(given to a mixed audience of Jews; Christians; Moslems and others.)

 

In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful, we give Him praise and thanks for His goodness and His mercy to the human family. The greatest of His goodness and the most magnificent of His mercy is His guidance that He sends to the human family through the mouths and example of His prophets and His messengers of God. We thank Him for Moses and The Torah. We thank Him for Jesus and The Gospel. We thank Him for Muhammad and The Qur'an. Peace be upon these worthy servants of God and all of those messengers and prophets that God has sent to every nation and every people, bringing to them His guidance....

 

I greet all of you my dear brothers and sisters with the greeting words of peace: We say it in Hebrew, Shalom aleichem. We say it in Arabic assalaam aleykum. We say it in English, peace be unto you. To my dear brother, the Rev. Dr. Heisel B. Taylor, Jr., [long list of those present] Jews, Christians, Muslims, I am very glad to be here to help to celebrate your 62 years on this blessed earth and your 26 years as senior pastor of Second Baptist Church....

 

I recently was invited to share the 75th Anniversary of Time Magazine. Everyone that has been on the cover of Time in the last 75 years who is yet alive was invited to attend. President Clinton was the main speaker that evening along with the former President Gorbachev and so many dignitaries were there. I was invited to attend and I decided maybe I'll come out and see what the world is like and I was pleasantly surprised at how honoured I was among the great men and women of all races and creeds. But I noticed that everyone had to pass through a security check on coming in because the President was present and because so many dignitaries were present and because there's so much insanity in the world....

 

So Dr. Taylor I am happy to share this moment, this day with you...thankful to Almighty God that we are sharing time and space at the same time on this earth. That we and you, if we rightly understand our purpose for life, can actually make a difference. For we are nothing more than a link in the chain of life and this is our time -- yours and mine. This is our space -- yours and mine.

 

If we study the Wisdom of God then we in our lives, you and I, we in our space in our time can reverse the madness that was passed on to us by previous generations. We do not have to continue the madness. We can change reality because we are OF God; we are FROM God; and God moves in EVERY link of the chain. He was in the beginning: He is Alpha. He is Omega. And in every generation God moves with us if we move with God and surrender our will to do His Will. Then this could be the generation and the time that we turn the world around and prepare for our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren, a better future because we in our time, in this space, on this earth, decided that we would take charge of our lives and of this time.

 

As I honour our beloved Pastor, brother and friend, on his 62nd birthday, I looked in the Qur'an, which is the Book of Scripture of the Muslims, and the 62nd chapter of the Qur'an is called "Al Juma." It comes from an Arabic root which means to gather. It is a day when Muslims are to gather for the worship of God. And you, Dr. Taylor...have always wanted to gather human+beings together to challenge human+beings to rise above their diversity, especially those who claim belief in the oneness of God. So it seems to me...you are one of those souls that God has in this time period to help gather God's people in God's way.

 

And since this is your 26th year as Senior Pastor of Second Baptist Church, I looked in the Qur'an again to Chapter 26, and it's called "The Poet." I don't think this is an accident, that he is such a profound poet, brilliant scholar, theologian, pastor, nurturer of our people, and yet would have the courage to invite his brother in this beautiful place on this tremendous campus of great scholarship in the midst of those who may see me as other than what I am; in the midst of those who see me as anti-white or anti-Semitic or racist or a bigot. Yet you had the courage to invite me into this holy place, that I might share your anniversary with you, but more importantly, share my spirit with you. That you may know me beyond a sound-bite on television. That you may know me from the heart.

 

I don't have a prepared text. God prepares my texts for me*. I was told just to go and stand up and speak. I had some thoughts, but I'm going to let God have His Way and 'Im not going to keep you long.

 

 

Muslims, Christians and Jews are present here today. I hope that some of the members of the rabbinical class are here, as well as members of the clergy, as well as Muslim imams, as well as Jews, Christians and Muslims. Because it is important that we sit together as people of intelligence. Paul said: "Come let us reason together." That is the power of the human+being. We have the ability to reason. If our minds are clouded with emotion, then emotion stops the process of reasoning. It can alter the power of reasoning. But when the power of reasoning is exalted above our emotion, our prejudices, then reasoning can make us see what we couldn't see through the eye of emotion. Paul had a job because he was talking to Jews and gentiles, and was trying to reconcile those Jews and gentiles to the Word of Jesus Christ. The Rev. Doctor Taylor brought me here for the purpose of reconciliation. He wanted you to meet with me; me to meet with you. He invited rabbis, members of the clergy of the Christian faith, he invited Muslims. For what purpose? That we may sit and reason together so that we can reconcile differences and in the process of reconciliation find the common denominator.

