None of us who are privileged to write columns, in this great newspaper,
can ever express all that we would like to state in any one article. Such is
often the case with my article. So I placed comments on that article on my
website, for those interested in further study. You must subscribe, however,
to access it.
The following excerpt is from a volume of the twenty-five volume set, of
"The Expositor�s Bible," which was edited by the Reverend W. Robertson Nicoll,
copyrighted 1903. The volume containing this excerpt is The Gospel of St.
John, by Marcus Dods, D.D. It reads:
"Is God to be kept out of all reality? Is He merely to look on, to see how
His creatures will manage, how this and that man will bear himself
heroically, but Himself a mere name, a lay figure crowned but otiose, doing
nothing to merit His crown, doing nothing to warrant the worship of untold
worlds, commanding others to peril themselves and put all to the proof, but
Himself well out of range of all risk, of all conflict, of all tragedy?
"How can we hope to love a God we remove to a throne remote and exalted,
from which He looks down on human life, and cannot look on it as we do from
the inside! Is God to be only a dramatist, who arranges thrilling situations
for others to pass through, and assigns to each the part he is to play, but
Himself has no real interests at stake and no actual entrance into the world
of feeling, of hope, of trial?
"And if a Divine Person were in the course of things to come into this
human world, to enter into our actual experiences, and feel and bear the
actual strain that we bear, it is obvious He must come incognito�not
distinguished by such marks as would bring the world to His feet, and make an
ordinary human life and ordinary human trials impossible to Him.
"When sovereigns wish to ascertain for themselves how their subjects live,
they do not proclaim their approach and send in advance an army of
protection, provision, and display; they do not demand to be met by the
authorities of each town, and to be received by artificial, stereotyped
addresses, and to be led from one striking sight to another and from one
comfortable palace to another: but they leave their robes of state behind
them, they send no messenger in advance, and they mix as one of the crowd
with the crowd, exposed to whatever abuse may be going, and living for the
time on the same terms as the rank and file.
"This has been done often in sport, sometimes as a matter of policy or of
interest, but never as the serious method of understanding and lifting the
general habits and life of the people. Christ came among us, not as a kind of
Divine adventure to break the tedium of eternal glory, nor merely to make
personal observations on His own account, but as the requisite and only means
available for bringing the fullness of Divine help into practical contact
with mankind.
"But as all filth and squalor are hidden away in the slums from the senses
of the king, so that if he is to penetrate into the burrows of the criminal
classes and see the wretchedness of the poor, he must do it incognito, so if
Christ sought to bring Divine mercy and might within reach of the vilest, He
must visit their haunts and make Himself acquainted with their habits.
"It is also obvious that such a Person would concern Himself not with art
or literature, not with inventions and discoveries, not even with politics
and government and social problems, but with that which underlies all these
and for which all these exist�with human character and human conduct, with
man�s relations to God. It is with the very root of human life He concerns
Himself.
"The sufferings of Christ, then, were mainly inward, and were the
necessary result of His perfect sympathy with men."
Although scholars, such as the one I�ve just quoted, have in mind the
Jesus of thousand years ago, most of this excerpt more appropriately
fits�with far greater force�Master Fard Muhammad.
Master Fard Muhammad came here incognito. This also touches the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, but in different
ways.
A major key to understanding these applications can be found in a
Saviour�s Day talk of 1954 by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in which he
indicated the coming of Minister Farrakhan, whom he would not see until the
next year.
He said: "There has been lots of different and contrary teachings
concerning the Bible�s teachings of Jesus and Jerusalem (Palestine).
"I want to help you to clear your own self of that misunderstanding as God
Almighty Allah has revealed it to me. They have mixed our brother
intertwining the history of Jesus of 2,000 years ago with that of the history
or prophesy of what they called the coming of the Messiah and what we say the
coming of the Mahdi.
"They have taken and mixed these two prophecies or these two histories
together. And also you will find in that same history of the Bible some
portions of it dealing with the Messenger of the Mahdi instead of dealing
directly with the Jesus of 2,000 years ago. Therefore, today it is such
confused history that you cannot understand it without divine guidance.
"What you are looking for or rather what you think that has happened is
now happening in this day."
Let�s enter this limited discussion through a brief commentary on the
meaning of three words, that appear on the front cover of the fifth (in the
order that we received them) written Lesson left to us by the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad.
It�s an important Lesson. This Lesson, called by the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad, The Problem Book, (although it�s untitled) is composed of
approximately 45% of the total number of words that compose these six
Lessons.
These three words are "thorough," "knowledge" and "mathematical." By
Allah�s help I�ll get to their definitions next issue.
Meanwhile, two movies that are instructive are "Needful Things" and
"Amadeus." "Needful Things" is an excellent portrayal of the devastating
effects of slander. It further provides insight into the methods of how evil
is spread surreptitiously with the mouth and in such manner so that
slanderers are able to hide, until discovered.
"Amadeus" excellently portrays that one-hundred % evil: envy.
The six articles that I wrote in 1993 on pain�s value�inspired by Minister
Farrakhan�s defense of his teacher�s domestic life�are available on my
website.
Master Fard Muhammad has a rash on His right hand that won�t completely
heal until we are delivered and in power. Nothing makes the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad happier than to see us working in love and unity. Likewise, Minister
Farrakhan has said, "You will know when I am healing when you see the
Believers working."
Help: If anyone knows how to reach a Sister, whom I last knew under the
name of Sister Ida Bell, please tell her to contact me via my website, as I
have important information for her. She helped me with the typing of the
final draft of "This Is The One," back in 1971.
More next issue, Allah willing.