The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

the young seedling of lust until it grows to the maturity of desire, and then they go and commit the crime. There are some to whom lust is not a passerby, but a lodger at home. They receive it, they house it, they feast it; and when they sin they sin deliberately, walk coolly to their lusts, and in cold blood commit the act which another might perhaps do in hot and furious haste. Now, such a sin has in it a great extent of sinfulness, it is a sin of high presumption. To be carried away as by a whirlwind of passion in a moment is wrong; but to sit down and deliberately resolve upon revenge is cursed and diabolical. To sit down and deliberately fashion schemes of wickedness is heinous, and I can find no other word fitly to express it. To deliberate carefully how the crime is to be done, and Haman-like to build the gallows, and set to work to destroy one’s neighbour, to dig the pit so that the friend may fall into it and be destroyed, to lay snares in secret, to plot wickedness upon one’s bed — this is a high pitch of presumptuous sin. May God forgive any of us, if we have been so far guilty!

      8. Again, when a man continues long in sin, and has time to deliberate about it, that also is a proof that it is a presumptuous sin. He who sins once, being overtaken in a fault, and then abhors the sin, has not sinned presumptuously; but he who transgresses today, tomorrow and the next day, week after week and year after year, until he has piled up a heap of sins that are high as a mountain, such a man, I say, sins presumptuously, because in a continued habit of sin there must be a deliberation to sin; there must be at least such a force and strength of mind as could not have come upon any man if his sin were only the hasty effect of sudden passion. Ah! take heed, you who are sodden in sin, you who drink it down as the greedy ox drinks down water, you who run to your lust as the rivers run to the sea, and you who go to your passions as the sow to her wallowing in the mire. Take heed! your crimes are grievous, and the hand of God shall soon fall terribly on your heads, unless by divine grace it is granted to you to repent and turn to him. Fearful must be your doom, if unpardoned, God should condemn you for presumptuous sin. Oh! “Lord, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.”

      9. 3. Again: I said that a presumptuous sin must be a matter of design, and have been committed with the intention of sin. If at your leisure at home you will turn to that passage in the Book of Numbers, where it says there is no pardon for a presumptuous sin under the Jewish dispensation, you will find immediately afterward a case recorded. A man went out on the Sabbath day to gather sticks; he was taken in the act of Sabbath breaking, and the law being very stringent under the Jewish dispensation, he was ordered at once to be put to death. Now, the reason why he was put to death was not because he gathered sticks on the Sabbath merely, but because the law had just then been proclaimed, “In it you shall do no manner of work.” This man wilfully, out of design, in order, as it were, to show that he despised God — to show that he did not care for God — without any necessity, without any hope of advantage, went straight out, in the very teeth of the law, to perform not an act which he kept in his own house, which might perhaps have been overlooked, but an act which brought shame upon the whole congregation, because infidel-like, he dared to brazen it out before God; as much as to say, “I do not care for God.” Has God just commanded, “You shall do no manner of work?” Here am I; I do not need sticks today; I do not need to work; not for the sake of sticks, but with the design of showing that I despise God, I go out this day and gather sticks. “Now,” one says, “surely there are no people in the world that have ever done such a thing as this.” Yes, there are; and there are such in the Surrey Music Hall this day. They have sinned against God, not merely for the pleasure of it, but because they would show their lack of reverence to God. That young man burned his Bible in the midst of his wicked companions — not because he hated his Bible, for he quivered and looked pale as the ashes on the hearth when he was doing it; but he did it out of pure bravado, in order to show them, as he thought, that he really was far gone from anything like a profession of religion. That other man is accustomed sometimes to stand by the wayside, when the people are going to the house of God; and he swears at them, not because he delights in swearing, but because he will show that he is irreligious, that he is ungodly. How many an infidel has done the same — not because he had any pleasure in the thing itself, but because out of the wickedness of his heart he would spit at God, if it were possible, having a design to let men know that though the sin itself was cheap enough, he was determined to do something which would be like spitting in the face of his Maker, and despising God who created him! Now, such a sin is a masterpiece of iniquity. There is pardon for such a one — there is full pardon to those who are brought to repentance; but few of such men ever receive it; for when they are so far gone as to sin presumptuously, because they wish do it — to sin merely for the sake of showing their disregard for God and for God’s law, we say of such, there is pardon for them, but it is wondrous grace which brings them into such a condition that they are willing to accept it. Oh that God would keep back his servants here from presumptuous sins! And if any of us here have committed them, may he bring us back, to the praise of the glory of his grace!

      10. 4. But one more point, and I think I shall have explained these presumptuous sins. A presumptuous sin also is one that is committed through a hardihood of fancied strength of mind. One says, “I intend tomorrow to go into such-and-such a society, because I believe, though it harms other people, it does me no harm.” You turn around and say to some young man, “I could not advise you to frequent the Casino — it would be your ruin.” But you go yourself, sir? “Yes.” But how do you justify yourself? Because I have such strength of principle that I know just how far to go, and no farther. You lie, sir; against yourself you lie; you lie presumptuously in so doing. You are playing with bombshells that shall burst and destroy you; you are sitting over the mouth of hell, with a fancy that you shall not be burned. Because you have gone to haunts of vice and come back, tainted, much tainted, but because you are so blind as not to see the taint, you think yourself secure. You are not so. Your sin, in daring to think that you are proof against sin, is a sin of presumption. “No, no,” one says, “but I know that I can go just so far in such-and-such a sin, and there I can stop.” Presumption, Sir; nothing but presumption. It would be presumption for any man to climb to the top of the spire of a church, and stand upon his head. ‘Well, but he might come down safely, if he were skilled in it.’ Yes, but it is presumptuous. I would no more think of subscribing a farthing to a man’s ascent in a balloon, than I would to a poor wretch cutting his own throat. I would no more think of standing and gazing at any man who puts his life in a position of peril, than I would of paying a man to blow his brains out. I think such things, if not murders, are murderous. There is suicide in men risking themselves in that way; and if there is suicide in the risk of the body, how much more in the case of a man who puts his own soul in jeopardy just because he thinks he has strength of mind enough to prevent its being ruined and destroyed. Sir, your sin is a sin of presumption; it is a great and grievous one; it is one of the masterpieces of iniquity.

      11. Oh! how many people are there who are sinning presumptuously today! You are sinning presumptuously in being today what you are. You are saying, in a short time I will solemnly and seriously think of religion; in a few years, when I am a little more settled in life, I intend to turn over a new leaf, and think about the matters of Godliness. Sir, you are presumptuous. You are presuming that you shall live; you are speculating upon a thing which is as frail as the bubble on the breaker; you are staking your everlasting soul on the deadly odds that you shall live for a few years, whereas, the probabilities are, that you may be cut down before the sun shall set: and it is possible, that before another year shall have passed over your head, you may be in the land where repentance is impossible, and useless if it were possible. Oh! dear friends, procrastination is a presumptuous sin. The putting off a thing which should be done today, because you hope to live tomorrow, is a presumption. You have no right to do it — you are in so doing sinning against God, and bringing on your heads the guilt of presumptuous sin. I remember that striking passage in Jonathan Edward’s wonderful sermon, which was the means of a great revival, where he says, “Sinner, you are this moment standing over the mouth of hell, upon a single plank, and that plank is rotten; you are hanging over the jaws of perdition, by a solitary rope, and the strands of that rope are creaking now.” It is a terrible thing to be in such a position as that, and yet to say, “tomorrow,” and to procrastinate. You remind me, some of you, of that story of Dionysius the tyrant, who, wishing to punish one who had