 

One of our accountants is here today. She is always reconciling the check-book. When you reconcile a check-book, you make sure that what is in the bank and what is paid out by checks agree so that the balance is right. In other words, you come to a point of agreement, accord. Agreement and accord make you satisfied. Whenever there is an imbalance, and you cannot reconcile what is in the bank and what went out, then there is not peace, not satisfaction, until reconciliation can take place. When two human+beings say they love each other and then get into difficulty, when an argument comes up between people in the same family, people in the same fraternity, people in the same church, people who claim to love each other, that level of argument produces dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction begins to drive people who have common aims, common interests, common purpose, apart from each other. It is only when there is reconciliation of conflict that the heart can rest; the soul becomes satisfied because that which was in discord has come into accord and there is harmony, there is peace, there is unity.

 

I have to admit that there is discord among Christians, among Christians discord. Why? Is Christ divided? No. Christ is One. Well why aren't Christians One? Well, you see, MY denomination is...hush, hush, hush. Once you start talking denomination, you are coming down from Christ. But if you are going to come up to Christ, you can't talk denomination, you have to talk about the Oneness of God, the Oneness of Jesus Christ and the Oneness of the body of Christ. So Christians -- Catholics andProtestants; Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics -- all the different denominations of Christianity have to find reconciliation because Christ is not pleased with the Church as it is. Farrakhan, how dare you speak for Jesus Christ! I think I can very well speak for Jesus Christ. I am telling you, as Christians, He is displeased. And none of you want to be around when He comes, as you are, because He already told you what He will accept and what He will reject.

 

This confusion among the Muslims, many different sects, many different parties -- each one arguing -- I'm better, I'm this, I'm that. The Holy Qur'an says they didn't become divided until after revelation came to them. Splitting their religion up into sects and parties, each one rejoicing in its own, due to envy. There's discord among the Jews. Yet we all claim One God. If you are a mother or a father, do you find joy when your children are fighting each other? Isn't that one of the most upsetting things about being a parent -- to see your children tearing at each other with hatred in their eyes and heart for one another? When a father and a mother have to break that up, then you go into your room and close the door, tears stream down your face because you wonder what (and who - Satan) has put such hatred in the heart of your own children for one another. Well, if you as a common parent feel this way, what do you think God is thinking when He sees Jews, Christians and Muslims all claiming One God but can't sit down in a room together and come to agreement and reconcile their differences.

 

I believe by whatever name we call Him, that He is grieved at the condition of His children. We claim Him in our various faith traditions: The Jews in the beauty of their worship, the Christians in the beauty of their worship, the Muslims in the beauty of their worship and each sect of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, having their own particular way of doing this as opposed to that. They use this as opposed to that to divide this from that!

 

When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher taught me that fractions have to be reconciled to a whole number. And she taught me that the only way you can bring fractions to a whole is you must find the least common denominator. When you can find the least common denominator you can take fractions and make them whole. They taught me that there is an axiom in geometry, that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. You have to belong TO in order to be a part OF. They tell me that an integer is a whole number. So the word integrate comes from the word integer which means you are trying to make that which is diverse different and apart, you're trying to produce a whole.

 

I'm sorry America, the way you're going you will never produce a whole out of the cultural and racial diversity in America. There is nothing taught at North-western that will bring about that wholeness. It is not in the limited scholarship of a Harvard or a Yale or an Oxford because with all that you know with all of your doctorate degrees, the society is sick and you have no power to heal it. So where is The Real Doctor? Will The REAL Doctor please stand up! You have a doctorate in psychology and all the sick minds in society. You have a doctorate in economics and you can't balance the budget -- our country is over a trillion, several trillion dollars in debt. Go ahead doctor of economics, balance the budget. You have your doctorate in all of these disciplines but you heal nothing. Christ was a healer. Muhammad was a healer. This book Qur'an is called Al shiffa, The Healing. The Gospel is a healing. It is a balm for sin-sick souls.

