Abu Bakr Zoud – 2 Matters That Stop A Person From Repenting
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بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين
والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله وعلى آله وصحبه
أجمعين All praise and thanks belongs to Allah
سبحانه وتعالى and may the peace and blessing
of Allah be upon his servant and final
messenger Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم As to
our followers, respected brothers and sisters in Islam
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته I wanted to
share with you a reminder in a few
minutes and that is at the very beginning
to say that one of the most important
ways in how we prepare for our death
and our meeting with Allah سبحانه وتعالى is
no doubt التوبة والاستغفر, repentance and seeking forgiveness
There is nothing better that you can do
in order to prepare for your death and
the meeting with Allah than to consistently refresh
your توبة your repentance and seeking Allah سبحانه
وتعالى's forgiveness Imagine you die having repented and
sought forgiveness for all your sins سبحان الله,
a person dies purified from all his sins
and his filth and he meets Allah عز
و جل in a very clean state and
a purified state and this is how a
person earns Allah سبحانه وتعالى's pleasure سبحان الله,
every single prophet, every prophet from Adam عليه
السلام's time until the prophet صلى الله عليه
وسلم every prophet invited their people and their
nation to seeking Allah's forgiveness تالاستغفر, every single
nation You'll find ayat in the Quran about
Nuh عليه السلام inviting his people to seek
Allah's forgiveness Hud عليه السلام did the same
thing, Salih عليه السلام did the same thing
Musa و عيسى و هارون و داود, every
single prophet including the messenger صلى الله عليه
وسلم all of them, one of the central
things they would invite their people to is
seeking Allah's forgiveness Allah سبحانه وتعالى, he says
in the Quran in Surah Ibrahim that the
prophets would say to their people يدعوكم ليغفر
لكم من ذنوبكم that Allah عز و جل
calls you all, Allah عز و جل invites
you all so that he may forgive your
sins in other words, seek his forgiveness and
Allah would wipe away the sins but what
I want to share with you now in
a few minutes to remind you of something
very important some people are unable to make
a tawbah and istighfar ولا حول ولا قوة
إلا بالله this is indeed a huge calamity
and there are actually two things there are
two matters that can stop a person from
repenting so if we know what these two
things are and then hopefully Inshallah تعالى avoid
them Inshallah, Allah عز و جل will enable
us and we will be able to make
a tawbah and seek his forgiveness everyday Inshallah
تعالى the first thing that stands between a
person and repentance is for a person to
belittle sins to belittle sins when you do
a sin and you say it's nothing and
you say it's tiny, it's insignificant, it's small
no problems, it's just a look here and
there it's just some haram I'm listening to
it's just a chat with the opposite gender
small things, minor things, no problems when you
belittle sins and then you convince yourself and
you say oh it's not like I committed
a zina I didn't murder anyone, I didn't
commit any shirk I did not practice any
magic it's just something small when you continue
to belittle sins then a person will be
this will stop him from seeking forgiveness and
repenting and this is why Bilal ibn Sa'd
from among the Tabi'een said something very
important he said لا تنظر إلى صغر المعصية
وانظر إلى عظيم من تعصي don't ever look
at the size of the sin don't look
at the size don't say this one is
a small sin this one is a big
one this one is minor this one is
major he said rather look at the greatness
of the one who you are disobeying so
regardless whether you do a small sin or
a big sin you are disobeying Allah this
is problematic this is huge so don't ever
belittle a sin treat all the sins the
same if you treat all the sins the
same your heart will be eager to repent
and to seek forgiveness when Nabi ﷺ warned
us from belittling sins and to observe them
as something small and insignificant and not a
big problem in life Nabi ﷺ said إياكم
ومحقرات الذنوب he said be aware be aware
of minor sins be aware of minor sins
and belittling sins he ﷺ said he said
that مثل محقرات الذنوب كقوم نزلوا في بطن
وادٍ he said that the example of minor
sins the example of minor sins is like
that of a group a group of people
they camped in the valley and they brought
everyone brought a small twig everyone brought a
twig everyone brought a stick a small stick
one after the other until they were able
to kindle a fire and then they baked
their bread on it سبحان الله يعني النبي
ﷺ is saying that one minor sin may
not do any harm but when you get
one minor sin and you have another minor
sin and you have another minor sin and
another one they begin to accumulate until they
become something huge ending up destroying and ruining
the life of a person Nabi ﷺ gave
a beautiful example he said minor sins and
being persistent upon this and not repenting is
like a group of people that wanted to
bake bread so someone brings a twig you
know one twig one small stick is not
enough to bake bread but one gets a
stick another one gets another stick a third
person gets a stick eventually we have many
sticks we were able to kindle a fire
and it bakes bread and this is exactly
what minor sins when they accumulate they do
they ruin and they destroy a person and
Nabi ﷺ he said وَإِنَّ مُحَقِّرَاتِ الذُّنُوبُ مَتَى
يُؤْخَذُ بِهَا صَاحِبُهَا تُهْلِكُهُ Nabi ﷺ said indeed
when a person is held accountable for their
minor sins they will destroy him so my
brothers and sisters in Islam the first matter
that stands between a person and repentance first
matter that can delay and stop you from
repenting is to belittle sins don't ever belittle
sins and don't look at something minor as
something minor doesn't matter it won't affect me
rather as soon as you commit any type
of sin no matter how big and small
it is seek forgiveness and repent and regret
what you did and feel bad for what
you did and ask Allah ﷻ to purify
your heart and to forgive you and by
the will of Allah ﷻ Allah ﷻ will
forgive you some of the scholars they used
to say لا تحقرن صغيرة إِنَّ الجِبَالَ مِنَ
الحَصَى do not belittle a small thing for
indeed a huge mountain is made up from
pebbles you see you look at the huge
mountain what's a mountain made up of tiny
pieces of soil and dirt or tiny pieces
of pebbles that came together and made a
huge mountain so that's the idea the idea
is the minor sins will begin to accumulate
on a person until they become huge and
ending up destroying and ruining this person in
this life in the grave and in the
afterlife so never belittle a sin and the
second matter that may stop a person from
repenting is to consistently delay a tawbah this
is a big problem so for example a
person may say Allah ﷻ when Ramadan begins
you know Ramadan is a few months away
I'll make a tawbah when Ramadan comes or
a person may say when I go Hajj
Inshallah after Al-Hajj I will repent and
I will reform and I'll become righteous or
some people I've even heard say once I
get married Inshallah Ta'ala I will stop
Al-Haram and I will repent brothers and
sisters in Islam this is a deception of
a Shaytan and this is one thing that
can stop you from repentance when you have
in your mind I'll delay it to some
other time Inshallah never do this as soon
as you commit a sin rush to repentance
and seeking Allah's forgiveness because when you delay
a tawbah when you intend to delay it
I will make a tawbah in Ramadan I'll
make a tawbah after Hajj the problem is
you may well and truly make a tawbah
then and there is a possibility that you
may not make a tawbah then right?
