[Editor’s note: The following text is taken from a speech delivered by Minister Louis Farrakhan on November 3, 2002, at the dedication ceremony of the Good Samaritan Ecumenical Church in Tchula, Miss., pastured by the Rev. Eddie James Carthan. To order this message, visit store.finalcall.com or call 1.866.602.1230, ext 200..]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
It seems as though when Allah (God) wants to elevate you, He first tries you with tribulation, with suffering and with deprivation. You may ask why would Allah (God), who loves us, try us like this? You would think that if Allah (God) is your friend and you are the friend of Allah (God) that He would make your life easy.
But He does the very opposite. There is no prophet that has ever been sent into this world that has not had a life of suffering and not a life of ease. If you tell me that you believe in Jesus, and I know you do, and you declare to the world that Jesus is the Son of God, and I know you declare that, then what father would treat his son in that manner?
You wouldn’t do that to your son. But Allah (God) saw fit to do that for a big purpose. The religion doesn’t start at his (Jesus) birth and it doesn’t start during his ministry. We take the calendar from the time of his suffering.
We don’t start the calendar of Islam with the birth of Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH) or even from the day of his first revelation of the Qur’an. It starts from the time of a death plot and his flight to escape death. It seems that Allah (God), in His wonderful way of doing things, puts on us affliction.
He wants to know, do you love anything or anyone more than you love Him, since He is our Creator. And since everything we have is from Him, not from ourselves, then He will try us by whatever we have that we love and put before Him.
He tried Abraham by his son: Take him up on the mountain, Abraham, and plunge a dagger into his heart. I don’t know what Abraham went through to decide to obey Allah (God). But his obedience to Allah (God) made him the friend of Allah (God). Abraham loved his son but he didn’t love his son more than he loved the Father, the God, the Creator, so he took his son up on the mountain.
I read something once where Satan came to Ishmael (Abraham’s son) and said, “boy, he’s not planning to sacrifice a ram up there—it’s you.” But the boy never rebelled. He said if that’s what pleases Allah (God), that’s what pleases him. He didn’t fight his father; He laid on the alter.
As the father was about to plunge the dagger into his heart, Allah (God) stayed his hand and He said, here is the father that loves Me enough to kill a son that he had been longing for. And here’s a son that loved Me enough that if the father said that this is what (God) wanted my father to do, it’s all right with me.
Then Allah (God) said His covenant would not only be with the father; His covenant will also be with the son. He used them as a sign of a Father who would sacrifice a son and make him a redeeming agent for humanity.
Trials are necessary to bring out of you what is hidden within you. What Allah (God) has put within each human being does not come out without struggle. If you think life should be easy, you need to rethink your position.
If you think that because you go to church and tithe that Allah (God) shouldn’t bring misfortune into your life, yet the prophets that went before you and were greater than you and I, had misfortune in their lives.
When affliction comes, you wonder, why me? Why should I have cancer? Why should my child die in an accident? Why should these children have died in the fire? You (God) could have stopped it. Why did you (God) let it happen?
We have to rise above our emotion and question Allah (God). He’s the teacher. He said, didn’t I give you authority over all my creatures? The chicken wants to live; the lamb wants to live; the cow wants to live.
Maybe the horse doesn’t want to be ridden today, but you ride it. So are you any better? If Allah (God) puts the lower lives under our subjection, then our lives are for Allah’s (God’s) purpose and will. There is no life that leaves here that doesn’t leave with a purpose.
I believe that from Mississippi will come the greatest leaders, the greatest teachers and the greatest preachers because you are victims of the greatest tyranny and oppression in the history of the United States of America. Out of that suffering, Allah (God) brings greatness.
It is out of suffering that the creative power is unleashed. If you don’t suffer, you can’t create. So don’t run from your pain, run to it. Don’t run from your trial and don’t turn your back on your struggle. Allah (God) says in the Qur’an that He created man to face difficulty.
If you turn your back like a coward because you don’t want to face the trials and tribulation that life comes up with—you’d rather drink yourself under or smoke yourself under, you’d rather commit suicide rather than to face difficulty—then you disbelieve in the Power of Allah (God) to change any reality, no matter how harsh that reality may be.
Allah makes the righteous
Everybody is not a child of Allah (God). Satan has children here, too. We hope that Allah (God) is our Father, but he doesn’t have to be. Mother, you can’t make a righteous child.
I don’t care how good you are, how good your husband is or how much Bible you read, you cannot make a righteous child. All you can do is put the tools there. Only when Allah (God) steps in and takes your child does your child become a child of Allah (God).
Jesus had an argument with some Jewish people in that day, according to the Bible, and they were claiming that “Allah (God) is our Father. Even Abraham is our father.” And Jesus said: “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.” (St. John 8:39)
They said to Jesus, even God is our father. And Jesus said: “If God were your Father, you would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.” (St. John 8:42)
He told them: “But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.” (St. John 8:40) “Ye are of your father the devil … He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (St. John 8:44)
He’s separating children from a father by means of their work. So don’t say you are a child of Allah (God) until you start doing the work of your Father. Then you can claim Him because he’s already claimed you. That’s your Bible.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” If blessed are the peacemakers, then cursed are the warmongers for they shall be called the enemies of Allah (God), the children of Satan.
You’ve got to call it like it is or get out of the pulpit if you’re going to preach half-truths. No weak-kneed coward can preach Jesus. Do you think Minister Carthan is calling you into a work that will be easy?
Jesus said that if any man would be his disciple, he’d have to first deny himself, pick up whose cross? Your cross. Then what? Follow him. Jesus didn’t say worship him; he said follow him. That means that where Jesus puts his foot down, you walk where he walks. You do what he did. And Allah (God) will give you the same blessing and power that he gave to him.
Purpose of church, mosque and synagogue
This is a church, a building of stone, mortar and wood that Brother Minister Carthan and his family have the keys to in order to do a good work. What is the purpose?
Why did Allah (God) even allow a church or a mosque or a synagogue or a cloister or a cathedral or a temple to be formed? All of you go to some church, some mosque, some synagogue, some temple, but what are you there for?
Is it a social meeting place where you go to check out whose wearing what? Do you go there to gossip, to talk about your neighbor and what you heard that they got into last night or last week? What do you come here for?
It is because Allah (God) knew that Satan was going to be in power for a period of time until the coming of Allah (God). If Satan were going to rule the world for a season, then how would the people of Allah (God) be able to live in Satan’s world unless they had a place to go, a place of repair? It’s like an automobile mechanic shop.
When something goes wrong with your car and you don’t know how to fix it, you take it to the mechanic. He may ask you to leave it a day or two. And you come back and get your car and drive on.
That’s what these houses (of worship) are for. They are for you to come out of the world ruled by Satan and come into a house that’s supposedly ruled by Allah (God)—I say supposedly because everybody talking about heaven is not going there.
If the kingdom is here (within you), then it’s buried under the rubbish of what you think and how you act. When the rubbish is cleared away and the Kingdom of Allah (God) is resurrected in you, then Allah (God) starts moving in you.
When Allah (God) starts moving in you, you get a self-accusing spirit that begins to tell you, I shouldn’t have done that. Why did I do this? Oh, Lord, have mercy on me.
The self-accusing spirit wakes you up in the night and keeps you upset where you can’t sleep because you’ve been wrong and your own self is accusing you. Then you know the spirit of Allah (God) is working in you.
