Who is your Lord? by Dr. Bilal Philips

you hamdu lillahi rabbil aalameen for salat wa salam ala rasulina kareem whiner and he was hobby womanist and a bassoon neti he in IO Medina all praises due to align me allows peace and blessings beyond the last prophet muhammad sallallaahu i they were seldom and on all those who follow the path of righteousness until the last day the topic who is your Lord addresses the issue as to whether belief is really enough is it enough just to say we believe our Lord is Allah or do we have to have a sufficient level of knowledge to justify that claim because we have a hadith narrated by a number of companions among them al bara bin azib anna sydney malik abu huraira and others who narrated from the Prophet sallallahu wasallam that after a person dies and he enters into the bars AHA that is the spirit world a world from which he cannot come back a world which prevents him from contacting those who are living when he enters into that world Allah causes him to hear the footsteps of those who walk away after his Barry oh and he will be sat up by two angels jet black in color with bright blue eyes and they will ask him manra book who is your Lord Rama Deena and what was your religion woman abhi uke and who was your prophet these three questions tonight the topic of this lecture is manra book who was your Lord if the answer was simple as simple as we might want to look at it right now we everybody here can say Allah but if it were really that simple then for these two angels munkar and nakir to ask us that and this is the beginning of the trials of the grave of the state of the grave then the question that they would ask would be meaningless so obviously understanding what our Lord really is in this life so that we'll be able to answer that question in the next life it's critical because those questions that are coming up with us in the next life they are not like the examinations that we have in this life where if you get fifty percent you pass no this is the beginning of the trials of the grave those who knew who their Lord was in this life and knew what their religion was and who their prophet really was they will answer with ease and the state of the grave will become a garden from the gardens of paradise for them whereas those who aren't able to answer because they really didn't know who their Lord was in this life the Prophet SAW Salim said they will only be able to say ah I don't really know when they're asked what was their religion even though culturally where they were considered to be Muslims but in fact they really weren't their answer will only be ah and who was their prophet because they didn't understand who muhammad sallah volumes and them really was he had no meaning in their lives so when they're asked who their prophet was they will only be able to say ah so we must come to grips with this reality knowledge of whom our Lord is is the foundation of our faith how can we believe in our Lord if we don't know who he is furthermore we have in the 12th chapter of the Quran verse 1:06 a severe warning a grave warning in which Allah so Allah says o my you may know aksaram billahi Allah WA whom mushrikuna most of those who claim to believe in Allah worship others besides him they're pagans idol worshipers but they claim to believe in Allah so it means that this issue of who our Lord is is quite detailed there are details of it that we must be clear on otherwise we can end up like others Christians who believe that their Lord is Jesus they address him as dear Lord Jesus and they believe that he is God and he and God the Father are one yet he was born yet according to them he died that is their belief and others Buddhists and Hindus and others believe in God but their belief in God is so distorted that they end up worshipping idols while claiming to believe in God so tonight I'm going to raise for you some questions by which you can use to judge to what degree do you know who your Lord is the first question do you agree with those who say that belief is a matter of blind faith do you agree with those who say that belief belief in God is a matter of blind faith you can't prove it it's just either you believe or you don't believe if you agree then you don't know who your Lord is if you are asked the question if everything has a creator then who created God and you scratch your head hmm I really don't know then you don't know who your Lord is if somebody said to you if God can do anything we believe God can do anything why can't he have a son and if we scratch our heads again and say I think he could have a son but he decided not to then we don't know who our Lord is and if somebody puts the idea to us that if God is all-powerful can he create a stone which is too heavy for him to lift and our head spins and we don't know what to say if we said he can then need something greater than him if we say that he can't then it means he can't do everything what's the answer if we were there we don't know who our Lord is if somebody raises the big question if God is Allgood and he's able to do all things then where did evil come from if our answer is human beings they're the ones that made the evil and Satan he made the evil then we don't know who our Lord is now these questions require an answer so that you don't walk away from the lecture tonight and say we came to learn about Islam and dr. Bulow confused us he left us confused so that you don't walk away that way I'm going to give you the answers but this is only an introduction to understand where we need to be because if these questions are unclear to us truly we don't know who our Lord is and it means that we will be open to false Dawa false calls to other than Islam to miss guidance we will be sub septa Belize false ideas and fall into them because we didn't know who our Lord was so let us go back to number one is belief in God a matter of blind faith no it is not this is the claim that the atheists make those who deny the existence of God belief in God is a matter of blind faith whereas our disbelief in God is logical it's reasonable it makes sense we can't see him we can't smell him we can't touch him therefore it doesn't exist that is reasonable that is logical as for your belief in this unseen God this is illogical well we say who were those who recorded the rules of logic who were the first