Friday Sermon by dr Rashad Khalifa Why Announce Messengership 1989 08 11
Transcript
0:14 SUBHAAN ALLAH, ALHAMDU LILLAH, WA LA ILAAHA ILLA ALLAH
0:27 ALLAH AKBAR, ALLAH AKBAR X 4
1:09 LA ILAAHA ILLA ALLAH
1:26 LA ILAAHA ILLA ALLAH
1:32 ALHAMDU LILLAAH, We praise God.
1:35 WA ASHHADU AN LA ILLAAHA ILLAA ALLAH, WAHDAHU LAA SHARIKA LAH
1:40 And we bear witness that there is no god except the one true God.
1:47 Mat was supposed to give this Khutba but he was kind enough to make an exchange with me.
1:52 So, he will give the Khutba Inshã Allah, next Friday.
1:55 And I will give it today since I'll be out of town Inshã Allah.
2:04 Also, there are some exceptional circumstances, I think,
2:08 in my opinion,
2:10 where there has been... the question has been increasingly bugging me
2:19 because it is, some of my best friends, some of the people that I love very much are asking the question
2:27 "Why announce messengership?"
2:29 "Why does Rashad say that he is messenger of God?"
2:33 And I want to deal with this question.
2:38 "Why can't we worship God alone and forget about messengers, and messengership and all this business?"
2:46 And it is a very good question.
2:50 A very important question.
2:52 But I want to start out by saying that,
2:55 when you walk through this door,
2:59 you carry a great responsibility,
3:03 you are either extremely fortunate or extremely miserable.
3:08 And hopefully, if our destiny Inshã Allah is Heaven for worshiping God alone,
3:15 we will not see any of our friends become extremely miserable.
3:19 We have to be all, we must all catch up with being extremely fortunate.
3:27 The Quran describes "the Elite of the Elite" or the extremely fortunate ones, are those who are close to Us.
3:34 When you walk in this mosque and you get this message first-hand,
3:41 there's a great responsibility that goes with it.
3:44 When you walk through this door, you are applying for the highest position in the Hereafter for eternity.
3:55 And you can just imagine the responsibility, if you think of what do we go through in this life to be an engineer or a pilot or a doctor or a lawyer.
4:09 We have to go to school. We have to spend nights up. We have to take tests.
4:14 We have to flunk a few times and struggle.
4:19 And this is for a job that will last 20 years, will last nothing, will last zero mathematically.
4:28 Cause if you compare any number divided by infinity, you have zero.
4:32 Even if you go to this university of Arizona to get a degree to be an engineer,
4:39 you get a job for a thousand years, let's say,
4:42 That's zero.
4:45 When you come here, you are applying for the best position for eternity.
4:50 Therefore, the test is not easy.
4:53 It is not easy to accomplish that test.
5:03 I don't wanna miss anything because the question is very important.
5:06 "Why make the announcement that Rashad is a messenger of God?"
5:10 "And why dwell on it?"
5:13 Well, first of all, it's not my idea.
5:17 As you know, I tried to evade it for eight years.
5:22 because it's not easy for me either.
5:25 And I did not make the announcement until I was fired.
5:29 And I was scared to death. And I cried. I cried as I never did in my life.
5:35 So, I was thrown into it, into this announcement.
5:44 "Why can't we just worship God alone and forget about the messenger, the messengership?"
5:50 "What's wrong with that?"
5:52 You see, belief in God implies believing God and what God says.
5:58 If you believe in God, and you worship God alone, this means you believe everything that God says.
6:05 And God says in the Quran, I am sending... I have angels. There are angels.
6:10 If God says there are angels and we believe in God, then we must believe that there are angels.
6:17 God says "I sent down scriptures."
6:21 And if you... if we believe in God, you believe that God sent scriptures.
6:26 And God said "He is sending messengers."
6:29 Then, you must believe what God says, that He sent messengers.
6:34 God said "I sent Moses." Then, we must believe that.
