The Honorable Elijah Muhammad has said that one man can save a city. Such a very rare man is the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. He has been empowered to save America and then some.

This is the concluding excerpt from "Closing The Gap, Part Two," which features that wisdom.

"Brother Jabril: Your words remind me of what I used to say to those who were catching hell unjustly from others. I said, �I�d rather be the wood than the sandpaper.�

"Brother Minister Farrakhan: Right. Some people are your teachers and they don�t even know it. They�re like sand paper and you�re like the piece of wood that God wants to smooth out. So He sends some rough riders into our life.

"Well, it�s rough going through it now, if you were a piece of wood and the sand paper was rubbing on you. Well, you wouldn�t like that too well. But, the more the sand paper rubs, the more sand comes off the sand paper and it can�t do you any further harm. �Grin and bear it,� the old saying goes, and thank God for it, and you will come out the winner."

Here are pointers that can help us in this increasingly difficult and dangerous time�the most troublous times since life began in space.

Consider these words from the Muhammad Ali translation of the Holy Qur�an. Also see these verses in other translations as well.

"They [the Believers] rejoice for Allah�s favour and (His) grace, and that Allah wastes not the reward of the believers." 3:170

"Surely Allah allows not the work of mischief-makers to thrive." 10:81

"Whoever does good, whether male or female, and is a believer, We shall certainly make him live a good life, and We shall certainly give them their reward for the best of what they did." 16:97

Consider the word, "consider," in a "Farrakhan: The Traveler" article, I wrote eight years ago, (Vol. 12; No. 13 - May 10, 1993).

"The word �consider� means: to think carefully about, especially in order to make a decision. It means to contemplate or to ponder. It means to regard with respect or thoughtfulness; to view attentively; to scrutinize. It means to think deliberately or carefully; to reflect with care. So, let us consider some of the implications of the tremendous work/service performed by the Honorable Louis Farrakhan in clearing the name of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Let us remember, he cleared his teacher of very serious charges, which were fundamental to the fall of the Nation of Islam, immediately after his (the Honorable Elijah Muhammad�s) departure in 1975."

Consider the following. One day the Honorable Elijah Muhammad asked me to look carefully around the room in which we were sitting. We were in his living room.

He then said, "Brother nothing in this room is the way it was originally found in nature." He went on to make the point that to make these things that were in the room, to serve us, man had to put it through a process to make it serviceable.

He went on to say, "Allah loves us but He cannot use us [in His future kingdom] as He first (and/or His word) finds us." There was more that he said that relates to Minister Farrakhan�s work today.

Consider this. In the building of a house, that which is to go into it, is measured. It goes through a preparation for its place in the final structure. If the wood and other materials that go into the building of a house had feelings, the process would be painful.

After the items are measured, what�s not useful must be cut off, hammered off, and put into a particular shape for use.

In a Muhammad Speaks article, (Volume 10; Number 6; October 23, 1970) the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote these words:

"We have been eating the bread of affliction and suffering the poisonous bites of our white slave-master. It has caused actual death to our proper way of thinking. The natural brain of the Black slave is poisoned and cannot think for itself."

Three paragraphs later he ended that article with these words:

"Regardless, to how much I cry in their midst, they are poisoned and mentally dead."

In an article titled "The Self-Haters!" (Volume 11; Number 18; January 14, 1972) the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote:

"It is clear that the Black people in America are the most awful SELF-HATERS on the planet earth. They are the most evil, envious and jealous people. The Black people in America are the greatest self-murderers and self-killers. They are the greatest lovers of the open enemy on the planet earth.

"What the Muslims are faced with today�while trying to make unity� the Muslims are faced with murders and killers from among our own Black Brothers."

To what extent does self-righteousness, envy and jealousy, blind ambition, the desire to rise at the expense of others, which gives rise to a particular kind of anger or rage, occupy much of the composition of our current problems, including hypocrisy?

Slander causes unnatural division. Disunity invites murder. This will earn the slanderer Allah�s wrath. See Holy Qur�an chapters 104, and 113-114.

Poisoned and improper thinking, which results in the mistreatment of self and others, must be discarded today.

In The Final Call, Volume 12; Number 14; May 24, 1993 I wrote:

"One of the most prominent figures, or persons, described in the scriptures is the Honorable Louis Farrakhan. His birth, character, commission, message, work, success, and prominence are given in several accounts throughout the scriptures. So is his place, in relation to God Almighty, His Christ, and others. His person and work was written of, or represented, portrayed, narrated, marked out�in vivid detail, in several instances�and can be explained, in such a way, and to such a degree, that any honest examination of Minister Farrakhan, in the light of the scriptures, should convince any fair minded person that he is just who the Honorable Elijah Muhammad clearly ... identified him to be: of whom I am but one of a growing number of witnesses."

Minister Farrakhan has made us better since 1972, by Allah�s power. But have we cooperated enough with him, and his Backers, to be ready in time for the harvest?

A major purpose of Minister Farrakhan�s work of preparing us to be accepted by Allah, is to strip away from us that which is unnatural, even though we have grown accustomed to the unnatural and have come to think that the unnatural is natural and part of our real selves.

Envy, jealousy, slander, back biting is unnatural.

Read Holy Qur�an 5:54-55. How well do we Muslims fit the description of these verses, of those who have the greatest chance to see the best part of the Hereafter?

The Holy Qur�an, 4:88 warns against being divided with respect to hypocrites.

The above are brief comments on Revelation 11:1 that could not get into last week�s article.

Use your concordance to study the word "long-suffering."

After Minister Farrakhan comes the chastisement of Allah!

Please visit my website. It�s www.writtentestimony.com." Download six articles I wrote on pain in 1993.

More next issue, Allah willing.