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Volume. XXVII, No. 5 The Grace of God in Sanctification - Part 2We now come to the second part of David’s prayer, which is a prayer for prevention, and what is that? This part of David’s plea to God is designed to keep him from the domination of presumptuous sins. David prays to God, “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me…” (Psalm 19:13a)
Now, all sins are great sins, but yet some sins are greater than others in terms of consequence. Every sin has in it the very nature of rebellion and is full of rejection of God and His Word. The fact is, that while all transgression is a greatly grievous sinful thing, yet, there are some transgressions which have a deeper shade of blackness than others – the Scripture calls them the presumptuous sins which are ranked head and foremost in the list of iniquities. Back in the Old Testament, it is remarkable that though an atonement for forgiveness was provided under the Mosaic law for every kind of sin, there was this one exception mentioned in Exodus 21:14, “But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.” Deuteronomy 17:12 also says, “And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.” The key word there is \'presumptuously\' or presumptuous sin. The Bible says there is no provision of sacrifice for such sin. However, under the New Testament, in the perfect, once-for-all sacrifice of our blessed Lord, the lamb of God, there is a precious atonement even for presumptuous sins, whereby sinners who have sinned in this manner are made clean. Yet I believe that presumptuous sinners or those who are still outside of God’s kingdom, dying without pardon, must expect to receive a double portion of the wrath of God and the torment of eternal punishment in the lake of fire that is prepared for Satan and his demons. In Psalm 19, David in his prayer knew that his sin problem was greater than secret faults and unknown errors. He says, “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” (Psalm 19:12,13) Without God’s help which he here prayed for, he was also perfectly capable of committing presumptuous sins; or sins done in a proud and knowing way. So, what is presumptuous sin? A presumptuous sin is a sin committed with deliberation or when we know better that it is sin yet we commit it. It is a sin committed from a man’s rash confidence in his own strength. Or, when friends and family have forewarned us, yet we choose to totally ignore. It is a sin against light and knowledge. Or, when God Himself has warned us either through the revelation of His Word or through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, yet we choose to reject and ignore that light and knowledge. It is a sin which we have warned others about, yet we commit the same sins. The classic example of this is the Pharisees in the New Testament. The Lord was very displeased with the Pharisees, the religious rulers and teachers of God’s law in His day; so much so that He openly rebuked them for their hypocrisy. It is a sin committed with a design of sinning, merely for sinning’s sake; or when we plan and relish our sin. Because of this great danger, David prayed, “Oh….Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me.” (v.13a; , 1 Corinthians 10:13) Indeed, King David not only knew that he was capable of such sins, but that they could potentially have dominion over him. Did not the Apostle Paul also plead with his readers about the same thing in the book of Romans? In Romans 6:13-14, he said, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” And here is the wonderful promise of God to all of us! David knew that if sin was addressed in his life or our lives – dealing both with inward, secret sin and outward, presumptuous, enslaving sin as Paul mentioned in Romans 6 – then he could be blameless and innocent of great transgression! He said in verse 13b, “…then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” Bear in mind that this was not a claim of sinless perfection, either achieved or to attain to, before the second coming of Christ or on the day of the glory of resurrection. What he meant was that he would have this evidence that he was a friend of God. That he would be kept from the indulgence of secret sins and great and open transgression. David knew well that he needed to be cleansed and trusting in God’s perfect sacrifice – prefigured by the animal sacrifices he practised in the Mosaic system. That perfect sacrifice is none other than the LORD Jesus Christ who died for our sins on that altar of the cross at Calvary! To be continued… Pastor Weng |
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