 Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. We praise Allah, we seek His aid and we ask for His forgiveness. We seek His protection from the evil of ourselves and from the evil of our actions. Praise be to Allah, who has brought the hearts together today, today on this auspicious day of Juma, literally a day of gathering. Just as He brought us together on that primordial day of the primordial day of the Covenant, Yomul Mithak. On that day, Allah asked us, Alastubi Rabbikum, am I not your Lord? And we testified, bella indeed you are. This gathering then is a reminder of that past gathering and it's a warning of the upcoming gathering that is of Yomul Qiyamah, the day of judgment. When we will all be brought together to be questioned whether we remain faithful to that original covenant or whether we were faithless. To be faithless in this covenant, to fall short in this covenant means nothing less than to be sinful and to disobey Allah because this constitutes reneging on our acknowledgement of Allah's Lordship. And yet, despite this serious consequence, committing acts of sin, whether they be sins of the tongue, sins of the feet, sins of the hands, sins of negligence, they can often come easily to us. Sometimes we just aren't too interested in hearing or learning about which acts are commanded and which are prohibited. Sometimes our desires and our ego can overwhelm us. Sometimes it's just we have strong habits and strong habits are hard to break. And yet, at the same time, Allah warns us of sinning habitually because this leaves a stain on our hearts. As Allah says to Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, kalla bal rana ala kulubihimma kanu yaksiboon. Nay, rather rust grew on their hearts because of what they used to do, meaning of evil deeds. And Sayyidina Abu Huraira narrates that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said about this verse, Verily, if Allah's slave commits a sin, a black dot appears on his heart. If he then stops, seeks forgiveness and repents, his heart then is polished clean. And so he continues, but if he comes back to the sin, if he repeats the sin, this black dot on his heart, it will continue to grow until it covers the entirety of his heart. And this is the rust that Allah speaks of in the ayah. And then beyond this, there's another greater consequence that comes from having rust grow on our hearts and from our hearts being blackened because Allah says in the next verse, after warning us of the rust on the hearts, he says, Verily, they will be on that day most certainly veiled from their Lord. And so if we consider the serious consequences of sin then, what are we to do if we find ourselves in this precarious position of habitual sin? And if we think about this, Allah has already told us in this ayah, but very subtly, he's only implied it because if the consequence of sin is being veiled from witnessing Allah's Lordship, then the means to seeking sin is the opposite of that, is to know and recognize Allah. If sinfulness and disobedience means that we are being faithless to Allah's covenant when we acknowledge his Lordship, then by coming to know and recognize Allah as our Lord and our Master, we shall renew that primordial covenant and thereby increase our faith and thereby distance ourselves from disobedience. Indeed, if someone knows Allah, how can they ever commit acts of sin? When they realize that sin means disobedience and disobedience means disobeying Allah. Allah says, You were dead matter, you were made from clay, you were nothing. Then he gave you life, but then he will bring you to die and then he will revive you and then to him you will return. Allah says, It is he who created for you all that is on the earth. He says, He says, And so we realize from these verses that Allah has subjugated all of creation to us out of his wisdom and to honor us because as he says, Allah's special gift to us that by which he ennobled us is inflect. It's a gift, a gift that he did not afford anyone else or anything else in his creation. And so just as eagles were given talons and they were meant to use those talons to hunt and horses were given hooves and they were meant to use those hooves to gallop and canter. Trees were given branches in order to give shade to others. Allah gave us what? He gave us intellect and he made it a means by which he subjugated creation to us. And so all those other weaknesses that we seem to have in terms of strength because we lack the strength of lions for example or we lack the weapons of other animals like talons or hooves. All these weaknesses, they're remedied by our intellect because now we can use our intellect to create things to build things, to innovate. We build homes for shelter and warmth and we build cars for ships and transport and it's only possible through the divine gift of intellect. Because of this, because this entire world has been put into palms of rahans through this divine gift of intellect, Sayyidina Ali, radiAllahu anhu his report to have said, تحسب أنك أجل من صغيره وفيك أنت والعالم الأكبره. He said, you deem yourself an insignificant object yet in you lies the macrocosm, the greatest universe. And if we reflect on these favors of Allah, on these blessings of Allah, then the only thing then that we can ask ourselves is which of these favors of our Lord then do we deny? أَكُلُكُوا لِهَذَ وَاَسْتَكْفَرْ اللَّهَ لِيْبَلَكُمْ رِسَاءِرْ مَسْلِمِينَ فَاَسْتَكْفِرُوا إِنَّهُ وَالْغَفُورَ الرَّحِيمَ بِسْمِ اللَّهُ وَالْحَمْدُ اللَّهِ وَسْلَاتُ وَالْسَلَمُ عَلَى رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلْلَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْبَسْلَمْ Allah says in his noble book, in his noble Quran, when describing the creation of Adam al-Islam, he says, اِنْ نِجَاعَ عِلُونْ فِي الْأَرْبِ خَلِفَةَ I am placing on your Earth a representative and this means mankind. Us being made representatives of Allah on His Earth, the only reason that you're able to do it as the ayah indicates is because of our intellect. The purpose of our intellect is to set things in balance to be divine agents in the world, خُلَثَةَ. And so what we need to realize is what we see, our intellect, our reason and our mind being used to nowadays, when it's being used to serve our own vain desires, when we see brilliant intellects in Silicon Valley, putting their minds to use by stealing people's attention and cropping their eyes through giving us unrelenting ads. Or if we think about those people in the Pentagon who use their minds and their intellect to rob other countries, other national resources, or those in Hollywood who invent all new forms of ugly, vile and indecent behavior, this constitutes abusing this divine gift of intellect by only bringing harm and suffering onto Allah's creatures all the while forgetting Allah's promised punishment. Allah tells us in the Quran as well, إن الله يعمركم أن تعد الأمانات إلى أهلها وإذا حكمتم بين الناس أن تحكموا بالعدل إن الله نعما يعيدكم به. He says, Allah commands you to deliver trusts to their owners. And if you judge between people that you judge with justice, excellent is what Allah advises you to do. And Allah also tells us in another verse وَزِنُوا بِلْكَسْتَاسِ الْمَسْتَقِيمِ way according to the balance scale. What is this balance scale? Allah says, or one of the interpretations of this balance scale that we're given by our scholars is that it's the sharia, it's the law that we've been given, Allah's rulings, his commandments and his prohibitions. And so because these prohibitions are meant to measure for us and waive for us, we understand from this Allah's rulings are not merely arbitrary and random. His rulings balance the scales of justice by setting things in their proper place and by giving everyone who is due a right the right that they are due. If Allah commands us to deliver trusts onto their deserving owners, how will we know who is deserving unless Allah has given us the scale and this yardstick, this measure I wish to know? If we were asked to be Khalifa to Allah, God's representatives on the earth, doesn't this presuppose that we know Allah's will, meaning what pleases him and what displeases him? This then is the ultimate purpose of Allah's rulings, his sharia. It's meant to help us fulfill our humanity, to aid us in our sacred trust in being Allah's representatives on this earth. His commandments and his prohibitions are not just restrictions on our freedom and on our desires, but they're meant as a refinement for our souls so that we may desire to fulfill our covenant with Allah and be free to pursue the very reason that we were created. The gravity of sin and disobedience is that we will end up neglecting this cosmic purpose for some polished passing game. Habitual sinfulness is a proof that we do not truly know and recognize Allah because not knowing and recognizing Allah is a trait that Allah describes the disbelievers with when he says, وَمَا قَدْرُ اللَّهَ حَقَّ قَدْرِ They do not accord God his true magnitude. And so beware of Allah's ruling, Allah's warning. وَلَا تَكُونُ كَلَّذِينَ النَّسُ اللَّهَ فَأَنْسَا هُمْ أَنْفُسَهُمْ Be not like those who forgot Allah so Allah made them forget their own selves. That is, by not knowing Allah, they forgot themselves. And by forgetting that themselves, they fell into sin. Let us then take the means to come to know Allah and to recognize Allah in our lives. And this will be obviously through his names and his attributes. And let us be grateful to him for honoring us with a noble purpose and a high station. And let us carry ourselves with dignity and honor, remembering this divine trust so that if we are ever tempted by Shaitan or by our own desires or by our habits, that we cast out Shaitan in the way that Ibrahim A.S. cast out Shaitan. That we cast him out by remembering what we were created for, that we were created for something better than this, that we are higher than this, and that we belong to Allah and we will return to him alone. Allah says in his noble book, Allahumma sallim wa sallim ala Sayyidina wa kurrat i'ayunina Muhammad wa ala aarihi wa sahbihi wa min tabi'ahum bi ihsan ila yawm ad-din Allahumma gfirilal mu'minina wal mu'minat wal muslimina wal muslimat ala ahya'i minhum wal ammat innaka ya'ma wa lana sami'un qaribun mojibud da'waat Allahumma nsuru al-Islamu wal muslimin wa al-Mu'minat wa al-Mu'minat wa al-Mu'minat wa al-Mu'minat wa al-Mu'minat wa al-Mu'minat wa al-Mu'minat wa al-Mu'minat wa ad-dillal shirk wal mushrikin Allahumma ya'a hayyu ya'a qayyum bi rahmatika nasta ghith aslehna nasha'nana kullah wa la takilna ila anfusina tarfa ta'in Allahumma ja'alil Quran abrabi'a kulubina wa nura sudurina wa rozzukna tilawatahu anaa al-layli wa akraaf al-nahar Allahumma hafidha haadihi al-umma ta'al mu'madiyya fi jami'i biladihah innaka ala kulli shayn qadir wa bil'ijabat jadir ya'idakum la'allakum tadakkaroon adhkur Allah al-adhim yadkurukum wa shkuru hui jizadkum wa staghfiru hui yaghfirulakum wa aqan al-salah