(Reprinted from the Muslim Journal 7-25-08 to 9-19-08)

Religion and Business
Imam W. Deen Mohammed

We greet you with Peace. Peace be unto all of you, As Salaam Alaikum. We live in the best times, perhaps, ever on this planet earth. I know in man's history, this is the best time ever. Jesus and Muhammed, the Prophets, peace be on both of them, pointed to this time. They said that much greater things would happen in the times ahead.

They did not say the greatest things were happening in their time. They pointed to the future. Now we have come to that future. There is a saying that can be applied to many kinds of situations in our family life and public life and especially in this time where man is connected all over the planet earth.

TIME POINTED TO BY JESUS AND MUHAMMED

There was a time when man did not know that man was living in another place. If you were in the Old World before the New World was discovered, they thought that was all the world. They thought they already were connected with all the people; they did not know about people all over the world.

Now we have been connected all over and are living in the time of a global community. Man has finally come to be one global community connected with human beings like himself all around the world. This is the first time this ever happened in history.

Do you think the Servants of Allah, Allah's Prophets, didn't know about this time coming? Yes, they did. They knew the time was to come when people would be connected all over the world. They knew when that time came, it was time for man to be like he was in the beginning.

How was man in the beginning? In the beginning, before man made his world over G-d's Creation, we were supported by the natural world. As we progressed in our separate nations and countries and places, we got more and more out of the nature that G-d created and more out of the natural world and more under or in man's world.

EXACT SCIENCE DEPENDS on G-D's CREATION

Man's world grew with the help of science that expresses itself out of nature or through nature. You cannot have the science of anything, unless you first respect nature as Allah made it. If you don't, you will have no science. They call it objectivity and other names or that you take the subject who is doing the work out of the subject matter.

If you want to develop a science of any particular area or matter, you have to study what Allah created and respect it and don't deviate from what it says. If you let your own self come into it and influence it, you will never arrive at the exact science.

That alone should give us the respect for G-d and what G-d has revealed. You cannot advance yourself but so far, without respecting the order of matter and the order of nature established by "Creator." If you don't believe in Creator, then it is that which was established before you touched it. You don't have to believe in Creator.

But just know you couldn't get anything, until you respected the world and its nature in its state and composition and under its laws, etc., before you came into the picture - before you touched it. This is in Qur'an.

SAME G-D MADE HUMAN SPIRIT

Science is telling us now, and we are getting it by the way of the news media, but it is coming from science and religion, that we are living in a time now when science and religion are coming together, are compatible. The Same G-d that made the material world from which we get the scientific disciplines is the G-d that also made human spirit.

He established that spiritual life upon a logic. He created that spiritual life to one day wake up to His Plan and have insight into things, so that he can guide his life in accordance to G-d's Plan for mankind, for all people on this planet earth.

If he does that, just as science opened up great treasures and changed the world so it is so much more convenient and comfortable for us now, likewise for the spiritual realm, the spiritual life.

MODERN DAY MIRACLES

If you obey the logic established by the Creator, established by G-d Allah, and respect that logic and use it as your tool to improve upon spiritual understanding and advance your spiritual vision for the future, you will have in the spiritual realm the miracles we have in the material realm.

These are miracles. Some will say, "No. The miracle was walking on water." You can walk on water all day long now, and no one will pay attention to you in this modern scientific world. No one has time to waste watching you walk on water.

They want to see a ship sailing on water with materials coming out of the earth coming to market. Now you can get their attention.

"Oh, G-d parted the Red Sea. That was a miracle." Yes, the water went out and they walked on dry land. I have been over there, and believe me they have earth movers now in industry that can go and change the whole waterway.

They can dig it out, pour dirt in it, close it up and open it up somewhere. They can change the whole geography in that area.

The Scriptures say the wind blew all night long. We have wind blowers that are powerful in industry. They can turn them on the Red Sea at that point, and you will see dry land. They will blow all of that water out of there.

Those miracles of the past are not miracles now. The miracle now is that as suicidal as man is, he has survived his own deficiencies. He has opened up so many wonderful opportunities for human beings.

G-d says in the Qur'an, the Book of the Muslims, and in the Bible, the Book of the Christians, that He put man in the Garden and made everything in man's surroundings useful to him.

