The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

pardon, must expect to receive a double portion of the wrath of God, and a more wonderful manifestation of the unutterable anguish of the torment of eternal punishment in the pit that is dug for the wicked.

      2. I shall this morning first of all endeavour to describe presumptuous sins; then, secondly, I shall try, if I can, to show by some illustrations why the presumptuous sin is more heinous than any other; and then thirdly, I shall try to press this prayer upon your notice — the prayer, note of the holy man — the prayer of David. “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.”

      3. I. First, then, WHAT IS A PRESUMPTOUS SIN? Now, I think there must be one of four things in a sin in order to make it presumptuous. It must either be a sin against light and knowledge, or a sin committed with deliberation, or a sin committed with a design of sinning, merely for sinning’s sake, or else it must be a sin committed through hardihood, from a man’s rash confidence in his own strength. We will remark on these points one by one.

      4. 1. A sin that is committed wilfully against revealed light and knowledge, is a presumptuous sin. A sin of ignorance is not presumptuous, unless that ignorance also is wilful, in which case the ignorance is itself a presumptuous sin. But when a man sins for lack of knowing better — for lack of knowing the law, for lack of instruction, reproof, advice and admonition, we say that his sin, so committed, does not partake to any great extent of the nature of a presumptuous sin. But when a man knows better, and sins in the very teeth and face of his increased light and knowledge, then his sin deserves to be branded with this ignominious title of a presumptuous sin. Let me just dwell on this thought a moment. Conscience is often an inner light to men, by which they are warned about forbidden acts as being sinful. Then if I sin against conscience, though I have no greater light than conscience affords me, still my sin is presumptuous, if I have presumed to go against that voice of God in my heart, an enlightened conscience. You, young men, were once tempted, (and perhaps it was only yesterday,) to commit a certain act. The very moment you were tempted, conscience said, “It is wrong, it is wrong” — it shouted murder in your heart, and told you the deed you were about to commit was abominable in the sight of the Lord. Your fellow apprentice committed the same sin without the warning of conscience; in him it was guilt — guilt which needs to be washed away with the Saviour’s blood. But it was not such guilt in him as it was in you, because your conscience checked you; your conscience told you about the danger, warned you about the punishment, and yet you dared to go astray against God, and therefore you sinned presumptuously. You have sinned very grievously in having done so. When a man shall trespass on my ground, he shall be a trespasser though he has no warning, but if straight before his face there stands a warning, and if he knowingly and willingly trespasses, then he is guilty of a presumptuous trespass, and is to be so far punished accordingly. So you, if you had not known better; if your conscience had been less enlightened, you might have committed the deed with far less of the criminality which now attaches to you, because you sinned against conscience, and consequently sinned presumptuously.

      5. But, oh! how much greater is the sin, when man not only has the light of conscience, but has also the admonition of friends, the advice of those who are wise and esteemed by him. If I have only one check, the check of my enlightened conscience, and I transgress against it, I am presumptuous; but if a mother with tearful eye warns me of the consequence of my guilt, and if a father with steady look, and with affectionate determined earnestness, tells me what will be the result of my transgression — if friends who are dear to me counsel me to avoid the way of the wicked, and warn me what must be the inevitable result of continuing in it, then I am presumptuous, and my act in that very proportion becomes more guilty. I would have been presumptuous for having sinned against the light of nature, but I am more presumptuous, when added to that, I have the light of affectionate counsel and of kind advice, and by it I bring upon my head a double amount of divine wrath. And how much more is this the case, when the transgressor has been gifted with what is usually called a religious education; in childhood he has been lighted to his bed by the lamps of the sanctuary, the name of Jesus was mingled with the hush of lullaby, the music of the sanctuary woke him like a morning hymn; he has been dandled on the knee of piety and has sucked the breasts of godliness; he has been tutored and trained in the way he should go; how much more fearful I say, is the guilt of such a man than that of those who have never had such training, but have been left to follow their own wayward lusts and pleasures without the restraint of a holy education and the restraints of an enlightened conscience!

      6. But, my friends, even this may become worse still. A man sins yet more presumptuously, when he has had most special warning from the voice of God against the sin. What mean you? you say. Why, I mean this. You saw only yesterday a strong man in your neighbourhood brought to the grave by sudden death; it is only a month ago that you heard the bell toll for one whom once you knew and loved, who procrastinated and procrastinated until he perished in procrastination. You have had strange things happen in your very street, and the voice of God has been spoken loudly through the lip of Death to you. Indeed, and you have had warnings too in your own body, you have been sick with fever, you have been brought to the jaws of the grave, and you have looked down into the bottomless vault of destruction. It is not long ago since you were given up; all said they might prepare a coffin for you, for your breath could not long be in your body. Then you turned your face to the wall and prayed; you vowed that if God would spare you, you would live a good life, that you would repent of your sins; but to your own confusion you are now just what you were. Ah! let me tell you, your guilt is more grievous than that of any other man, for you have sinned presumptuously, in the very highest sense in which you could have done so. You have sinned against reproofs, but what is worse still, you have sinned against your own solemn oaths and covenants, and against the promises that you made to God. He who plays with fire must be condemned as careless; but he who has been burned out once, and afterwards plays with the destroying element, is worse than careless; and he who has himself been scorched in the flame, and has had his locks all hot and crisp with the burning, if he again should rush headlong into fire, I say he is worse than careless, he is worse than presumptuous, he is mad. But I have some such here. They have had warnings so terrible that they might have known better; they have gone into lusts which have brought their bodies into sickness, and perhaps this day they have crept up to this house, and they dare not tell to their neighbour who stands by their side what is the loathsomeness that even now breeds upon their frame. And yet they will go back to the same lusts; the fool will go again to the stocks, the sheep will lick the knife that is to slay him. You will go on in your lust and in your sins, despite warnings, despite advice, until you perish in your guilt. How worse than children are grown up men! The child who goes for a merry slide upon a pond, if he is told that the ice will not bear him, stares back frightened, or if he daringly creeps upon it how soon he leaves it, if he hears only a crack upon the slender covering of the water! But you men have a conscience, which tells you that your sins are vile, and that they will be your ruin; you hear the crack of sin, as its thin sheet of pleasure gives way beneath your feet; indeed, and some of you have seen your comrades sink in the flood, and lost; and yet you go sliding on, worse than childish, you are worse than mad, thus presumptuously to play with your own everlasting state. Oh my God, how terrible is the presumption of some! How fearful is presumption in any! Oh! that we might be enabled to cry, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.”

      7. 2. I said again, that another characteristic of a presumptuous sin was deliberation. A man perhaps may have a passionate spirit, and in a moment of hot haste he may utter an angry word of which in a few short minutes he will sincerely repent. A man may have a temper so hot that the least provocation causes him at once to be full of wrath. But he may also have a temperament which has this benefit to balance it, that he very soon learns to forgive and cools in a moment. Now, such a man does not sin presumptuously, when suddenly overcome by anger, though without doubt there is presumption in his sin, unless he strives to correct that passion and keep it down. A man, again, who is suddenly tempted and surprised into a sin, which is not his habit, but which he commits through the force of some strong temptation, is guilty, but not guilty of presumption, because he was taken unawares in the net and caught in the snare. But there are other men who sin deliberately; there are some who can think of a lust for weeks beforehand,