people in history that we know about who wrote down the rules of logic if a equals B and B equals C then a must equal C who wrote those rules down the Greeks and the most famous philosophers amongst the Greeks Plato and Aristotle they be both believed in God both Plato and Aristotle argued logically for the existence of God so we say belief in God is in fact logical and reasonable and it is the disbelief in God which is illogical and unreasonable it's the other way around it's the disbelievers in God whose disbelief is blade based on blind faith belief in God is logical reasonable natural disbelief in God is unnatural that is why the vast majority of human beings in the world throughout history have believed in God those who denied God's existence are a minut number that's why in the Quran when the Quran addresses belief in God it doesn't begin from those who don't believe in God's existence there are few verses which address them but the vast majority of verses address those who already believe in God but they have a confused idea about who God really is so if we look at the argument of those philosophers the Greek philosophers first among them Plato Plato's argument for God's existence is the same basic argument we find throughout the Quran that argument is primarily that design indicates a designer design indicates a designer what does that mean it means that if we go walking on the beach and we see a footprint in the sand we don't stop to think and to wonder how amazing it is that the tide came ashore sunk into the sand and made the impression of a footprint that could happen but do we think that no when we see that footprint what automatically comes to our mind is somebody stepped here that's number one automatically that's common sense it is illogical and unreasonable to assume that that footprint was a product of chance though all we can say it is not totally impossible but that is not what comes to our minds our reasoning powers tells us otherwise however those who deny God's existence this is their argument it's possible it's by accident our very existence here is a product of a huge accident a huge accident which began with the Big Bang the Big Bang the Big Bang which X was an explosion of matter compressed in a very small point of course those who talk about this don't explain where the matter came from in the first place but they start from this point of matter exploding and this huge explosion produced you and I complex human beings from a massive explosion however all of our common sense tells us that explosions produce destruction not construction explosions are not constructive they don't produce results that are meaningful they are chaotic they create chaos not order so if we are to believe as they claim that this huge Big Bang created us think for a moment if somebody were to take an atomic bomb and drop it in a junkyard the junkyard where you have bits and pieces of old cars you can buy spare parts the junkyard you drop an atomic bomb in the junkyard and it explodes like Hiroshima and Nagasaki massive explosion and when the cloud settles we see in front of us a Rolls Royce engine purring door open you just have to step in and drive away what do you think are the chances of that happening we say zero those who think logically and reasonably they say zero but for the illogical atheists they say no it's possible if you drop enough atomic bombs and enough junkyards eventually one time we'll get a Rolls Royce coming out of there it's possible so we say what kind of logic is that what kind of reason is that a person with any degree of common sense will tell you the billionth time that you drop that bomb is no bit different from the first time you drop the bomb the chances of it happening are zero so the Atheist turns to the mathematician and he asks the mathematician what are the possibilities of this happening can you give me a formula for that so the mathematician tells them well its chances of this happening is one to the minus billion zeroes with a 1 at the end of it he says ah there is that one chance the mathematician said a billion zeros with a one at the end of it there is the chance we say to him please this is mathematics does mathematics define 100% the real world - yes mathematics is supreme it tells us the realities we say no it doesn't mathematics is an approximation that we have placed as human beings on this world and we calculate and it works to a great degree so we depend on it however it is not 100% because according to mathematics think about this according to mathematics if I were to walk out of here through that door over there a hundred meters away I will never be able to reach the door according to mathematics I will never be able to reach the door why because 100 meters when I walk towards the door I must walk through the 50 meter Midway right after I walk through the 50 meter Midway then I must walk through the 25 meter midway between the door and the 50 meters right and after I go through the 25 meter Midway I must go through the 12 point 5 meter Midway and after the 12 point 5 meter Midway I must go through the 6 point and then the three-point and then and then and you can keep dividing on your computer and never reach zero zero is the door that's mathematics according to mathematics you will never reach zero you can keep dividing infinitely so what does that mean we go to doors all the time we go through them all the time that's the real world but according to mathematics we never go through the door so one to the minus billion zeroes with a one forget it that means zero no chance it's not going to ever happen these atheists usually give another example they say okay if you put a hundred monkeys in a cage and you give them a hundred Arabic typewriters and let them of course with Newton with paper you have to put paper in it typewriters right let them beat away at the keys with their elbows their heads their feet knees jumping up and down everything eventually one of them will type out the whole Quran for you the whole Quran from Fatiha to nos what do you think about that possibility zero no the F you said no it's possible if you give them enough time eventually one of them will do it we say illogical unreasonable doesn't really make sense so belief in God as Plato argued is necessary for us to understand the design that we see in the