look at the brothers of Yusuf they said
and then they said at the end the
brothers of Yusuf they said to each other
let's kill our brother Yusuf and then later
on we'll repent don't be like this it's
a foolish move this wasn't something that Allah
praised about the brothers of Yusuf so don't
delay a tawbah they said we'll kill him
now and we'll make a tawbah later so
the problem when delaying a tawbah the problem
is that you might die before you plan
on making a tawbah you may say I'll
repent in Ramadan but how do you know
that you'll live until Ramadan how many people
were looking forward to last year's Ramadan and
they did not live to witness Ramadan and
how many people are looking forward towards this
year's Ramadan and they may not live until
this Ramadan you know and this is something
that everyone sees and experiences how many times
do you hear of people dying every single
day so it's a big problem to delay
a tawbah never delay a tawbah a tawbah
should be priority it's the number one thing
on the list for every single day and
every night you do not sleep without a
tawbah and when you wake up you seek
Allah's forgiveness and you make a tawbah from
your sins and in the last third of
the night is a moment for istighfar with
tawbah so never delay a tawbah and the
other problem so there's two problems when you
delay a tawbah there are two problems when
you delay the tawbah the first problem is
you may not live until you reach that
time you may not live and the other
problem is if you delay a tawbah there
is a possibility that your heart may become
attached to the sin and as a result
making a tawbah will become very very very
difficult upon you now so you may develop
love for the sin if you continuously delay
your tawbah you may be you may be
doing a sin minor or major whatever it
is and you may say to yourself I'll
repent inshallah next month or when I go
back to my country to my family or
when Ramadan comes but this delay may you
may develop a love for the sin it
may turn from a habit to an addiction
and if that's the case making a tawbah
will become extremely extremely hard and difficult وَلَا
حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ and the sin
may become stronger in your heart and to
seek forgiveness will become a difficulty so my
brothers and sisters in Islam that was the
message of today and that is to always
refresh your tawbah seek Allah's forgiveness do not
delay for verily when a person delays a
tawbah he may die before that time or
he may develop a strong attachment to the
sin and as a result he is not
able to seek Allah's forgiveness from it and
never belittle any sin when you belittle a
sin you will find yourself not seeking Allah's
forgiveness and repenting and understand and know that
Allah azza wa jal يغفر الذنوب جميعا He
forgives all sins إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ He
is Al-Ghafoor the one who consistently forgives
and He is the most merciful He forgives
and that is a mercy from Him subhanahu
wa ta'ala نعم and if you are
unable to repent from a sin some people
may not be able to make a tawbah
from the sin because a tawbah there are
certain conditions required for a tawbah some people
may not be able to make a tawbah
they find it very difficult the conditions such
as you need to regret some people are
not ready to regret a sin or they
don't feel real regret in their heart towards
a sin they are doing and from the
conditions of repentance is to stop the sin
and some people just cannot stop the sin
and from the conditions of repentance is to
intend not to return to that sin and
some people cannot do this so some people
can genuinely they haven't found any regret in
their heart they cannot stop the sin and
they intend to do the sin tomorrow and
after tomorrow and after tomorrow so in this
case if a tawbah is very heavy upon
you then at least seek forgiveness seek forgiveness
from your sin every time you fall in
a sin because the conditions of seeking forgiveness
are different to repenting seeking Allah's forgiveness requires
two conditions and that is for you to
know that Allah forgives the sin and Allah
may punish a person for a sin so
if you know that Allah can punish you
for your sin and at the same time
you know that Allah can forgive the sin
these are the two conditions of seeking forgiveness
and by the will of Allah your seeking
forgiveness of Allah will be accepted so if
you cannot make a tawbah because you are
missing some of its conditions then make istighfar
after the sin and never give up say
astaghfirullah after every sin and don't be fooled
and deceived to think that this may be
hypocrisy or mocking the deen some people think
if I do a sin and I seek
forgiveness after it and I do the sin
again and I seek forgiveness after it that's
hypocrisy that's not hypocrisy this is actually fear
of Allah azawajal because if he did not
fear Allah you would not have repented or
you would not have sought forgiveness after the
sin so this is something I wanted to
conclude with to ask Allah azawajal to forgive
our sins and to forgive our shortcomings we
ask him subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow
us to make a sincere tawbah before our
death and that he accept the promise and
we ask him subhanahu wa ta'ala to
admit us into the paradise and to save
us from the * fire and his punishment
inna huwa li yudhalika wa alqadiru alayh wa
sallallahu wa sallam wa baraka ala nabiyyina muhammadin
wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een