6:37 Because if we believe God, we have to believe God, what God is saying.
6:41 God said "I sent Jesus."
6:44 This means we have to believe that Jesus is a messenger of God.
6:48 And we see this in verse 285 of Sura 2:
6:53 God says "the messenger and the believers believe in God, His angels, His scriptures and His messengers."
7:02 This does not violate the principle of worshiping God alone.
7:06 On the contrary, it affirms it.
7:11 Because, if you believe...
7:12 You cannot say, I'm gonna worship God alone but I don't believe everything He says.
7:17 You have to believe what God says.
7:29 God said that Muhammad was the last prophet, the last message-bearing messenger,
7:35 but not the last messenger.
7:36 He said that. We have to believe that.
7:38 In Sura 33, verse 40, and in 33:7
7:46 In 3:81, God said that after all the prophets, God will send a messenger.
7:50 We have to believe that.
7:53 We cannot say "we're gonna worship God alone and forget about any messenger that He sends."
7:58 In fact the verses after 81 say,
8:02 "Anyone who does not accept this is out of the religion of Islam"
8:07 using that word "Submission", the word "Islam".
8:18 I want to share with you the verse 15 of Sura 49,
8:22 because it is very powerful and very straightforward dealing with this subject.
8:30 "Why does Rashad announce his messengership?"
8:34 49:15 and 16 say:
8:38 that the real believers are those who believe in God and His messenger, then have no doubt.
8:45 They have no doubt.
8:48 And God said, بِٱللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦ God and His messenger,
8:53 Therefore, it is a tremendous test.
8:58 We cannot fool God.
9:00 If there is anything in our heart, if we are not really believers, real believers, we cannot just say it with our mouth.
9:10 We cannot fool God. God will have to bring this out.
9:13 And I believe this is why God forced me to make that announcement,
9:17 because some people had to be tested.
9:21 Some people already dropped out.
9:23 They don't deserve that high position that we are all applying for.
9:28 Don't get me wrong though. It is perfectly alright to have doubts.
9:32 But you must conquer those doubts.
9:35 Verses 15 and 16 of Sura 49 say:
9:40 You are a submitter. Do not say you are a real believer, yet.
9:46 So, this means, for as long as you are a submitter, or in Arabic, Muslim, you have doubt.
9:53 Perfectly alright.
9:54 But don't let the doubts conquer you. You must conquer the doubts.
9:58 Because the verse after this says:
10:00 That the true believers are those who believe in God and His messenger and have no doubts.
10:04 I'm gonna say it in Arabic:
10:06 إِنَّمَا ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ The real believers
10:09 ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ بِٱللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَرْتَابُوا۟
10:14 Those who believe in God and His messenger, then have no doubts.
10:17 We are a family. We are one family in this mosque.
10:24 There are no strangers here.
10:27 We have been like this for a while because we went so fast that nobody, anybody who walks in here, they feel so much stranger. They cannot stand it.
10:37 So, this is why you see the same people continuously.
10:41 And until we became a family, which is in Sura 49 also.
10:45 God says the believers are a family.
10:47 إِنَّمَا ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌۭ The believers are brothers and sisters.
10:51 So we've become a family and we care. We want all of us to be at this highest position in Heaven.
11:00 Because if we come this close and drop out, we're gonna be in the most pain.
11:06 We're gonna be in the worst Hell in the Hereafter,
11:11 And being one family, we don't want any of us to do that. We don't want this to happen to any of us.
11:16 In Sura 57, I'm gonna... This is scary.
11:25 Again verses 15 and 16, same verses as in Sura 49, same number of verses,
11:34 It says "the hypocrite men and women on that day, on the day of Judgement, will tell the people in Paradise, let us look at you so we can derive some of your light."
11:49 The believers in Heaven will have the energy, the provisions,
11:57 and the believers will tell them go back and get light somewhere else.
12:04 Now, the scary verse is verse 14, excuse me, Sura 57, it says:
12:12 "They will call on them and say, were we not with you?" We were with you.
