[Editor’s Note: The Final Call presents a portion of a message by Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad, National Assistant to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
Below are edited remarks by Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad from part of his keynote delivered Sunday, October 27, 2024, titled: “The Fall of America: Who of the Presidential Candidates Can Save the Lives of the People of America From the Wrath of God,” part 2. To view the entirety of parts 1, 2 and 3 visit media.noi.org.]
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
As-Salaam Alaikum!
I want to start by, once again, thanking the Honorable Minister, Louis Farrakhan for the great honor of delivering the message two weeks ago as we commemorated the 29th anniversary of the Million Man March, Holy Day of Atonement. That day had never been, not just in modern history or ancient history, but that day had never occurred in the history of the world.
A whole generation has been born since the Million Man March, but God gave us that day as a sign of what we as Black men and Black women and the Black community could be by accepting a principle of atonement, by reconciling our differences with one another and reconciling with our Creator, and by accepting the responsibility to be better men, better husbands, better fathers, brothers, better wives, better mothers, better sisters.
That day gave the world a vastly different image of the Black male. Because then and now, it is the aim of the enemy to project us as thugs, criminals, murderers, thieves, robbers, carjackers, right?
But that day, the world saw nearly two million Black men gathered together. We came with our colors, we came with our banners, but that day, we didn’t see each other by the labels. We didn’t see each other as a Christian or a Hebrew or Muslim or Nationalist.
We didn’t see each other as a Crip or a Blood or a Disciple or a Stone. We saw each other as God would have us to see each other. We saw ourselves as brothers, blood of each other’s blood and flesh of each other’s flesh, bone of each other’s bone.
That was the beauty of that day. And for the first time, we as Black people didn’t go to the nation’s capital to petition or beg the government for a job or for justice. And those numbers exceeded any numbers that we ever had gone to D.C. for.
We went there to make a demand on ourselves in the presence of God and the whole world watching. It was a day of peace. We didn’t bring our heaters (firearms), we left the Glock at home. We didn’t even bring a blade. Just look at what God produced! And it was produced because God made the call through His anointed servant, the Honorable Minister, Louis Farrakhan.
The words that the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan gave to me two weeks ago to share was so profound that you really have to go back and study. I shouldn’t say ‘you.’ Me too. And, there is a lot more. It will not all come out today. But when a wise man is giving you words … the words contain so much insight, and they contain so much hope, and they contain so much life for us.
So, I’m honored beyond words that he gave me what he gave me to share two weeks ago, and I want to continue on what was shared as a part two to the subject matter: “The Fall of America: Who of the Presidential Candidates Can Save the Lives of the People of America From the Wrath of God?”
That’s the Minister’s subject, it’s not mine. I could never come up with a subject like that. That’s his title. We talked two weeks ago about atonement and how this principle can save a people and a nation. Atonement is given when a people’s sins and evil have outweighed their good, have outweighed what is right. So, the scripture says, ‘This is what you are saying:
Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we be saved?’ And God answers, ‘As surely as I live, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live.’
God doesn’t take pleasure in chastising the people. He took no pleasure when he destroyed the wicked people of Sodom and Gomorrah, the wicked during the days of Noah. They brought it upon themselves. He kept appealing like a loving mother and a loving father that tells their child, ‘stop, stop, stop, turn, turn, turn, turn.
Don’t persist in this behavior, or I’m gonna have to what punish you.’ So, God, His mercies that He gives to the people: a prophet, a messenger, and that messenger or prophet is crying out aloud, repent. Turn. Jesus said, repent. His ministry starts with atonement, then he becomes an atoning sacrifice.
He’s paying a price, and a terrible price, pleading with the people and the wicked, because his Father is going to bring down on the people that which brother said, ‘Sometimes it takes the chastisement of God to cause the people to change their condition.’
America is wasting away due to her sins and her daily evil and injustices. Her moral decay and depravity has caused her fall, and she has rejected the Messenger of God in her midst that could have checked her fall. But she has not listened to the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
So, Jesus said, ‘A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Prophet Jonah.’ And the Qur’an says, ‘Why was there not a town which believed so that their belief should have profited them, but the people of Jonah, when they believed, we removed from them the chastisement of disgrace in This world’s life, and we gave them a provision for a while.’
The prophet Jonah, as we said two weeks ago, was sent to the wicked people of Nineveh, a city that God had purposed to destroy. But when the king of Nineveh heard the preaching of Jonah, he repented, and then the people repented and came out in sackcloth and ashes from the king all the way down to the little man in the street and Nineveh was spared the Wrath of God.
Why Jesus are you holding the sign of Jonah out? Because to a wicked and adulterous generation and a wicked nation, the only way that America can be spared the Wrath of God is to repent. She has exceeded the limits and grace is up.
Are you familiar with the grace period when you’re paying your bill, your car note, your credit card bill? They may give you five days’ grace, but the amount is due on the date of the bill. But maybe, you know, you got tied up, preoccupied, you forgot, right? They give you a little time. Maybe you’ll even get a call.
‘Oh, Mr. Johnson, you’re missing your payment for the month of October.’ But we ignore the call. Okay? So, what happens? Penalties are assessed, see, and it gets worse and worse. Well, America has a debt. She’s overdue on paying her debt.
And the greatest debt that America carries is not the trillions of dollars that she’s in debt, but it is the debt of taking a whole people from their native land and native people and making them slaves. She hasn’t paid her debt by repairing the damage done to Black people in America. And we are still suffering from the effect of 300 years of chattel slavery.
Don’t you let nobody make you to think that that’s something in the past, and we are so passed that. Look at your condition, look at the Black community and tell me, have we been repaired or are we worse than when we were on the plantation?