He told man that this is for you to use. The fish in the sea and whatever grows out of the land, and the Qur'an adds, even what is up in the sky — the sun moon and stars - were all made to serve man.

Back then, man was traveling on the high seas and oceans and using the stars to help him find his location and keep it and follow the direction for his point of destination.

This is ancient knowledge for the use of the stars. But look now how we know the composition of the planets and the objects high above in the space far away from us. We know out there are the same elements we have here - copper, iron, zinc and on and on.

The creation is similar; the same elements we have on earth are also out in space. Creation is similar, and man knew long ago by G-d's Plan - yes, G-d planned this — that small meteors or objects would fall from space, some would burn up before they hit the ground and others were so big they would hit the ground and be burnt but not burned up.

G-D SENT DOWN THE IRON

They found that there was iron in them. There is a reference to this actual thing that happened back then, and it may happen again. In the Qur'an, it says, "G-d sent down iron for mighty war." Man would increase his power as a war maker, fighting wars using swords of iron.

Man did not start out using iron or metals. He started out using his fists. He then saw a limb broke off and if handy, he learned how to make a club out of wood. I'm sure he wanted mahogany wood, if he could get it. But if it were a soft wood, he would use that. Finally, he was able to make iron tools for peace and iron tools for war.

These are the things we should progress on. Now I want to tell you something that should make you believe in something bigger than man. I don't care what you call it. But you should believe in something more powerful than man, more helpful than man.

NEED FOR SOMETHING MORE POWERFUL, MORE HELPUL THAN MAN

Although the world has advanced, it is still having a lot of trouble. So we still need something more powerful than man and more helpful than man. We are always going to need G-d; the more we progress, the more we will need Him.

Look how hopeless our leadership looks. The earth looks the same to me. We planted flowers and they look the same as they did 25 years ago. But our leadership is deficient.

I want to bring this to your mind and tell you that the great scientists of this world are on the same level that you are, when it comes to asking this question that I am going to ask: Where does time start and stop? Science has not answered it and will never be able to answer it.

To have time, you have to have something in motion. And to have something in motion, you have to have space. Where does space start and stop?

G-d, The Creator, made the man and put the man on earth in some space. Then He told him of the great future that He planned for that man.

He said, "Everything that you see in existence, I made it to serve you." Man did alright when the "you" as G-d used it included all human beings that would come from that man or that time in generations. It included all the people of the world.

SEDUCED BY THE SERPENT

But he was seduced by the Serpent, or The Satan in his raw picture, to think independently, to not fear something bigger than he is, to not fear something that made all things exist and made him exist to utilize or get help from all things.

He stopped thinking like that and fearing to disobey or doing something wrong. He was put in the figure of a serpent but it wasn't like the serpent that would bit you and you get to the doctor fast enough and it may never affect you anymore. This Serpent, if it bits you, you will be suffering forever or until you find G-d again.

I am asking you where does space start and stop. They can map Chicago or map the earth. They can map the solar system. But eventually, they will get out so far, they cannot map the Universe. There is no map to say it is the map of the Universe. They will never have it.

Another question about space: If you have an idea of where space runs out, what is on the other side? The Great Creator on the Holy Pages of our Book says, "Observe the skies and those things you see up there. They appear to you to be held in space without any structures holding them up."

WHAT IS REAL?

Why does G-d speak to man and to woman in that way? It is to tell us, "I want to help you, for the material objects have caused you to believe in
them. You think they are real. You say of them, 'That's the truth; that is real.'" And G-d wants to change the way you think.

He says, "Even that that you think is real and is supposed to follow some kind of reasoning that you respect, then explain how these big objects are up there?"

The farther an object is away, the likelihood is that it is huge in size but the smaller it looks in our eyes. An airplane up high will look like you can put it in your hand. But the closer it gets to you, the bigger it gets.

Your eyes cannot see size correctly, unless you are close up to the thing you are trying to get some idea of or have some reasoning about. G-d is telling us that those things that you have faith in, you don't know everything about it.

Some smart ones who went to school are saying, "We know what holds those things up." Yes, from the great pioneers of science, you were given theories. But theory is not necessarily fact. Theory in the material world is like faith in the spiritual world.

FAITH SUPPORTED BY CREATION

Our faith is not based upon nothing, speaking for all religious people, no matter what religion they belong to. Our faith is not without support. We came into faith as mankind with a history on the planet because the material creation suggested that there is a Designer behind this.