world around us in his time before the time of Christ he saw just gross elements of design since then science has gone into the atoms it's gone into the heavens it's gone all over the world and everywhere that science goes it finds design every snowflake which falls has a design different from every other snowflake every grain of sand on the beach has a form different from every other grain of sand this design this form was not a product of accident accident may produce design one time may on a limited scale but design everywhere that you look in the universe no that is unreasonable that is unreasonable on the other hand Aristotle argued that if the creator had a creator who had a creator who had a creator who had a creator and we keep going back infinitely to infinity then there is no way to explain how we got here because if the origins are in infinity that's the same as saying there are no origins without an origin we cannot be here our very existence is proof that things began at one point and it was begun by one who was not himself a part of that same process creation were he a part of that process then he would have been be need of a creator would have been in need of a creator and so on and so forth so no beginning that was our stock use argument and that is the reality if we define God as one without a beginning to ask who created him is ludicrous any question which involves God doing ungodly things doing things which make him no longer God these are ridiculous and ludicrous questions so once we said God is without beginning and he is without end to ask can God be born can God die these are ludicrous who have already said he has no beginning and no end similarly the question if God is able to do all things can he create a stone which is too heavy for him to lift that is ludicrous because it implies that there would be something greater than God so you don't ask the question in the first place because it is a ludicrous question now the question with regards to evil that is a more precise question which is important for us to understand if we said that evil was created by human beings and Satan then we fall in the realm of those who believe in more than one God more than one creator like the Zoroastrians of Iran of Persia the parsy's who believe in a God of good Ahura Mazda and a God of evil and remind you because they didn't want to assign evil to God they gave the creation of evil to Satan elevated to the status of God Allah tells us very clearly in the Quran wahoooo Holika coonley che he is the creator of everything nothing takes place in his creation except by his permission so who created evil where did evil come from it came by the permission of God it came from God God permitted it to take place so what does that mean do we have an evil God here no God is good and every evil incident which takes place has behind it an element of good for which God permitted that evil to take place as they say every cloud has a silver lining the silver lining this is the good that is behind the cloud this is what is illustrated in the story of Moses and Heather surah al-kahf which were supposed to read and reflect on every Friday in it al Hader seeks to learn from our seeks to teach prophet Moses some of the knowledge which Allah had revealed to him and Moses promised to be patient with so that he could learn properly from him he and Moses cross the river in a boat the boats man kindly took them across when they reached the other side and the moats man walked away and hither took an axe and broke a hole in the boat prophet Moses was aghast he said why did you do this this is not a good thing and hinder told him didn't I tell you you weren't going to be able to be patient in order to learn from me really he said oh sorry then he nature explained to him that after they left there was a tyrant coming down the river a ruler who was a tyrant who was snatching the boats of everyone all of the boats that were more that the shores of the river he was capturing them all and of course when he came to that broken boat he said oh don't need that one it's got a hole in it and he went on and took the others and the owner of the boat of course when he came back to his boat and he saw the hole in it first he would have said ah what a horrible thing and somebody made a hole in my boat who would have done such an evil thing but then when the tyrant came and left his boat what did he say then alhamdulillah there was a hole in my boat turned around what he thought was evil turned out to be a good thing and how many times in our lives have we had not experienced things similar I remember there was an article in the newspapers from Egypt where it showed a picture of a young man standing with his father kissing him on the right cheek and his wife kissing him on the left cheek and he had both thumbs up and he had this huge smile on his face I read the article the article said that this young man was about to board a plane in Egypt the last flight going to Bahrain he was a teacher in Bahrain and he was to catch the very last Gulf Air flight flying back to Bahrain if he missed the flight then he would lose his job so when he rushed to the airport the previous morning with his bags all packed he rushed through we got his tickets everything he went to immigration and the immigration officer as he opened his passport looking at the various stamps he said you're missing one stamp once them so all the stamps are here he said no there is one stem missing oh no he's shattered can I get some money can you take 100 pounds again no you can't get on this flight you're missing one stamp he's crying my job he falls on his knees begging the man please let me man said no way he finally gets up shattered going home meeting his family everybody crying he was the one who was working in Bahrain earning money which was coming back benefiting the whole family then the next morning in the newspapers the news came that flight that Gulf Air flight crashed no survivors so the next evening edition of the paper you saw him there thumbs up big grin happy what he thought was a calamity half a day ago turned out to be a mercy he was very happy about it and that's life isn't it we find many many examples like that in our lives where something seems to be evil and we find out shortly or sometime later that in fact it was a good thing