[Editor�s note: The following text is taken from a message delivered Sept. 3, 2000 by The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago.]

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

In the Holy Qur�an, which is the book of scripture of the Muslims, it says, �none comes to God except as an honored servant.� Even the Master, Himself, said He did not come to be ministered unto, but He came to minister. Then He said, let him who would be greatest among you be your servant.

The scripture says Allah (God) is a jealous God. I tried to understand that because it would seem that jealousy is an emotion that speaks to a lesser being. It wouldn�t seem to me that God would be jealous. But the deeper I studied those words, it meant to me that He knows that He is the only Creator. And He knows that every good that we have came from Him, no matter who it came through. And it is not proper that we give His glory, His praise, and His honor to others who are only agents or conduits of God�s Goodness, His Greatness, His Wisdom, His Mercy, His Power, His Beneficence. So I understand the term jealousy to mean that when He says, �I, The Lord, am your God and thou shalt have no other god beside Me,� that He is telling us that whatever you have, He gave it to you. Whatever wisdom you have, it is His that you are studying. If you live in His universe, it is His. No matter what men do to praise you for what you exhibit, don�t get carried away and try to steal the glory and the honor that does not belong to you.

When god calls a servant, He wants to know do you love Him above everything else that He gives you? God doesn�t just let you say you love him. He�s going to make you prove it. To say you love Him is the first step. To know that you love Him is after He tries you. And He always tries you by what you love in order to see if you can give up what you love for Him.

He tried Adam. God didn�t ask too much of him. He just said, �eat of all these trees, but this one in the midst of the garden of the knowledge of good and evil, leave that tree alone.� You would think that if he loved God, even if he was tempted, that something in him would say, �I can�t do that because it wasn�t a prophet talking to me. It was God, Himself, talking and He gave me instructions.� When you are tested by your desires against what God has instructed, that�s how you know how much you love Him. When loving God challenges your cherished desires and you can�t give up your desire to prove your love of God, then you don�t love God like you think you do. You love your desire above the pleasure of God.

Abraham was the friend of God. But God didn�t let Abraham go just by saying he was a friend. God knew that Abraham�s wife, Sarah, had been barren so He allowed Abraham to go into Sarah�s handmaiden, Hagar. And she bore him a son; and he loved that son. But when the boy was about 13-years-old, God told Abraham to take the boy on the mountain and sacrifice him.

I don�t know about Abraham, but, I�m a father, and some of you are fathers. If you have a son that you love and God says, take him up on the mountain and sacrifice him, how would you handle that? You might say, �Wait a minute, God, I know you don�t quite mean it like that? Maybe this is a parable, so please help me to understand. But it wasn�t a parable.

Abraham took that boy up the mountain. Some reports that I have read say that Satan got to the boy before the boy went up on the mountain. Satan told the boy, �Your father isn�t talking about sacrificing a ram. It�s you that he�s going to kill up on that mountain.� The son knew, according to these reports that I read, what his father�s intention was based on the instructions from God. The son said, �if it is God�s will, it is my will.� And when the father took the dagger and was about to plunge it into the heart of that boy, God stayed Abraham�s hand. God just wanted to know, do you love anything more than you love Me?

Anything that you love more than you love God will be your trial; and it will show you that your love for God is only when God does what you want Him to do. But when God does that which is not in accord with your desires, that is when you will know if you really love Him. Abraham passed that test. And Abraham and his son were a sign�a sign of The Father and a Son Who would sacrifice his life on Calvary, in willing obedience to God.

All of us have come through this life, whether we are young or older, and somewhere along the line we have been propositioned and we had to make a tough decision: Should I obey God or should I obey man? Should I follow my desire or lust? Do you remember the story about Saul, who was told by Prophet Samuel that he (Saul) was to go and kill all the people in a certain town? The people there were enemies of God. He told King Saul to go and slaughter them�men, women, children, animals�but don�t take anything.  And when we drive Him to that point, He will kill men, women, and children; kill you all the way into your seed. God is a terrible God when His anger is kindled against a people who provoke Him with their willful rebellion to His laws and statutes and commandments.

When Saul went out there, the men fought and they won. But Saul�s men took some of the women; they took some of the gold; they took some of the animals, and then Saul made excuses. Whenever you want to do what you want to do, you always find a rationale for your rebellion. But you are playing with something very dangerous when you rationalize disobedience to God.

Saul was rationalizing and the prophet told him that �obedience is better than sacrifice.� Obedience is the highest form of sacrifice because when you obey God, you subordinate your desires and wants in order to please God. There was not one time that you can find where Jesus disobeyed the Father. Jesus said, �whatsoever the Father commands me to do, that I do. Whatsoever I hear, that I speak.�

Think about a human being that is so in love with God that it didn�t make any difference what God told him to do, he would be found doing it. It didn�t make any difference what God told him to say, he would be found saying it. And even though he wanted the cup (of death) passed away from him, if the cup, no matter how bitter, was what God wanted him to drink, he said he would drink from the cup. That is love, and that�s why Jesus said that the first commandment and the greatest commandment is that you love God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. God wants it all. The question we have to ask is, does He deserve it all? But who else deserves obedience and love more than He who created everything and put us in His creation as part of His creation and then makes us a master of His creation.

And the second commandment is like unto it. You should love your neighbor as you love yourself. On these two hang all the law and the prophets. Paul, in his talk to the Corinthians, said, �though I speak with the tongue of angels, if I have not love, I�m like tinkling symbols and sounding brass.� He said, �though I give my body to be burned, if I have not love, I am nothing.� The greatest thing that you and I could do is to give our minds and our hearts to God in obedience to His instructions. That is what determines how strong is your love.

We are all gathered in this place (church) because we believe in Jesus and believe in His word. That�s the first step, but that�s not the whole journey. What�s the second step? What�s the third step? We walk not by sight but by faith because you can�t see where this road is going. A man told Jesus he wanted to follow him. Jesus told the man, �if any man (or woman) would be my disciple, you must first deny yourself.� Second, pick up your cross. That means every follower of Jesus Christ has a cross to bear. There is something in us that we have to deny because He that we�re following was perfect. And then Jesus said, �be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.� When he pronounced the word �BE,� it was already set in motion that the forces of Heaven and Earth would work to purify the church, to purify the people that one day we would be perfect, but it starts with self-denial.

If any one of us wants to come to Jesus, or the Christ, that�s the road we have to travel. He�s not going to change the road. That�s been the road from Adam, Abraham, all the way through. If you can�t deny yourself to obey God, then you are an unworthy servant of God. And you will never be as successful as you could be if you got yourself out of the way.

For example, our ego gets involved. People cheer you. You get happy when you preach. This can make you drunk. This can make you think it�s you doing something. But the scriptures say, �not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit.� If the spirit of God is not involved, then you will not be able to transform the lives of the people. And if you do God�s work like the Master did it, somebody is going to malign you. Somebody is going to speak evil of you. Somebody is going to plot on you. Somebody is going to promote rebellion in the church against you. Somebody will always be busy doing something, but you�ve got to stay steady on the course.

In His sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that men shall revile you, persecute you, say all manner of evil against you falsely for His Namesake. But then He said �rejoice, be exceedingly glad. So did the prophets that were before you. Great is your reward in heaven.