 

The question is: Where are the doctors because it is evident that the people are sick. Let's see if we can find out what the cause of this sickness is and let's see if we can apply some medicine, so that perhaps we can walk out of here as One, although we came in as many -- it would be a blessing if we could walk out of here tonight, feeling like we are a part of something bigger than our denomination, bigger than our faith tradition, but that we are a part of God. Now, all these great religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam call Abraham the father. If Abraham is the root, let's not deal with branch knowledge. I think we ought to go to the root of this and let's take a look at father Abraham. Abraham was called the friend of God. I don't know about anybody else, but I would really like to be a friend of God. I would like to have God as my friend, especially in a world like this.

 

These three great faith traditions have just come through a great celebration of three great principles of their religious faith. The Jews have just celebrated Passover, the Christians have just celebrated Easter, and the Muslims have just celebrated the Eid ul Adha. I want to take those three celebrations, if you will, and let's look at what we're talking about. As a Jew we're celebrating Passover. A great thing, pass over, Passover. Here was Moses telling Pharaoh, "Look, let the children of Israel go. God has something that He wants them to do in His service. He doesn't want them serving you anymore, Pharaoh. Either you let them go or God is going to plague you." Pharaoh didn't pay Moses too much attention, so the tenth plague was the plague of death. But all of the children of Israel who believed in Moses were told to do something so that the death-angel, when it came, would pass over them. What did He tell them to do? Go dip in the blood of a lamb and make an X mark on your gatepost and when the death-angel rides tonight and sees the right sign on your door, he will pass over you. Beloved, members of the Jewish family, that is a glorious thing -- to celebrate what happened four thousand years ago to prove that God, Jehovah, was with you, that the death-angel struck the firstborn out of every house in Egypt that did not have that sign dipped in the blood of a lamb.

 

My Christian family can't celebrate at Easter. The Cardinal O'Connor, I read today, is very upset because the baseball team didn't honour Good Friday, especially between the hours of ten in the morning and three in the afternoon -- the hours of His passion. And because they didn't honour Good Friday, he says "I'm not going to a baseball game for the rest of the year." He says he doesn't care who is playing. "Even Wall Street closes down on Good Friday."

 

Who of you would see your son hanging on a cross with nails in his hands, nails in his feet, and a crown of thorns on his head on a Friday and then call it a Good Friday. The act of crucifying Jesus was not good. But out of the most negative circumstances, God brought good out of evil. So when you look back on it, it was a Good Friday because out of the passion of Christ came the Resurrection which leads to the Redemption of the whole human family. So because of the cross, we celebrate the Resurrection, the Easter, although I think we do a lot of foolishness with it that really needs to be cut out. We have mixed a lot of paganism in with the true celebration. We need to expunge or cleanse the worship both of the birth of Jesus Christ and the Resurrection of Jesus; you must cleanse paganism out of it, so that your worship will be accepted by God.

 

As a Christian we celebrate His rise out of a terrible torment and passion and trial where He was falsely accused and bitterly denounced. A trial when His friends and disciples turned their backs on Him. A trial when He was betrayed into the hands of His enemies by one of His disciples. Yet it became a good thing because it led to what you sang about today -- He's alive. Then in Him there is no death. But you have to be in Him. You can't be about Him because about is on the periphery but to be IN Christ and to be OF Christ is not to see death, if we understand it....

 

You say, "Farrakhan I didn't expect this kind of talk from you." You don't know what to expect from me! Because you really don't know me. If you knew me you'd know what to expect from me. You know about. I'm going to invite you in.

 

The Muslims celebrate the Eid ul Adha which is a feast of sacrifice coming with the pilgrimage that they make to Mecca where the pilgrims take off their garments -- their national dress -- and put on two pieces of a seamless garment that the rich and the poor all wear the same. You can't wear any jewellery or anything that would distinguish you from your brother to make you think that you're better than your brother because you have this as opposed to that. All of that is removed. You are denied the right of access to your wife. You are denied argument and you endure an arduous ten days and the crowning of it is to be in the plain of Arafat where the sun could be 120 burning the sand under your feet and the mountains of rocks that surround you so that it's like you're in an oven. It's only a sign of something. Then at the end of this, they run between the hills, imitating the run of Hagar -- you sang it -- I will look unto the hills. That was Hagar's promise. She was looking unto the hills -- the way that's written in the "Book of Psalms." I really believe it should go like this: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. Period. Then a question: From whence cometh my help?

