[Editor’s note: The following article contains excerpts from an hour-long message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as Part 25 of his 52-week Lecture Series “The Time and What Must Be Done.” This lecture was titled “The Lie and The Liar Must Be Exposed.” This message originally aired on Saturday, June 29, 2013. Visit store.finalcall.com to order this message in its entirety on MP3, DVD and CD or call 1.866.602.1230, ext. 200.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
What is a “lie”?
What is a “liar”?
What is the meaning of “exposed”?
A “lie” is “a false statement made with a deliberate attempt to deceive; an intentional untruth.” Everyone, at some point in life, has told a lie. But “telling a lie” does not necessarily make one a liar.
A “liar” is “a person who has lied, or lies repeatedly.” According to the Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, a “liar” is “one who is predisposed by nature to telling lies, intentional deceit to achieve an end.” And what is “the end” that The Liar wishes to achieve? It is the mastery of The Original People of the Earth until The Coming of Allah (God). “The Liar and The Lie” must be exposed!
“To expose” means “to be without shelter or protection; laid open to view; unconcealed; susceptible to attack; made vulnerable.”
Why must The Lie and The Liar be exposed? The Honorable Elijah Muhammad has said this “liar” that we are talking about is Satan: It represents a new people, a contrary people who were taught by their maker Yakub a System of Tricks and Lies that would enable them to achieve mastery of the Original and Aboriginal People of the Earth. The mastery of the Original People by this new people would continue for 6,000 years until The Coming of God Whose very Presence, as the scriptures teach in the Book of 2 Thessalonians, Chapter 2, verse 8, would “consume the wicked with The Spirit of His Mouth on The Brightness of His Coming”: “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” God would expose The Lie and The Liar, and bring about an end to Satan’s world and civilization.
How does a Lie and a Liar become exposed? The answer is: By one who knows The Truth, and has the courage to tell The Truth, and a willingness to face the opposition coming from The Liar whose fear is “being exposed.”
‘The Greatest Lies,’ and the consequences for he who tells them
“Truth” is “a true or actual state of a matter; conformity with fact or reality; verity; a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like (as in “mathematical truths”); the state or character of being true; actuality, or actual existence.” The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that everything in this universe was created in Truth and with Truth.
There is nothing “false” in Allah’s entire creation! The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught me that the human being is created with the same Truth that He Himself is of: Allah created us, according to the Holy Qur’an in Surah 4 Al-Nisa (“The Women”), verse 1, from “a single essence,” and created our mates of the same kind. That “single essence” is The Essence of God Himself.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that the human brain cells are created to think rightly; and the only way that the human brain can think rightly is if it feeds on Truth. The human brain is created with the potential to bring up vision, and bring into existence what is envisioned. The human brain is able to “see” beyond the ability of the physical eye to perceive; and the human brain is capable of “hearing” beyond what the physical ear can hear.
The human brain is so potentially powerful, that great care must be taken that it is fed “the proper food” that will allow the brain to act, or be in the manner that Allah created it to be or to act. So what is “the proper food” that will allow the brain to think rightly? It is Truth, and nothing but The Truth.
“Lies” have a damaging effect on the cells of the brain. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to us that lies have the same effect on the cells of the brain as “planing a piece of wood against its grain,” for when you plane a piece of wood “against the grain” you destroy the beauty of that wood. Therefore, the power of the brain is also being curtailed, and its potential is being limited, by its ingesting Falsehood and believing and acting on what is false. When the human brain is fed with Falsehood, we damage its potential to function as God intended. This is why Falsehood, and those who love Falsehood, can never have a permanent place in a Universe of Truth.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us from the Holy Qur’an that when Truth comes, Falsehood vanishes, and “falsehood is forever a vanishing thing.” It is written in the Holy Qur’an, Surah 17 Bani Isra’il (“The Children of Israel”), verse 81: “And say: The Truth has come and falsehood vanished. Surely falsehood is ever bound to vanish.” Why must Truth come if we are living in a Universe filled with Truth? It is because we have been the victims of a lie and a liar.