that's one example of good and evil there's another example of good and evil where you can't figure it out evil happens and you can't see the good that's in it and that was in the story of Moses and Heather after they left where the boat was they went along the shore and he came across Heather came across a boy a boy about eleven years old and he grabbed the boy's head and he tore it off he tore the boy's head off Moses were shocked how could you kill this innocent child a child who hasn't even reached puberty is not held accountable how can you do this Heather told Moses didn't I tell you you wouldn't be patient oh sorry sorry sorry anyway he went on to explain to him that the parents of this boy were too righteous people who this boy would grow up to create such a trial for that it would drive them to the verge edge of disbelief he would make their lives a living hell so Allah instructed Kidder to take the boy's life of course in the case of the parents when they saw their son decapitated dead they would have been shocked it would have been hurt Allah gave them another child a girl who loved them stayed close to them etc and they appreciated that but they would always remain that hole in their hearts for this son was murdered and it would not be until the day of judgement when they stood before God and the truth about everything was revealed to them they would realize then it was a good thing some things are like that and we can see an example of this with our own children where the first time you take your child to the dentist before you take the child you build him up you tell him how nice the dentist is he's a good man he likes you he's going to give you a lollipop whatever so the kid is happy to go see the dentist then when he gets in the chair and the dentist takes out that big needle kid is looking at this needle and he takes it and he sticks it in his mouth and the kid screams then he pulls out this drill and he starts digging it into his teeth a kid is bawling tears are running down his face and when he leaves with his father at the end of all that she says dad you said he was a good man he's a bad man he's not a good man he's a bad man and of course the next time you have to take him to the dentist he's going to be fighting you tooth and nail he won't allow you to take him he'll be kicking fighting screaming you tried to explain to him listen son what the dentist did was to remove a greater pain that could come the little pain that he did to you was to prevent a bigger pain bad teeth root canal all these other things that can come out of it you think your son can understand that no all he can understand is the pain that the dentist did to him all of that explanations way above his head can't see it that's how it is things we can't see the good behind some people assume there is no good and so they fall into atheism this is the common disease that happens to some people who haven't understood God and how God operates in human life so when tragedy occurs in their life they fall apart and the only conclusion they can come to is that there can't possibly be a God you see people like Dawkins professor Dawkins in the UK considered the genius mathematical genius wrote about the world and time basically a defense of atheism arguing why there is no God if you see him he is a shriveled up individual in a wheelchair who can hardly move anything his eyelids that's it so what happened when he was in his prime he was 18 years old mathematical genius in Oxford and Cambridge he was stricken by a disease which affected his spinal cord and he slowly just shriveled up so when he came to India and he came to India traveled around India and he saw all of these billion Indians most of whom had little or no education living lives healthy while he who has so much to offer the world is shriveled up he said there can't be a god this is just not fair why shouldn't I have a healthy body and one of these millions be shriveled up that makes more sense he couldn't accept his state so it led him to disbelief in God and this is what you hear at the bottom of the statements of many atheists when you ask them how did you become an atheist why are you an atheist that's how you were listen I had this aunt she was a wonderful person she used to do so many good things for everybody used to come and visit me and take me to the park and take me here and there and give me money and ice cream and everything and then one day when we are walking across the street a truck came hitter and why she was a good person why should she be killed like that there's so many other bad people who were walking around they're fine they're not dead why is she dead he doesn't have an explanation so where does he go there can't be a god this stuff is just happening anyhow anyway so this kind of understanding misunderstanding leads to disbelief in God itself when a person doesn't know their Lord there is a further question which I would like to raise for you and that is the statement of those who say God created this world and left it to run by itself he's not involved it's too insignificant he just created it and left it to run by itself they accept there's got to be a God so they are what they call deists they believe in the existence of God but they don't believe that God conveyed his word to humankind no they say that's fairy tales there's so many religions around the world everyone claims that he's right they're all wrong they're all made up by human beings of course the possibility that one is right and the rest are all wrong he doesn't reflect on that one he just sees all of them claiming to be right and they have different teachings therefore he can only conclude they all must be wrong so if one accepts that then of course he also doesn't know who his Lord is he said he believes in God but he doesn't know who God is because common sense tells us practical common sense tells us that if a man set up a factory and he put an advertisement in the paper for people to come and work in his factory and he hired all of these people and then on the day when the fact she was supposed to begin operations they all came down to the factory and he didn't tell them what they were there for what was their individual jobs and they walked into the factory what do you think they're going to do is each one going to go and find his place in