 

Your help is not coming from the hills. My help cometh from the Lord. Now listen, people are always looking for help. And they're looking for help from the big chief or the big cheese or the big brother -- the one that you think has got money and influence -- these are like hills and you always get disappointed because the hills don't have an answer. But your real help comes from the Lord. In Mecca when you make the pilgrimage, at a certain point you have to kill an animal, usually a lamb, a ram, a camel, and the meat is given away to the poor. But the idea of a day of slaughter, sacrifice, is like a ritual that says in order for us to come to God we have to make a sacrifice. In the old days it was a burnt offering -- a sacrifice of a sheep or a ram or an animal but today the example of Christ and the example of the Prophet is that you must sacrifice the animal existence in order to ascend to where Christ is. You can't be a dog and go with God.

 

My beloved family, we are all going to have to sacrifice animal passion, animal instinct, animal flesh-life to ascend into the spiritual-life that makes us one with God. As an animal, you know, you see the sheep with the sheep, you see the cows with the cows, you see the fox with the foxes, the hound with the hounds, but in that day the lamb will lie down with the lion. What kind of stuff is this? If a lamb will lie down with a lion and not get eaten, somebody has interfered with the nature of those things. Your natural inclination is to be with your own kind -- that's your natural inclination -- to see those who are Asian as your family, those who are African as your family, those who are European as your family, those who are Native American as your family. That's the natural inclination. The natural inclination is Jew with Jew, Christian with Christian, Muslim with Muslim. But when God asks you to sacrifice your animalistic passions, the lower-self to come up into The Spiritual-Mind of God on that level where there is Joy, there is Peace, there is Accord because man has reconciled his differences with God. Then when man has reconciled his differences with God it becomes easy to reconcile our differences with each other.

 

 

Now some of you that are scientists, you're not deep enough into science to understand that science and religion are not opposed to each other. [True] Science and true religion compliment each other because all [true] science comes from true religion. You wouldn't be a chemist if there were no chemistry for you to study and since you didn't create the chemistry of the earth or the heavens. You call yourself a chemist because you're studying from the religion of Him Who created the heavens and the earth. When you study physics, you study law as it relates to physical matter but you are studying something that is already in existence that you didn't bring into existence. So how dare you think that because you're a scientist you are better than a person who is related to God from which all science and all mathematics comes.

 

I don't want to get off my point. But I guess my point was that God is the author and your science is not deep enough because the human+being has powers yet untapped because we are so deviant in our behaviour that our deviate behaviour has crippled the power of our minds, our ability to regulate the affairs of nature. God did not create you in His image and likeness for you to be subject to the forces of nature. He created you to be the master of the forces of nature and this is why Jesus Christ was told that God had given Him power over all things. Then when Jesus calmed the storm, he turned to his disciples and said, "Oh ye of little faith." Why did He say that? Because what you woke me up to do, YOU need to wake up because you can do the same thing yourself.

 

I want to take us to the blood of the lamb. Jesus on the cross bled. At the last supper He gave His disciples some wine. Then telling people, "This is my blood that I shed for the remission of sins." Jesus was called the Lamb of God whose life was sacrificed according to Scripture. For if you dip your hand into the blood of the lamb and make a sign on your door -- what does that mean to you, as a Christian, and to you as a Jew? See, the Jews are still looking for the Messiah. They know that the Messiah is still coming. They are not convinced that the Jesus of two thousand years ago was, in fact, the Messiah. So they are still expecting the Messiah. But the Messiah's life, not his blood, because we can't drink blood. The Old Testament stops us from drinking the blood of any life. Because the blood carries the health and disease of that life. So you don't drink blood. But the life of Jesus Christ, that He lived, like your 26 years, Heisel, serving Second Baptist, you live the life of sacrificing yourself, sacrificing your family so that you could teach people and make them realise what God has put within them. It is that LIFE of Jesus Christ. It is the BLOOD of the Lamb, that when you put your hands in His blood, meaning hold on to His life. Don't talk about His life but live His life. Talking about the life of Jesus won't save anybody. But living His life will save both Christians and Jews and Muslims too.

