, yet scared of dying, the poor Black man and woman were taught that they could not see the living God until after death. Yet, they were told, if they happened to see Him before death, they would surely die on the spot. They wanted to go to heaven, but they didn’t want to die to see Him. We were taught that they were the Living God’s children, yet the God was on the other side of death. He was the God of the living, but He could only be reached by dying. Believing that God could ultimately be known in a real way only after death, Black people really did not want to meet Him in this life. So if He were to show up as a seeable being–as the Bible teaches He is–they would reject Him!
So the poor Black man and woman did not really understand the Bible’s teachings, that God is to come and that every eye will see Him. Since the slaves thought God could not be seen, they subconsciously would rather He be a spirit, for if He was real, He could be seen, and if they saw Him they would die. The slavemasters warped our minds.
As decade after decade passed, America and her slaves drew nearer and nearer to the time of the prophecy of the real God’s coming to this land and the end of our enslavement, as written in the scriptures.
White people did not teach the slaves the theology of the Bible. And, “Our people,” as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote in February 1957: “never tried to understand his slavemaster’s religion (Christianity) by questioning its teachings. Why should they believe in Christianity prepared for them by the slavemasters, which has no saving power on this side … nor the other side of the grave? It has never defended them against their slavemasters’ whip, gun, lynch and fire. The Black preachers’ homes and churches are not being bombed by the White Christians in the South because the Black Christians want to be recognized and treated as brother Christians with their slavemasters. This is enough to teach the Black man that there is no salvation in Christianity for them.”
Even though our people did not understand nor benefit from the White man’s religion, they clung to it. Why? They were taught to love lies. On a cellular level, this was passed down to us.
On page 47 of “Message To The Blackman,” we read that our people wrongly believe that the demonic slavemasters were good. Belief in them still binds us to them as mental slaves. We were made to worship them.
Our foreparents desired with their whole hearts, deliverance, mercy, compassion and understanding. They prayed and sang, longed and hoped that one day they would find rest from trouble, grief, fear and pain. This desire for relief, justice, peace and a place in the sun intensified.
The spiritual “Give me Jesus!” summed up the deepest hopes of our people. That cry was answered. “Jesus”–but not the one of 2,000 years ago–visited the Black man of America in 1930. In the following year, He met the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in Detroit, Michigan. But, as it’s written in the first Chapter of John, “He came to His own but His own received Him not… .”
If our people knew the law of nature and the truth of divine prophecy, they would have known just whom to expect and what would follow. But we didn’t because we were mentally dead.
The particular law of nature referred to here is mentioned on page 111 of “Message To The Blackman,” wherein we read: “As we know, whenever there is a longing or demand for a change, nature will produce that man, who will bring it about.”
Our parents knew nothing to speak of, of this aspect of nature’s law. Yet, they participated in its workings. They likewise didn’t understand the great prophecies of scripture of God’s coming to themselves–the lost sheep or people of the scriptures. We were likewise unaware that God would choose one of us to make Himself known and to prepare us to bring in God’s kingdom. Even now, the fact is that God has arrived and that the Modern Moses (the Honorable Elijah Muhammad) and the modern Aaron (the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan) are working in our midst, has not fully dawned on the minds of most Black people. It will.
The Black man’s longing for deliverance was a major factor in God’s arrival. However, the Black man’s ignorance, of God’s reality was/is the major factor in his (our) rejection of Him when He arrived. This ignorance combined with the slavemaster’s false teachings and our fear of them, blinded us to His identity. Therefore, our people still await Him, Who has already come. This blindness continues when it comes to recognizing the modern Moses and Aaron and the divine solution to our problems.
In a June 1956 article, (now in “Our Saviour Has Arrived”) in which he explained the origin of that old spiritual, “You can have all the world, but give me Jesus,” he continued:
“But, our poor foreparents did not know at that time, that it would be 400 years from that day before the real ship Jesus (God Himself) would come and get them and their children and cut loose every link of the slave chain that holds us in bondage to our slavemasters, by giving us a true knowledge of self, God and the devil, and wipe away the 400 years of tears, weeping, mourning and groaning under the yoke of bondage to the merciless murderers.”
The True God–the real “ship Jesus”–appeared among the poorest and most ignorant people on earth, who are yet potentially the wisest and most powerful: the Black man and woman of America.
We’ve got to internalize these all-important facts: Almighty God, Allah, in fulfillment of the prophecies of the prophets in the scripture, has come and raised from among us the modern Moses and Aaron. Both men are the natural product of both our intense desire and God’s will for our salvation. This fulfills the earnest and justified desire of hundreds of millions of Black people for centuries to end the miserable condition in which our enemies put us and bring in His world of truth and righteousness.
So, the cry of “Give me Jesus!” has been answered by God Himself!
Now, to that vital point I mentioned concerning Minister Farrakhan’s May 3 worldwide press conference and its relevance to this article’s content.
More next issue, Allah willing.