The thinkers who thought into the world they were looking at came to the conclusion that these things are not here by accident. There is a logic supporting it; there is a design supporting it; and there is a message coming from it to the heart and mind of man who thinks deep.

It is serving him and advancing his thinking and taking him into great fields for the future. Spiritually, they were able to see that. They came to the conclusion that this world had a Maker, and they called that Maker "Creator, Lord, G-d," by many names in History for G-d.

It all means that He is the Unknowable. You can't know Him like a chicken laying an egg. You can only know Him in part, not in His Totality. He is too big to be digested or taken into the small confines of the human mind, thought and reason.

We only take in as much as we can chew or see and understand. And that is a
very small amount, when it comes to seeing G-d.

THE SERVANT NOT GREATER THAN THE MASTER

Even the greatest ones that we thought associated with G-d on earth or that "G-d was in this man." What did Jesus Christ say, "The servant is not greater than the Master."

The Qur'an, speaking in the same line of reasoning, says, "Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, speaks and says (speaking to G-d), "You know what is in my seu7soul, but I know not what is in Your Self."

You who are familiar with the Qur'an know that reading. Even Jesus Christ, the one they say is one in Trinity or one in Three, a "tripodal" figure, called a god along with G-d, the Holy Ghost, even he says the son is not as big as or greater than the Master, that the Master is Greater than the servant.

The Qur'an comes 600 years later almost, and it is revealed to Muhammed through the Angel Jibril and to all human beings now who want to be followers of the Qur'an and believers as Muslims and followers of the Prophet, says that Jesus Christ said: "You know what is in my soul/self, but I know not what is in Your Self."

Jesus is limited as a human person, just like all of you. But I think some of you are still hung up on a "man god." When I was a young boy, before I got into my teens, there was no way I could understand how a man could be god. I never believed in that.

Some say, "You grew up in the Nation of Islam. You are your father's son." But a lot of you never believed in that either, and you were of no kin, no blood except by humanity and race. Don't lie to me; you didn't believe it either. I will open your eyes, if I have to come in and pull up your eyelids.

MUST UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ACCEPT

I always wanted to understand what I accepted. I said to myself as a child, "A man a god? How did he get here? He was born a baby like everybody else? He poopooed on himself? He let water out on himself? He cried for someone to feed him? He had to wait for someone to come and wash him up? Is that god?"

I said, "Good G-d Almighty!" As my Grandfather would say, "Great balls of fire! That is surprising." That is disrespecting G-d, to say that He came here as a baby, poopooing on Himself and waiting on mommie to give him some milk. I am not saving something I shouldn't be saying and shaking up the world of something that it put together. Not now.

If you notice, those things that use to suggest superstitions and spookism, this modern world of global connections put all of those things out of sight. You can hardly find it.

It used to be all over our neighborhoods, and almost all of my friends who were Christians had something in their homes to spook somebody up. But it is all being pulled back and done away with.

SUPERSTITIONS ROLLED UP LIKE SCROLL

It is in Scriptures, in the Bible and Qur'an, saying, "The sky as you know it shall be rolled up as a scroll, made obsolete," of no more value. They take the scroll and put it away, and it will stay there. A scroll's value is for future study, research, to learn what happened back then. Then they pull it out. But as for the practical need on earth today, it is put away. It is of no use.

That is the time we are living in now. When those things were unreal and contributing to the insanity of the preachers - yes, the insanity of the preachers.

You can be functioning as an insane person and be sane in your natural ability, until you pick up insanity and believe it to be reality. Then you come across as an insane person.

You can come back to the real world and perform carpentry and brick laying and perform as a sane person. But as soon as you pick up that scripture that you can't understand, you begin functioning as an insane person.

Isn't that what we see in the politics of today, like somebody drinking strong drinks and getting tipsy and losing their rational balance and speaking in tongues and shaking and hollering and carrying on?

PAUL ON THE HOLY GHOST

"He is making mockery of the spirit in the church, of the Holy Ghost." Paul said that he could not deal with the Holy Ghost. He said those speaking in tongues can't translate it. He said he'd rather edify, have a picture in mind and build up a text, a speech or presentation built up with a base, putting material upon material.