the factory and slot in and just be working and the factory is just humming and working well or is he going to go to the canteen where there is tea being served sit down with his friends and chopped until somebody comes along and tells him what he's supposed to be doing here if nobody told him what do you think would happen to that company it would be a resounding success or a stupendous failure it would have been a failure of course and what would we say about a businessman who did that we'd say he is an idiot he is a fool he's dumb stupid unwise we have a whole string of terms for him all of them indicating foolish now if we can accept that with regards to a company what about the world and what about the God who created this world for us to say he didn't tell us what we're supposed to do here is to make him like the owner of that company he is the most wise as a law describes him in the Quran or arsenal hacky mean a camel hacking in the most wise of the wise one of his name's is al Hakim the absolute wise so wisdom demands that he would inform human beings of their purpose on this earth beginning with the first human beings they would be informed why they are here that's what wisdom demands we accepted in our own lives for sure on the scale of God who is all-wise it is beyond him it is beneath him to have created this world and not informed people what their purpose is so true belief in God where one knows who one's Lord is requires the belief that God sends messengers carrying his message to humankind informing them of their purpose here that is without a doubt absolutely necessary belief in God requires that we believe in him sending messengers with the message that he wanted to convey to humankind so in the end we know that God's message was create was sent to the first human beings referred to as Adam and Eve that message which was sent was in fact Islam we can say that the religion of Adam and Eve was Islam while a Christian cannot say it was Christianity nor can a Jew say it was Judaism nor can a Buddhist say it was Buddhism but we can say it was Islam because Islam means submission to the will of God which encompasses all of the messages which were sent by the prophets of God to humankind submission to the will of God there is only one God and he created only one race of human beings I know people say no there's different races there's the race there's the negroid race there's the Caucasian race and so on no this is nonsense there is only one race the human race won the proof of that Allah left amongst us where if a man from the quote-unquote Caucasian race from the north from Norway whiter than white blond hair and blue eyes he needs a transfusion and his blood type is o-negative his family is all positive their blood can't save his life but another man from south india blacker than black whose blood is all negative can save him so what is that saying who is closer to him his own family who looked like him or that person from South India who seems to be the total opposite of him these are the signs which Allah left amongst us to remind us that we are one human race and as such God revealed to that human race one religion he did not reveal a bunch of different religions there by confusing human beings no he only revealed one religion human beings changed it and he would send more prophets and they would change it again and he would send more prophets but all the time it was one message as Allah said voila hot bath Nephi Coolio Martin rasoolallah a near a Buddha law which tena Bhutto who I've sent to every nation to every people a messenger calling them to worship Allah alone and to avoid the worship of false gods one God one human race one religion Islam that is the message that I wanted to share with you tonight knowledge of who our Lord is takes us ultimately to knowledge of Islam so as we need to go back and understand who our Lord is by reading the Quran Ramadan is around the corner and it's the month dedicated to the Quran as Allah explained it was the month in which the Quran was revealed so we dedicate our time to reading the Quran but we should read it with understanding read it and reflect on its meanings not read it as a ritual so that we fall into the category about which Allah said affiliated at beroun al-quran amalaki Lubin a fatwa will they not reflect on the meanings of the Quran or are their hearts locked up sealed let us not be among those with sealed hearts in this month of Ramadan before us let us open our hearts to the Quran and read it with understanding and come to know who our Lord is because at least the third of the Quran is dedicated to explaining who is our Lord and that is why surah la classe surah and a class all who along I had a lot of summer lamb yell it will amulet well M me hakuna who who for one I had this surah this chapter as small as it is the Prophet SAW Salim said one who reads it as read a third of the Quan because that surah is dedicated to explaining who our Lord is on who Allah a HOD say he is a law the uniquely one Allah who summit the one who depends on nothing and all depends on him le'me Aled he does not give birth Wellum you lad nor was he born well um me Akula khufu one ad and there is nothing similar to him so i ask allah to let us walk away tonight with a renewed desire to want to know islam and to know who our lord is and to implement that knowledge in our lives so that this nation this nation of the maldives can rise again and be counted among the nations of this world that have contributed have contributed to human civilization it is with Islam that we will achieve that without it we never will Baraka lava comes robbery khumba rahmatullah wa barakato the bacon mana bake the bakelite sharika laka labbayk as i said he gonna gonna bake bake a-bake sherry gonna gonna bake

Channel: Digital Mimbar

Views: 94,988

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Keywords: islam, bilal, philips, greek, plato, aristotle, logic, logical, design, creator, reason, crational, big, bang, evolution, darwin, theory, theories, hance, possible, mathematics, lecture, science, philosophy, athens, allah, god, is, belief, enough, athiest, agnostic, random, universe, radical, violent, vengeful, hate, mercy, compassion, love

Id: ww9ORhhrGyA

Length: 61min 17sec (3677 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 12 2009