12:17 The hypocrite men and women will say to the believers, we were with you. Were we not with you?
12:23 أَلَم نَكُن مَعَكُم in Arabic. Were we not with you?
12:26 And the believers will say "yes, but you deceived yourselves,
12:35 waited," you know, dillydallied, in the colloquial English, dillydally around,
12:42 "And you had doubts,
12:46 and you were deceived by wishful thinking, until God's command came."
12:52 OK. So, can this happen to us? I mean, It has to happen, it has to happen to... to... in connection with us,
13:03 We're going to grow in the future.
13:06 And there will be hypocrite men and women who will come here, who'll be with us.
13:10 And they will ask this question on the Day of Judgment and eternity. They will say "were we not with you?"
13:14 "We came to the Quranic study with you. We came to the Friday prayer with you. We sat with you and we were friends."
13:20 And the believers will say "yes, but you had doubts."
13:25 Therefore, you must work on your doubts,
13:29 and you must conquer those doubts.
13:31 And God made it connected with God and His messenger.
13:35 And I learn from this, why the announcement.
13:38 I have seen the people who dropped out
13:42 And they were invariably the people that I have known all along that they don't belong.
13:47 And when the announcement came, the sifting process started which is very necessary.
13:56 "Why can't we just believe in God alone, worship God alone and forget about the message, the messenger, or everything else? God alone."
14:03 Satan can deceive you through that statement.
14:08 We must be wise because worshiping God alone implies believing everything God says.
14:16 And God says very clearly certain statements including:
14:22 that Muhammad would be the last prophet but not the last messenger.
14:28 that a message will come after all the prophets,
14:30 a consolidating messenger who would put the messages all together into one, present it to the world.
14:36 The Messenger of the Covenant.
14:39 And the verses after the Messenger of the Covenant are very strong and saying:
14:44 "Those who do not believe this are out of Islam."
14:47 God is saying all this.
14:49 and God spelled the name of the Messenger of the Covenant, Rashad Khalifa.
14:53 God spelled it in the Quran.
14:55 And if we are to worship God alone, we have to believe what God said.
15:01 Edip and I were talking yesterday on the index to the Quran,
15:04 which ironically was published, printed and published, one year before I was born,
15:10 and in it, the root word "Rashada" is 19 times.
15:14 And I thank God that I didn't discover that.
15:17 It wasn't me. It was Edip actually who discovered it.
15:19 First person ever.
15:21 And if you remember the Khutba, those of you, the old timers, remember the Khutba that I gave about that.
15:26 And I was thankful that I didn't discover it. I was afraid of my ego.
15:30 that I may say, it's my ego, I was looking for it. I didn't even look for... I was afraid to look for that.
15:36 So, it came from the other side of the globe.
15:46 If we want to worship God alone, we must believe everything God says.
15:50 TOOBOO ILAL ALLAH, Repent
16:09 ALHAMDU LILLAAH, We praise God
16:11 WA ASHHADU AN LA ILLAAHA ILLAA ALLAH, WAHDAHU LAA SHARIKA LAH
16:14 I'm gonna borrow this example from Edip again.
16:19 If you get ill and you go to somebody and he says "take these pills."
16:27 and you take the pills and you're healed,
16:32 and this happens again two or three times and every time he gives you some medicine, you're healed.
16:38 Then, you will make a conclusion saying "this person knows medicine."
16:43 You're gonna have doubts for some time.
16:47 You're not sure if he is a witch doctor or a real doctor or is it coincidence or what.
16:54 But if he is a certified doctor and he gives you the medicine, then, you'll have... you'll trust this person.
17:04 You don't have these doubts anymore.
17:06 And this is why God ordered the announcement.
17:14 It was... I was... I was promoting this opinion "let's worship God alone.
17:20 Spread the word in the world that we're gonna follow the word of God alone, the Quran alone and worship God alone."
17:24 Why? why the announcement?