He said first you have to have a base, and it has to be real, have a logic and be rational. Then you can put other materials on top of that. As long as you edify, that is you continue to build upon that structure. And you respect the reasoning or logic established in the base. When you add a line to it, that line also respects the logic in the base. And then the whole thing is rational and understood by the human mind.
Now you have a structure of logic upon logic. This is what Paul pointed to as needed.

THE REAL HOLY GHOST

If the Holy Ghost could do something for us, our neighborhoods would be bustling with all kinds of life and production. But that is not the case. Our home life wouldn't be as bad as it is, if the Holy Ghost could do that — the Holy Ghost as we understand it.

The Real Holy Ghost is not a big drink of wine and go tipsy in religion, I mean big ideas that make you go heels over head. The Real Holy Ghost is nothing but Divine Inspiration. It inspires your heart, your brain, your feelings, your soul. Inspiration can affect us in all of our best places within us — Inspiration from G-d, the Creator.

The Prophets of old were inspired and called Seers, for they could see what the average person couldn't see. They looked at the heavens and earth and how the seasons changed and the movement of wind and studied all of those things.

They came to the conclusion that all of those things were the Handiwork of a Being that we could depend on, if we obeyed His Laws, His Way. They were inspired to come to that conclusion.

Some may have fallen out and fainted, but I am sure they woke up without a hang over. But if you wake up and want another fix, you have a hang over.

Instead of wanting another fix, take what you have and go out and fix the neighborhood, fix the families. You have something now strong enough to bring people away from foolishness to serious business.

This is no time to be wanting to pass out again. But you will get someone to work you up into a spell. When he knows he is pushing your emotional button, he is going to stay right there, until he gets you to faint, to pass out. That is the preacher who is preaching for a big offering.

THE GOOD PREACHER

We have other preachers who did not come there to get money. They came to serve G-d. They came there to work the field of intelligence and compassion and to produce more people to do more positive things for their own families and their neighborhoods and for the world. They will talk to you in a sobering voice and won't try to make you faint.

Some preachers may think I am trying to hurt them. But I love them more than they love themselves. If they loved themselves as much as I love them, they would stop bathing in the water and splashing water all around. Then you dress up and go to work for The Man and make a few dollars.

Then you come back home and get in the pool again and splash around and pass out in the water. Someone has to pull you out before you drown.

You wouldn't be doing that, if you loved yourself as much as I love you. So I say I love you more than you love yourself. I don't mine hurting your feelings, if it is going to make your life better and take misery out of your life and free your life to go forward and progress in the world.

I don't mine you saying, "I don't like him." I don't mine you saying, "I don't support him." I don't mine you saying, "I don't believe him." That is OK. I am going to still work with you and I'm not going to give up on you. I am not the only one. We have a lot of good people who are not going to give up on our people who are lost from the Plan of G-d.

SPACE NEEDS RESPECT

I started off with space. Space needs respect, and it depends on what space you are in for the amount of respect demanded of you. The more serious and important the happenings in the space you occupy, the more you are going to have to raise your level of respect.

Man was first put into the Garden. It was not a place bad for him; it was a place good for him. He didn't have sin speaking to him from all around and everywhere. He had cleanliness and righteousness and obedience to the Plan of G-d speaking to him from all around. But the Seducer came up to him.

This is at the beginning. The generations had not come into existence yet. This was a regular place or a paradise for the original father, Adam, and his wife.

It was suggested to him that he not follow his behavior that he had naturally, that he should question that behavior with his own independent mind and thinking. And it was suggested to him that what he believed to be a restriction is not really a restriction.

"You are afraid to work on your own and work for a better future and have more in your possession. No, G-d didn't intend for you to do that. You don't really die, when you break the law that you believe to be His Law. Your eyes come open."

THE EVIL SUGGESTER

This is the Evil Suggester, who is seducing the man out of his best mental form, his best social form, his best moral form. He says, "Your eyes will come open, and you will be like G-d and the Angels living forever. You won't die."

The man thought he would die if he submitted to sin, and the Serpent suggested to him that he wouldn't die. That he would just come into a new way of thinking and doing things and be like G-d and the Angels, creating and having power above the norm, above the natural expectations.

The Serpent is telling him that. Why is he called "Serpent? Serpent has no hair. Serpent has no legs. Serpent has no feet. But the Serpent moves pretty fast, with no feet and no legs. How is he moving? He is moving with his skin. What is the skin symbolic of and represents in our life? It is that that feels.