When I hear my Christian brother pastors and their followers preach, I always hear them say: “The devil is a liar.” “Satan” is The Greatest of Liars! When Almighty God Allah permitted a contrary world to come into existence from a contrary people, they began their rule by the telling of lies. What is “the greatest lie” that a liar could tell? It is to lie about God, The Originator of the heavens and the Earth. And “the next greatest lie” is to lie about “the self” of the human being and its connection to The Originator. These are The Greatest Lies … And he who tells them is The Greatest Liar.
The Holy Qur’an speaks about those who lie concerning God. In Surah 11 titled Al-Hud, the 18th verse of the Maulana Muhammad Ali Translation reads: “And who is more unjust than he who forges a lie against Allah? These will be brought before their Lord, and the witnesses will say: These are they who lied against their Lord. Now surely the curse of Allah is on the wrongdoers… .”
If Satan can hide The Knowledge and Truth of God, Who is The Source of Truth, The Source of Light, The Source of Life and The Source of Power, then the brain is put into darkness if: 1) the energy or spirit that comes from The Presence of God and The Truth is not present, 2) the power that comes with Truth is not present; and 3) The God Who is The Source of it all is also absent in our lives—and He is absent in a world that is built on a lie.
Jesus asked the question: “What man building a house would build it on sand?” ([NIV] Matthew 7:24-27, “The Parable of The Wise and Foolish Builders”). When we build our lives on Falsehood, that kind of foundation can never have permanence.
‘Intentional misinterpretation of The Truth’: Biblical depiction of Satan’s acts of deception
Let us look at “Satan’s Deception in The Garden of Eden” from the scriptures of both the Bible and Holy Qur’an, which give us many incidents of the lies and deceptions of Satan. The first lie that is recorded in the Bible came from that which is described as a “serpent”—in the lie was an intentional misinterpretation of The Truth that God had spoken to Adam.
In the Book of Genesis, Chapter 2, verses 16-17, God made it very clear in His Instructions, “Eat not of this tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil, for the day you eat of it you shall surely die”: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
That was a very clear instruction from The Mouth of God! Now let’s go to the Book of Genesis, Chapter 3, and look at the clever words of Satan. In verse 1 it teaches: “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’
Now, we know that snakes don’t talk; so, this picture of a “serpent” that was present in The Garden with Adam and Eve should tell us that The Enemy of Truth is always present when Truth is spoken, when God is giving instructions! Well, where is he if he is “always present”? He is sitting up inside of self. When “the self” does not like, or agree with, The Truth that the ear has heard; or “the self” doubts or disagrees with The Command of God, and wants to know
“Why God would forbid me to eat from this tree, since,” according to the scripture, “that tree looked so good for food?”: There’s nothing wrong with anyone asking the question “Why?” The problem is who you ask, because when you ask the question “Why?” you want to go to the root of what it is that you’re seeking.
“Why”: As an adverb, it means “For what? For what reason? For what cause? For what purpose?” As a noun, it is a “question concerning the cause or a reason for which something is done or achieved.” So “the serpent,” knowing that a question was in the mind of Adam when God told him to do something: Adam did not have to ask “Why?” for the question came up in his brain! And so “the serpent” answers the “Why?” by making an interpretation of The Command of God: “Oh, God didn’t mean that you would ‘surely die’. He meant that your eyes would come open, and you would be as wise as He when you know why.”
What is the meaning of a “serpent”? Of course, it is a “snake”; but when it is referring to a human being, it means “a wily, sly, treacherous, or malicious person—especially one who exploits a position of trust in order to betray it.”
In the same chapter, verses 2-4 teach: “And the woman said unto the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’ And the serpent said unto the woman, ‘Ye shall not surely die’…”—Satan came directly against The Command of God!
This is the way that Satan works: God will tell you what you should or should not do, and Satan will come behind God and try to make us understand why we should disobey God! Then look at what the serpent says in verse 5: “…‘For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’” Now Satan is making an interpretation of God’s Command that would make it easy for Eve to disobey.