17:27 I actually believed this for a long time.
17:29 And I remember I was talking with Ismael Barakat
17:36 Some of you who participated in the noise of the first conference in San Francisco,
17:42 and Ismael was very angry,
17:46 and he determined to ask me, point-blank, "are you a messenger of God?"
17:52 Now for eight years, I was praying to God that nobody would ask me that question, point-blank.
18:01 Some people did ask me "Are you a prophet?" And I said "Muhammad is the last prophet."
18:05 I was very clever and I avoided that for a long time.
18:09 And I was praying that nobody would ask me the question.
18:13 Now, when that noise happened in San Francisco,
18:15 and Ismael, who's gonna be here in a week or two. He is getting here very soon,
18:20 I'm gonna ask him to tell you that story
18:22 because he swears that he was determined to ask me, point-blank "are you a messenger of God?" In San Francisco.
18:30 And when that noise happened, I prayed very hard, as I never prayed before.
18:34 "Please God, don't let anybody ask me that question"
18:37 Because Susan Ray, if you remember, made an announcement and said "Rashad Khalifa is a messenger of God."
18:42 I wasn't ready for it.
18:44 And I prayed very hard.
18:46 And Ismail until today would say "I don't know how it happened, but I didn't ask that question."
18:52 So, I guess my prayer was stronger than his determination.
18:58 Because I wouldn't, I would have told him "yes" at the time.
19:02 Because I knew it for eight years.
19:04 And I evaded it for eight years. It was not my idea.
19:08 So, why? why would anybody...
19:13 I want to deal in this Khutba with the question how to overcome the doubts.
19:18 So, don't let me finish without answering the question. How can you overcome that doubt?
19:23 But before I say that, I want to explain why does the person flunk and drop out if he does not believe that Rashad Khalifa is God's messenger of the Covenant,
19:36 Or if he is annoyed by this repetition or dwelling on it.
19:42 It is not a fact in his or her mind.
19:46 And the answer is in Sura 45, verse 23
19:49 which tells us the last god that we may have besides God.
19:54 It says: "Have you seen the one whose god is his ego?"
19:58 his or her ego.
20:01 If God is saying there is a messenger after Muhammad, what does he look like? What is his qualifications?
20:08 What are his qualifications?
20:10 Is he gonna be somebody with wings?
20:13 A strange-looking person or what?
20:17 Is he gonna be a human being like us? one like us?
20:20 Maybe even a silly one.
20:22 Why are you laughing?
20:28 What would he look like?
20:30 So, why then, should we not believe God?
20:33 when he's telling them all these things and spelling the name in the Quran.
20:39 If you read appendix two of the new translation,
20:41 you'll see how much evidence there is. God does not... is not subtle. God is not subtle.
20:47 God's evidence is so powerful, it's not even funny. It's so overwhelming.
20:52 So, this helps the believers remove all doubt,
20:57 but the ego would be the only thing.
21:00 "Why? you know, why? Why does he say he is messenger of God?"
21:06 It's only the ego because the ego is there.
21:10 This is why in the beginning of the Quran, it tells you to kill your ego.
21:14 "Kill your ego."
21:15 Because this is we're applying for the highest position in the Hereafter.
21:20 Ok. How do we overcome the doubt?
21:28 What is the source of the doubt?
21:30 If you know the source, you'd know how to counter it.
21:33 That the source of the doubt is your companion, your jinn companion.
21:37 Your jinn companion is lagging behind slightly, usually slightly behind you.
21:45 You come. You look at the evidence. You look at the circumstances and as a human being, you make a decision: I believe.
21:52 But your companion is behind and he will raise those questions.
21:57 And the way to counter those doubts is to counter with questions.
22:02 You must have this debate going on in your head with your companion.
22:07 Ask him or her questions like:
22:13 What does Rashad advocate?
22:15 What is he advocating?
22:18 And debate it with your companion, your jinn.
22:21 We're all advocating the worship of God alone, upholding the word of God alone. We can't go wrong.