If you want to understand what the picture language is saying, it is: Man moves by feet and legs; left and right, he moves. But here is something that moves by skin.

What is it suggesting to the mind? That if man would move by feeling, he can move faster in certain situations than if he traveled with his legs. You can't run with the physical body and get there as fast as if you would just following your feelings.

Your feelings are searching for the destination. The Serpent is coming into the man through his skin, through his feelings. And feelings are very suggestive and will not always take you to the right conclusion. Man cannot arrive at the destiny that G-d wants him to arrive at on this planet earth following feelings.

"FEELING" YOUR WAY CAN MISLEAD YOU

Feelings for the pure at heart is a big help. But for the person wanting to take over, feelings will take you to hell. In the place that is sacred, you follow your best nature and you won't go wrong. Your behavior will be good there. There was no problem in the Garden, until man was seduced by his own intelligence.

We call it Satan, because it is not working now to please G-d. It is not seeking what G-d approves of. It is now seeking to advance the person. The motive is selfish; the intent is selfish; what you are looking for is selfish.

He, Adam, never said, "Let me talk to Eve about this, and let's see what the two of us conclude." He acted arbitrarily, completely on his own, as if there were no other authority but him.

That picture of problems for humanity in the Garden before the generations were multiplied is telling us that if you want to succeed in this life on this earth, whether a poor person selling fire wood or the person dominating the
scene, whether you are the boss and everyone comes to you for answers, if you want to be successful and advancing on this planet earth, making progress and surviving the temptations so you will have something down the road, you have to act as if you are not alone.

DON'T ACT ARBITRARILY

Don't make important decisions on your own. Don't act arbitrarily, as though there is one judge and you are that judge. We know nations have matured and societies have matured and have learned that no matter how smart one individual is, if they want real progress and to have a bigger future, they have to establish some democratic order, democratic process — establish shura baynahum, if they are to be successful down the road.

BORN IN HEAVEN FROM YOUR MOTHER'S WOMB

The whole Garden that G-d is talking about is inside your soul. When He creates you from your mother, born from your mother and you don't know anything, the one thing we do know is that you have no criminal behavior.

When it says that man is born in heaven, it means that you are created in the confines of your mother's body. And when the Lord, Himself, designed that temple and the interior, all of it, as long as you are in that temple, you can do no wrong.

When you come out as a product from that temple, you have no criminal behavior and no criminal attitudes. You are ready to be shaped into a beautiful person. That is G-d's "people making," your mother's body.

But when you come out into the world of man, who has already been seduced by his own serpent inside of his own nervous system, or inside of his spiritual body, he messed the world up.

TWO KINDS OF CRIMINAL

You come and get under those influences, pretty soon you might be a criminal. You don't have to be a criminal under the law. Any time you love funk more than you love decency, you are a criminal.

You are killing the hope for us having the Garden. You are corrupting the space that should be kept clean and decent. So you are a criminal already.

There is more than one kind of criminal. There are two kinds. There is the criminal in front of the judge and there is the criminal that offends decency.

When you offend the standards for decency, and have no conscious and no hurt in doing it and grow to enjoy being hasty and have nasty behavior, you are the criminal in a decent society.

Nature supports us having that beautiful decent life. The human nature that G-d gave us, that is first in us, supports us having that kind of security -security from evil, security from violence from each other, security from indecency that may come from each other or from ourselves. You have a virtual paradise on earth, if you respect it.

The message that this picture of paradise that G-d gave us, if it reaches you and you respect it, you can have that right now in your home. You'll say, "Oh, the children. We can't handle them." But you could handle them when you first got them. Take the ones you can't handle now, and put them in a detention home and start all over again and protect what you give birth to.

If the TV is making bad behavior for your children and making them disrupt your life at home, then don't let the TV come on. Or when it comes on, you be right there and make sure it is a nature series or education channel. We can defeat this thing.

When G-d said that He put the man on the earth and made him responsible, it doesn't only go for that time - in the beginning. It says, "As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end." You still have the ability to be responsible for the space you occupy.

And now you have help. Don't act arbitrarily like Adam did and lose your future to the Serpent. Consult other decent people, other right minded people like yourself. Work with them and get help from them, from their intelligence and their brain. Let them help you with your life and you help them with their lives.