 

Let's get to Abraham, then we can close and I am going to ask all of us to do something. Abraham is the father of many nations. Many nations. But Jews and Arabs claim that, through Isaac and Ishmael, they are the blood-families of Abraham.

 

I don't believe that Abraham's family is genetic in origin. I don't believe that Abraham's family is physiological or biological. So that Jews and Arabs can say I'm a direct descendant of Abraham because I'm from Ishmael and the Jews will say I'm from Isaac and we're cousins but we can't get along. And yet both Jews and Arabs claim Abraham; and Jews, Arabs and Christians claim some affinity to Jerusalem.

 

We're talking about reconciliation -- coming to an accord, finding The Way or a common denominator that brings all into Oneness so that we can begin to do the work of God in our time, in our space on this earth.

 

My dear and beloved Christians, Muslims and Jews, if you look at Abraham as a physiological or biological creature born somewhere around Iraq -- in that area of the world. I am not an Iraqi, so how can I be of Abraham? So you can shut me out. You say well no, you're not Abraham's, you didn't come from that part of the world -- you're an African, your hair is kinky -- you're not from Abraham. It's got nothing to do with Abraham's hair or his nose or his birth. It has something to do with that man's commitment to God. Because of what the Qur'an said of Abraham -- this is talking to Jews and Christians -- all people of The Book, why do you dispute about Abraham when The Torah and The Gospel were not revealed until after him. Do you not understand? If from The Torah, you become Jew and from The Gospel, you become a Christian, then what was your father? Since The Torah came after Abraham and The Gospel came after Abraham, what was the religion of Abraham?

 

The Qur'an raises a very good question. Abraham was not a Jew, nor a Christian. That is true. He was before Judaism and he was before Christianity. Wait a minute, dear Jews and Christians, please don't fight me now. No bricks yet. I'm only talking about Abraham. We are going to reason.

 

Look, it says Abraham was an upright man, then it says a Muslim, meaning one who surrendered to God (True in Faith). He never set up any rival or partner with God. His whole mind, soul, body, spirit was obedient to God and because he obeyed God when God gave him some terrible commands -- go and pick your son up and sacrifice him. Now Heisel, this would be rough! There's Heisel the third and Heisel Jr. is told by God, "I know you love him, but, Heisel, take that boy up on the mountain and kill him for Me." You say well "wait a minute God! I've been good to You, I've been obeying. God, what's happening to You. Asking me to kill my son?" Then Satan comes up in you and says "God is working a trick on you there. Don't you kill that boy. You've been waiting (a hundred years) for that boy to come along and continue your work. Don't kill that boy -- that's not God talking, it's an impostor."

 

You get all kinds of stuff going through your mind when God gives you a command that you don't like. And everybody in here gets a command from God that you don't necessarily agree with, but the question is: will you follow your will or will you surrender to God, knowing that God's Will is the Will that should be carried out, by those of us who love God.

 

So when Abraham took his son, saying "I have to do what God says" and laid his son on the altar. The beauty of it was the father but the beauty was also the son because he said "If this is what God wants, I want what He wants." And he lay there to die and just as Abraham was to proceed, the dagger dropped, God stayed his hand and said because you have shown Me that you love Me above the life that I gave you in your son, above all that you have, you love Me. I'm going to make you a leader of men and My Covenant will be with you and your seed and if you can count the stars, Abraham, or the sands of the sea, you can count your seed in the Blessing. And then Jesus comes, a son of sacrifice, that a Father sacrificed and the boy was willing to die. So God said "because of this obedience to Me and surrender to My Will mean so much to you, you are My friend and I am your friend. He was an upright man, upright meaning he obeyed the righteous commands of God. He surrendered to God. The only people who can claim Abraham as a father are those who will do as Heisel B. Taylor asks you today. "Are you willing to surrender to God?"

 

If you are willing to surrender to God, He will be your friend and you will be His friend and there will never be a death-angel over America. We can cast away the storms because we have surrendered to God, Muslims, Christians and Jews.