The Serpent never speaks when God is Present. He always waits until The Truth Teller is off the scene, or has left; then Satan does his work.
In the 6th verse it reads: “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” What we are seeing from the scripture in “The Nature of Satan” is that he first seeks to gain your confidence and trust, and then turn you from “good” by approaching “good” with an interpretation that may look good, or feel good; and this is why God is telling us not to “eat” from “the tree”—or the person that has The Profound Knowledge of Good and Evil—because Satan knows what is “good.”
How else could Satan master The Righteous People of God? Satan has to come in The Straight Path of God; he has to come in The Path of Truth! And he has to make an interpretation of that Truth to make the people who believe in The Truth to deviate from The Truth!
Knowing “good,” Satan approaches you and makes evil to be “good” for you; and thus he turns you from even a desire to do what is “right” to doing the opposite of what is right. This gives this serpent-like human being joy to see us deviate from what is really good—by making evil fair seeming to us; and tricking us into following him after we’ve claimed we desired to believe in and follow God.
“The Serpent” says, “Don’t you want to be as wise as God?”—he is suggesting to us that “God does not want us to be on His level”; he says, “This is why He forbade you from eating from this tree! God is trying to hold you back! God is trying to hold you down! You are better than that… Would you want to be wise, like God?” Wouldn’t you begin to think less of God if somebody interpreted for you that God wanted to keep you in a subservient position? And this is why God gave you such an order!
Why are we called “The Children of God” if God did not intend to feed us that we might grow into Him? What is it that Jesus The Christ is making us an “heir” to if it is not The Mind of God Himself? This is why the scripture teaches in the Book of Philippians, Chapter 2, verse 5: “Let this mind be in you, the same mind that is in Christ Jesus.”
Exposing the nature of one whose desire is to deceive us about The Reality of God
Satan’s first deception is making God a “mystery.” In Chapter 1 of Message To The Blackman in America, under Part 1 of “Who Is That Mystery God?” on page 2, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad states: “If one teaches a thing [that] he himself does not know, he can be charged with lying to the people. The word ‘mystery,’ according to the English dictionaries, is something that has not been or cannot be—something beyond human comprehension.
The unintelligent, or rather ones without divine knowledge, seem to delight themselves in representing [the] God as something mysterious or unknown. Such teaching (a mystery God) that God is a mystery makes the prophets’ teachings of God all false. There should be a law made and enforced upon such teachers until they have been removed from the public.” “The Lie” and The Liar must be exposed!
What kind of nature would someone have to have to deceive us about God? This is why the scriptures of the Bible refer to this being as a “serpent.” He starts off in the Genesis as a “serpent,” but by the time we get to Revelation, he’s a dragon. The Serpent deceived Adam and Eve, but The Dragon in Revelation has deceived the entire world! In the Holy Qur’an, in the 114th Chapter Al-Nas (“The Men”), it reads: “Say I seek refuge in the Lord of men, The King of men, The God of men, From the evil of the whisperings of the slinking (devil), Who whispers into the hearts of men, From among the jinn and the men.”
Every Muslim, before he says his prayer, he or she says: “I seek refuge in Allah against the accursed Satan”—this is telling us that we are seeking refuge from “The Satan” that is on the outside, but we are also seeking refuge from that which is inside ourselves that would make us susceptible to The Lies of Satan. In the Book of Ephesians, the 6th Chapter, the 11th verse, it reads: “Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of Satan.”
That “slinking” devil, who “whispers” into the hearts of men”: “To whisper” means “to speak very softly using one’s breath without one’s vocal chords, especially for the sake of privacy.” Now, if somebody is “whispering,” for you to hear it they have to be very close to your ear. But if they are whispering into your heart, then “your ear” has received it; your heart has received it—but that is also something that is coming from within. And “slinking” means “to move or go in a furtive or abject manner; moving like the crawling of a snake (or a “serpent”).