When Jesus said, "Wash you each other's feet," he was talking to 12 that represents the whole world. There are 12 hours of the day and 12 hours of the night. Twelve represents the world of the spiritual, and it represents the world of the rational.

FISHERMEN OF MEN

It says in the Bible, "Follow me to land and I will make you fishermen of 'men,'" not of fish. A fish is spiritual in nature and moves upon spiritual influence only. It goes in the water, going from one thing it sees to the next. If that is not what it wants, it flips its head to something else showing in the water. And it keeps going on reflexes like that.

That is the spiritual body that can only have good life in the spiritual realm described as water. He said, "Follow me. I will lead you to land. And I will lead you to become fishermen of men." I will lead you to become fishermen of persons who are not given to reflex actions, who are not limited by impulse. They have rational minds.

Jesus Christ, like Abraham, was a person of rational faith, not just spiritual faith. And he wanted to take them inland and start a new order with them — a people who had respect and love for the spiritual. He wanted to lead them in the land, and he was going to start a New World Order.

And he did start a New World Order with them. If you don't think they accomplished something great for the material world, tell me who gets the credit for the advances we have made as a great Nation of the United States of America? Atheists? No. Communists? Church people? Yes!

A G-D FEARING NATION

The Church people have supported our Nation and supported our leaders in government and have supported them till now. And they have had to respect a Christian, G-d fearing public or population. They have served that population. And the scientists and political figures, all of them, have respected the religious nature of this citizenry and they have done wonders for them.

They are religious people identifying with us in faith. And look at the great Sign from G-d: The Marxist, the Communists. They eliminated G-d and removed G-d from their ideology and wouldn't allow people to practice their religion in the public. How long did they live with that kind of government? I will answer it for you; it was for 70 years, and then they collapsed.

Now the Muslims go to the Mosque publicly and have their religion practiced. Christians came out of their confinements, when the government of the Soviet Union changed. They came out and resumed their religious practices.

They opened the church doors of the cathedrals that were still around. And it was sudden, like over night when the permission was given - in five to 10 hours, it was like the whole 70 years of a picture of Communist rule over religion was gone, and religion was back.

THEY TOOK G-D OUT of THEIR PLAN

They took G-d out of their plan for material and social advancement. And they only lived for 70 years. America lived to become the only Super Power. Was it because America was more decent? Not necessarily so. It was not that America was more decent, but that America recognized that there was An Authority over man.

Let me bring us down to our situation. I am a parent at home, and I'm speaking for all of us. I have two children; one goes out and drinks and smokes weed and may take such strong drugs, that I have to go get him out of the hospital and try to help him out.

But that one, who is sinning and having all the girlfriends he wants and everything else, or the girl who is having all the boyfriends she wants and everything else; we have come to a time when it is just "heads or tails." So whenever I see that child, the child still respects me. He is even half drunk or half drugged, but he is happy to see his momma or daddy.

Now the other child is not drinking, no weed and has only one wife, and no girlfriends. But he says, "I don't have a father or a mother." Which one will your heart go out to? That is the answer you will see, when you want to know why G-d kept America and let Russia or the Soviet Union fall.

GOODNESS IS ON THE RISE

Some months or year ago, I said, "Goodness is on the rise." Now look at the proof: Barack Obama. Goodness is on the rise. Here is a man who made himself known about one year ago at the Democratic Convention. They are so impressed with him, because he is so clean and straight. Look where he is now.

If he loses everything from here on and gets no more support, and someone else gets in the White House, what he has done to sensitize African Americans, Hispanics, poor Whites, rich people, everybody high and low, cannot be erased or removed. Allah has enthused into the human world a power pack of energy for renewing this whole planet.

Whether you want it or not, you are going to get better because of the rise of Barack Obama. Whether you want it or not, you are going to become a better human being. No body will have to force you. You are going to become that just because of your being in touch as a human being with feelings. You have already been touched by him, and that is going to grow and grow.

Think about it. Think of how your children behaved before Obama was seen rising in the sky of the high Nation of the United States of America. Before he was seen rising and no acknowledgement of him, as it is now he is supported by different races with their money backing him, reflect back on the spirit and behavior of your children, before that.

Already there is a change for the better. Your children are more sensible and respect good sense now. Your children have started to grow anew under the new sun that is shining on the whole world from the United States of America - Barack Obama.