22:29 The Quran repeats that the only unforgivable offense in the Quran is idol worship.
22:34 Therefore, we run from idol worship as fast as we can.
22:40 And we have come to the pure worship of God alone.
22:44 We know that only God possesses all the power.
22:48 We know that.
22:50 Nobody else possesses any power.
22:52 And it's between you and God. God will heal you. God will provide for you. God will make you content and happy. Sura 54:
23:01 God is the one who controls your happiness or misery.
23:04 God is the one who controls your income.
23:06 God is the One who makes you reach or poor: وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ أَغْنَى وَأَقْنَى
23:11 God is the only one who makes you reach or poor.
23:13 Nobody else.
23:15 Not the lottery, not the person who hires you for a job, nobody.
23:20 We know that.
23:22 This is what we advocate.
23:23 So, ask your jinn companion that question: what does Rashad advocate?
23:28 Ask him: Is this wrong?
23:33 What we're doing, is it wrong to worship God alone, to uphold the word of God alone?
23:38 Should we go to the words of men?
23:44 And the Quran prohibits that.
23:47 I think I shared with you the great miracle of the word: Alone.
23:51 The word "Alone" happens in the Quran six times.
23:57 5 of them refer to God.
23:59 Worship God Alone.
24:01 And one of them refers to the Quran.
24:03 And the Sunnis and Shias and the other sects claim that that "alone" in Sura 17:45 refers to "God Alone" in the Quran.
24:15 It says "when you preach God Alone in the Quran, they run away in aversion.
24:22 which is they take the word "alone" and put it after God, instead of after the "Quran."
24:27 What it says really is "when you preach God using the "Quran alone", they don't like it, they run in aversion."
24:34 Now, if you add the Suras and the verses of the 5 references to God,
24:39 you'll have a total of 361 = 19 X 19
24:42 This is the most powerful commandment in the Quran.
24:46 And it is in the book, the index.
24:48 You just look at the Sura and the verses and they are 361.
24:52 If you add the one that refers to the Quran, you don't have anything.
24:55 The system collapses.
24:57 What does it tell us? It tells us that God says "you follow the Quran alone." And this is what we do here.
25:03 You ask your jinn companion: Is this wrong?
25:06 Number 3: you ask your jinn companion, does Rashad have any proof?
25:12 Also, what's the difference between a real messenger and a fake messenger?
25:17 The real messenger advocates the worship of God alone,
25:21 possesses proof. God gave him proof that you must have no doubt that this proves that this person is a messenger of God.
25:29 And challenge yourself and challenge your jinn companion.
25:33 What kind of proof is this? Is this real? Is it fake?
25:38 Is it solid? Is it physical evidence?
25:40 Is it through the Quran? Is it manipulation?
25:44 Or is it straightforward?
25:46 You must attack these doubts,
25:49 and end them once and for all.
25:51 The third Question: Is he making money from this? Is Rashad Khalifa making money from this?
25:56 Because this is a condition that is attached to every messenger in the Quran.
26:01 If the person is making money from the message he's advocating, there is another issue here.
26:09 The issue is business and money.
26:12 And this is why this is one of the most important questions, you must ask your jinn companion. Is he making money from this?
26:19 And unless the claimant meets all these criteria, you have to conclude he is a fake messenger.
26:27 Now, for our benefit as a family, I must tell you that I see to it
26:33 that what comes out of my pocket is more than what comes in my pocket in all this.
26:39 If I print Qurans and I spend a certain amount of money on it, and then we sell it for prices, I make sure that what I spend is more than what I get.
26:49 And I go out of my way through all kinds of painstaking efforts to do that.
26:54 So, this is... this is for our own information.
27:02 And I think this covers the whole issue.
27:03 There maybe other questions in your mind but we'll always talk about issues in the future.
27:08 AQEM AL-SALAT
27:09 ALLAH AKBAR, ALLAH AKBAR
27:11 LA ILAAHA ILLA ALLAH