So this is Iblis, or “the jinn”: A “fiery,” “serpent” spirit that rises when you hear a command—that you know it is right. But then “the whispering” comes from the lower side of you; that you really have to have spiritually consciousness to avoid whispering coming from yourself. The same spirit that is in every human being who is morally awakened, that accuses The Self of whatever we do that is wrong: There is a companion spirit that also speaks to us from within that can cause us, using deceptive intelligence, to make us to deviate.
When we identify Truth, and what Truth is, then Satan’s Greatest Deception is to give the lie to “The Reality of God.” The Holy Qur’an says Allah (God) is “the only reality.” In the Yusuf Ali Translation of The Qur’an, Chapter 31 Luqman, the 30th verse, Yusuf Ali translates: “That is because Allah is The (only) Reality, and because whatever else they invoke besides Allah is Falsehood; And because Allah—He is The Most High, Most Great.”
Allah (God) is The Only Reality! Everything else passes away except Allah! Satan wants us to worship him, so he preaches “God” in a way that makes God absent in our lives so he can stand in The Place of God! Satan puts fear into you of himself, that you may obey him! Then in obedience to him, he turns you completely away from obedience to God! Satan is showing you that he is “God,” and he has taken God and made Him a “mystery.”
Then he, Satan—The Caucasian—comes to you as “something real.” God is not, then, a reality in your life. You say it, but you don’t really make God “real” in your lives! So when The Enemy comes, we shake and tremble because he is real, and “The God” he has taught us of has no real reality in our lives. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be afraid of anything or anyone but God!
The fate of Lucifer (‘Satan’) once he is exposed
Study these words in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 14, verse 12-19: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how you are cut down to the ground—you who weaken the nations! For you have said in thine heart, ‘I will ascend unto heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…I will be like the most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to hell, to the lowest depths of the pit. Those who see you will look at you narrowly, and say, ‘Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms; Who made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed its cities; who did not open the house of his prisoners?
But you, Lucifer, are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, like the garment of those who are slain, thrust through with a sword, who go down to the stones of a pit like a corpse trodden underfoot.” Oh, this is why Satan is so afraid to be exposed—because this scripture tells us that no matter how “high” he has gone making people to think that he is “God,” yet he will be brought down to the sides of the pit of hell! And this is why he must make you stay away from anyone who is teaching a Truth that will expose The Lie and The Liar!
Yes, it is true! They don’t want you to come near to Farrakhan: “Stay away from Farrakhan!” They make Farrakhan “The Litmus Test” for any Black man or woman who wants national recognition, seeking a national or state office! But let me tell you, my dear brothers: You can treat me like “a tree whose fruit is forbidden,” but I can tell you: The day you eat of this “fruit,” from this “tree”—from The Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad—you will come alive! Your eyes will open with a clear sight! You will begin to become a new man and a new woman! And you that are bound by The Lies of Satan will be set free! And this is why Jesus said, “You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.”
Oh, he’s afraid … And that’s why everywhere he goes, he is listening in on our conversations! He is snooping all over the Earth because he wants to know: “Who of you are waking up? What are you saying? Who are you talking to? Are you saying, ‘As-Salaam Alaikum’ when you open your phone calls?” He’s reading the emails; he’s listening and targeting those who are wise among us!
Well, the Holy Qur’an says The Devil “sees you, as well as his host, from whence we see them not”—so we thank Mr. Edward Snowden for pulling the cover off of a wicked spy program of our government that listens to all that people say; that invades their privacy; that takes away and reads all their emails.
America: Today your lies and your deceit are being exposed, for the scripture teaches “whatever is done in the dark shall be brought into the light”; and the Holy Qur’an says, “though it be the weight of an atom,” buried in a rock and then buried in the Earth, “yet will Allah (God) bring it forth.”
And so today is “that day” that “The Lie” and “The Liar” are to be exposed! But it’s going to take preachers of great strength and courage! It’s going to take those of us who know The Truth to rise up on that Truth, with wings of power, and “tell The Truth and shame The Devil”! Tell The Truth, and open the people’s eyes to this “Synagogue of Satan” that is referred to in the Book of Revelation 2:9 and 3:9—read it for yourself! We are exposing The Lie and The Liar!