You say, "Oh, you are lifting him up too high." No, I am not. Allah has lifted him up that high. Isn't that what Scripture says: As the one man is falling who thought he could go it on his own, making decisions by himself, brought all of us down and causing all of us to lose sight on G-d's Plan in our lives, so will one man coming back into his innocent nature, and speaking from and acting from his innocent nature, can cause all of us to rise again.

LIFTED UP ON INNOCENCE

That is what Allah says. That is what G-d said in the Bible. It is the same thing. Jesus Christ, speaking from his innocence, said, "Lift me up, and I will draw all men unto me." The Books are saying the same thing, if we know how to see the likeness, the similarities.

Scripture is much more valuable than any one of us think it is, more valuable than the average preacher thinks it is. Scripture has brought us to this progress that we are realizing in the world right now.

Before the Qur'an was revealed, the Church was under darkness. The Synagogue was under darkness. And when the Qur'an came, as it began to be preached or read publicly and lived and shown the way to follow it as demonstrated in the life of Muhammed the Prophet, when that occurred the dark world of churches got an interest in this new thing that was happening.

THE RENAISSANCE STARTED IN SPAIN

In Spain, they studied together - Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders. We are talking about facts. Those groups who were there in Spain were the ones who led what is called the Renaissance. They are the ones who led the West back into scientific research and industry. The West had given up on it.

Women were oppressed during that time and did not have rights or freedoms. They were treated as the servant of the male, servants of their husbands. That was their value.

One Scripture said, "Let not the voice of the woman be heard in the congregation." I am giving you the exact wording, and I will not say what Scripture.

That meant she could not be heard in the public; if she wanted to be heard, she had to go home and talk privately. But all of that has been overcome. And what society has that been overcome in? It is in the Christian society, not in the Atheist or Communist society or Marxist society.

It is in a society of believers that has been overcome and by believers who claim faith in G-d and have a respect for Scripture. That should be proof that what came from G-d has been better for man, than what man comes up with alone or by himself. As man tries to be a dictator or one person judge, a one man rule, it did not happen that way.

I want you to look at these things. If you think you know it all, don't forget the first questions I asked of you in the beginning. How come those with G-d's Word are the societies that are rulers right now? The others are under the society of the people of faith.

G-D INSPIRES PERSEVERENCE

It is because G-d inspires a sincere person or person He knows will be a good consequence for His Plan to seek and never lose faith, to search and never give up, to persevere in spite of dark weather, threatening weather.

They persevere, hold the line, keep their hands on the stern and go straight through the storm that is warning of death and destruction. They don't believe it. They say, "G-d says go forward. G-d says take this direction." They don't care what happens.

The vehicle can turn upside down in a wreck, but they are saved. So they get out and keep going in that direction on foot, in the same direction. They will keep going, until they find a situation to make another vehicle. Then they will get another vehicle and keep going forward, keep going.

Such persons are pushed into the future with help from G-d, so that they have faith. They already have been told by G-d's Word what is going to be the conclusion. So they don't care what comes up, saying that there is going to be a different conclusion.

"AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING"

They believe in G-d and hold to the conclusion G-d has given them. They say, "As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end." Innocence started the world, and innocence will get it started again.

You may think things are lost and may never come back. But if innocence ever gets in the picture, and it starts to rise, it is going to draw all men unto it. So we have language in Christian theology that means the end; you are looking at what you believe is going to be the conclusion of all of these things.

But G-d has revealed the conclusion of all these things. So tell me, Brother and Sister Muslims, what is more important for us? What we are and where we are now? Or what we will be and where we will be later?

Understand this. Religion has a light on the Path of Life, that gives men vision, if they recognize that Light, and it takes us into the future. And when the end comes, those who did not get it from G-d are going to be lost and think the end of the world is here.

But those who got the information from G-d on how His Plan works in man's life and in man's world to conclude matters, from the East to the West to the North to the South, all around the globe, it is going to happen.

"As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end." There was a man in a circumstance, and that circumstance looked as if it were the whole of reality. Now, here is a Nation in a circumstance, and that circumstance looks as if it is the whole of reality.

But just as G-d was going to move that man from his own private paradise and make him fit one day to share the paradise with all the people on this earth, so it is today.

Peace be unto you, As Salaam Alaikum.