 

I hate the term anti-Semitic because I would be less than a moral-being of intelligence to hate another human+being because of their faith tradition. It's abhorrent to me that I would be charged anti-white, when you can't find one thing in my record that I have done against a white person, or a Jewish person, except to point out evil. How can you reconcile the ledger if you don't point out that it's not adding-up. What we don't like is for somebody to point out our own injustices. Who likes that? A father doesn't want his child telling him, Daddy, you're wrong. A mother doesn't like her daughter saying, Mama, you treated me wrong. None of us want to be wrong. Neither Jews, nor Christians, nor Muslims. We want to be right. So when God sends a Prophet into the world to point out where we went wrong, we don't ordinarily say, "You're right, thank you so much." You say you aren't wrong and you try to defend yourself. Then you want to knock down the man that's pointing out your wrongs. That's why Prophets have been killed and beaten and sent to prison. I am not the enemy of Jewish people. I'm not the enemy of white people, I'm not the enemy of black people. I am the enemy of sin. Whether that sin is in myself or in others, I have to stand against it because it is the sin that keeps me estranged from reconciliation with God.

 

Now I conclude, to the members of the Jewish community who are here, what is The Criterion of the measurement of our conduct? Is it what is popular? Or is it the standard laid down by God through the mouth of His Prophets? What did God tell you as a Jew? If you will obey My statutes, My Laws, My Commandments that I give you this day -- in the Book of "Deuteronomy" He lists all the Blessings that you will receive and then He lists all the Cursings that you would receive if you rebel.

 

Government has a power. You have a right over your bodies, sisters. God gives you these bodies and He gives you power over your bodies but He also gives you guidance. You say, "I have the right of choice." You do. Choose the man you will sleep with. That's your right of choice. But to choose death for the unborn, He doesn't give you that right. Once you have made that commitment, He forgives you.

 

I'm not here to make you feel guilty -- there's enough sin everywhere for all of us. So preachers ought not to preach like that, like we're so holy. In all of our righteousness, the Bible says let us not get holier than thou. I'm not preaching for anybody to feel bad about some sin that you've done. I am asking us to understand what is pleasing to God. And if we're going to surrender to God, even though it's what pleases us, we have to say what is the pleasure of God and maybe I ought to stop doing this or that. Do you follow? It involves a sacrifice. If you said Jesus gave up His life, are you willing to give up that life that Jesus is displeased with? See now, that kind of church is the right kind of church. That kind of Gospel is the kind of gospel that you've got to hear every day. It can't be something that tickles your ears. It has to be something that calls you to rectitude; to uprightness.

 

As a Jew, measure yourself against The Laws, Statutes and Commandments of God and don't say, "That's old-time, things have changed, moved on, that's from the Old Testament days." Fine. Show me where God changes in the morality that He demands of His creatures. There are some Scriptures... that are more relevant to the needs of the time but there are certain immutable Laws and Principles that keep on coming through that continuum of time and life. And they never change. You don't know how to live life. You just got here. I don't care how many doctorates the enemy has conferred on you. You don't have a doctorate of Living. Your doctorate is in death. Talking about I'm a doctor and smoking? I'm a doctor and I'm drinking? I'm a doctor and sticking needles in my arm or snorting cocaine in my nose. I'm a doctor and I'm eating myself to death. You don't know how to live. You have to let the wise God Who is the Creator and Architect of life show you how to live and you've got to stop rebelling against God. As a Jew, if you don't want to accept The Gospel, if you don't want to accept The Qur'an, then go back to The Torah, and measure your life against what God has Commanded and God's Commandment is The Criterion*. As you see how far off you are from The Criterion, you've got to make up your mind, as a Jew, I'm going to reconcile myself with God by coming back to the standard that God laid down for me as a Jew, that I might continue to be God's chosen instrument. Don't you ever think that God will continue His choice of you when you have chosen to live a Satanic life rather than a life in obedience to the Will of God.

 

 

Now, let me go to the Christians. I have to say this to my Christian family -- now, you may not ever want me to come back here again. But you shouldn't invite me if you don't want to hear what I have to say. And if what I have to say is not what you thought I would say, that is because you don't know me. Dear Christians, you talk to Jesus; you talk Him up. You praise His name. You shout all over the place about Jesus. But what kind of life are you living? I have to talk like this because if I don't talk like this, I'm not true to God, and I'm not true to Jesus and I'm not true to Muhammad, and I'm not true to Moses or the Prophets and I'm not true to myself. I don't care anything about popularity. You've been beating the hell out of me for thirteen years for something that I'm not guilty of. But I'm not going to bow down. Dear Christians, how in the world can you claim Jesus and won't live The Gospel? All you've got to do is read The Gospel and measure yourself against The Criterion* and see if you're on it or off it. If you're off it, that's how much you've got to surrender to get on it. Did you hear what I said?

