13. Keep beck thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not havedominion over me. This earnest and humble
prayer teaches us that saints may fall into the worst of sins unless restrained
by grace, and that therefore they must watch and pray lest they enter into
temptation. There is a natural proneness to sin in the best of people, and they
must be held back as a horse is held back by the bit or they will run into it.
Presumptuous sins are particularly dangerous. All sins are great sins, but yet
some sins are greater than others. Every sin has in it the very venom of
rebellion; but there are some sins which have in them a greater development of
the essential mischief of rebellion, and which wear upon their faces more of
the brazen pride which defies the Most High. It is wrong to suppose that
because all sins will condemn us, that therefore one sin is not greater than
another. The presumptuous sins of our text are the chief and worst of all sins.
It is remarkable that though an atonement was provided under the Jewish law for
every kind of sin, there was this one exception: “But the soul that sinneth presumptuously shall have no atonement; it
shall be cut off from the midst of my people.” And now under the Christian dispensation, although in the sacrifice of
our blessed Lord there is a great and precious atonement for presumptuous sins,
whereby sinners who have erred in this manner are made clean, yet without doubt
presumptuous sinners, dying without pardon, must expect to receive a double
portion of the wrath of God. For this reason is David so anxious that he may
never come under the reigning power of these giant evils. Then shall I beupright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. He shudders
at the thought of the unpardonable sin. Secret sin is a stepping-stone to
presumptuous sin, and that is the vestibule of “the sin which is unto death.” He who
is not willfull in his sin will be in a fair way to be innocent so far as poor
sinful man can be; but he who tempts the devil to tempt him is in a path which
will lead him from bad to worse, and from the worse to the worst.
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