 

 

You have a free ride as a Christian, and even as a Jew, because some of the rabbis and some of the pastors will not preach The Criteria and ask the people to live up to what God has laid down. The Bible tells you, that yes, He's going to kill the witness (The Two Witnesses - Apoc./Rev. 11:3, 7) but He's going to put their blood on your and my hands, if we don't call them to the righteous standards of The Gospel.

 

When I say you've had a free ride, many of you join churches that tolerate your foolishness. Let me see if I can be a wild, crazy thing and join the church -- you know what I mean? I'm happy that I found a home! But you'll find another home in Hell. And the Pastor who's been leading will be right there in Hell with you! And you will cuss him out and say, "Why didn't you kick me Rev.?"

 

Now I'm going to get to the Muslims. All right, Muslims. You're worse than the rest because you claim to surrender. I'm going to surrender. To what? To our passions. If we surrender to God we're magnetic, we draw people -- people are not afraid to be around you, they come to you. Because, as a Christian, when you surrender to The Gospel, you become as magnetic as Christ. When you surrender to The Torah, you become like the Prophets; they're alive in you: Abraham is alive, Moses is alive; Solomon is alive. David is alive. Jesus is alive. He's alive! The question is: Is He living in you? As a Muslim, I have to look at myself and examine myself against the standard of God laid down in this book of revelation called The Qur'an. But I also believe in The Gospel. And I also believe in The Torah. So I'm bound by what I read. In truth, it takes a heck of a person to live by The Gospel -- you know Jesus is really calling you to be supernatural. The natural thing is that if I cuss you, you cuss me. That's natural. You hit me -- Pow, I'll hit you back and I'll try to hit you harder and make sure you don't come back again with another one. That's natural. But Jesus is not calling you to do the natural thing because what Jesus brought was the redemption of human+beings and reconciling human+beings to God. In order to do that you've got to do an unnatural thing. I mean when they smack you on one cheek, the natural thing is bust them in the mouth. Now, I'm not going to let anybody come up and smack me and I'm going to stand still. That's the slave doctrine -- to keep the slaves all bound up in Jesus so they would never quit. When you take an insult, do you insult back? When you were reviled and all men of evil that said against you falsely, for the sake of The Gospel -- how do you respond to that? I have yet to find somebody who's happy when they pick up the Sun Times and read "Farrakhan, the anti-Semite..." -- I don't read that and say, "Ha, ha, isn't that wonderful! That's great!" I can't rejoice in that, but in my soul, I'm contented because I know I am not that. My greatest desire is for you to know that I'm not that. I wish that the rabbis would hear. I wish that we could sit and discuss and dialogue. Because we do have more in common than we have at variance. But if we don't dialogue, how can you point-out to me where my error is and how can I point-out to you where I think your error is? So that we both can be corrected before God. If you tell me there's nothing to dialogue with -- I will not speak to this man -- to me that is unworthy of us as human+beings. Heisel, I believe is a grandfather -- are you a grandfather? I am a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather and I don't know how many years I have in front of me, but I don't believe there are as many as I have behind me. I am concerned about what life will be after I am gone. What about you?

 

I close with these words. I love black people. I'm born from among them. I feel our pain, our suffering, our hurt, at the hands of evil and injustice. Please don't fault me for loving my own people because I cannot fault you for loving your own people. I am happy to see white people loving each other; or Asians loving each other; Native Americans loving each other. That's natural! But I'm overjoyed when I see Black People loving each other because that's very rare in a society where we have been trained to hate ourselves and to hate one another. Now, here's a challenge to Black People. I make no apologies for standing up for Black People. I believe I will do that until God takes me away. But I am maturing every day in the Word of God. God is not after a black family and He's not after a white family. He is after a family that is not born of flesh but a family that's born of spirit.

 

There are many Muslims who might take exception to what I say because we're into the black-thing and the black-thing is good because it's a medicine to heal the suffering produced by white-supremacy. But after you've brought balance to the organism that was sick, you can't continue to give it the same kind of medicine. Now, I want you to hear me. White-supremacy is a sickness and racism comes out of the feeling that I am better, not because I'm intelligent and righteous but I'm better because my skin is white and my hair is straight and so and so and so; that's immature. I've seen white-folk play with dogs and love their dogs and some of them are short, some of them tall, some of them wide, some of them real ugly-looking but you love your dogs and you say this is my dog and you dress him up and put him in shows and hope you win a prize for the way you shaved your dog or trained your dog. But if you can admire the diversity of God in the dog family, or the diversity of God in the fish family, or the diversity of God in the rock family, if you can admire the diversity of God in the Earth family and in the planets and the stars, what makes you so stupid, so moronic, that you can't admire the diversity of God in the Human family?!

 

Why am I less because I'm black. Why are you more because you're white. That's sick. That is very sick. So brothers, in the Black family, when you learn to love yourself, then you can love others. For Jesus' sake, love your neighbour as yourself. So neighbour-love is predicated on self-love. When you love yourself and love being with yourself, that's your family. That's your black, genetic, biological, physiological family. Good. That's very good. Here's my Korean family. I went to Korea and saw all Koreans. I didn't see a whole lot of other people there. I was the other people. I went to Japan, I see Japanese. I was the other people. When you come to America, this land has everybody of the Earth in one place but they just haven't learned how to relate above their ethnicity, their racial identity, their cultural heritage. Why? Because you haven't come up yet into spiritual-life in Christ. There is no Jew, Greek, no male, no female all are one. Outside of Him? No. In Him. When you get in Christ. Come on the inside of His mind. Then you rise above your race, your colour, your heritage and you become one with a kindred spirit that has surrendered to God. If Jews, and Christians and Muslims can find and understand in The Torah, The Gospel and The Qur'an, that common thread that goes in all the revelations and all The Prophets and through that understanding, we can see unity in that diversity. Then, and only then, can we grow to be a part of the Family of God. In Bishop Kim and the Unification Church's language, when the children are all out of order, they really need a true parent. That's a fact -- a parent that will not tolerate the ignorance of the children. What we need are true leaders, true teachers, who become true spiritual parents of the Human Family that has gone crazy. And I submit to you as I leave you, that the only way we can become a family, a real spiritual family, is to rise-up into the worship of God and surrender ourselves to do His Will. When you do that, you will never see my colour, my hair or my lips or my eyes that are slanted, or my baldness of head -- you won't see physical impediment: you will begin to look past that to see if this is a kindred spirit in obedience to the Will of God and when you find that person, then you have found your true brother, your true sister.

 

Listen, "Jesus, your mother and your brother are outside and they wish to see you." He said, "My mother and My brother are in the Temple with Me." They said, "Master, your mother and your brother -- " He said, "My brother is he who doeth the Will of My Father."

 

When you come into the Will of God and you surrender and do His Will, we don't talk colour anymore, we don't talk national identity anymore. You don't say I'm Italian; I'm Greek; I'm Jewish; I'm Russian; I'm Polish; I'm Egyptian; I'm Arab; I'm Black; I'm bip. You say "No, I am of God." I don't say I'm a child of God. I've grown past child. I'm an active participant in bringing about the Will of God. I, too, am a god but I'm a little god. As David said, "Ye are all gods [spirit-beings], children of the most high God." So we've got to start getting up out of this child-like stage. Come into the man and woman stage in the spirit of God. Then we can say to wind, "Hold up, there's some good people here."

 

You don't have to create storms, you can stop them. We can keep the death-angel away from America but the death-angel is in America. God doesn't want any other nation to have this. This is where He is going to make Himself known. Go ahead Bill Clinton, arrest the tornado! That's a weapon of mass-destruction. Go ahead and arrest it. Arrest the wind, arrest the rain, arrest the floods. God is plaguing you, America. Ifyou don't wake up, you'll die in your ignorance. God is judging America and I don't care how much money you think you have, your money won't save you -- nothing will save you unless you say "I surrender God!"

 

Happy Birthday, my brother, and may God bless you!

 

 

Louis Farrakhan.

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