from spurgeon's 'treasury of david'...
'who can understand his errors?' a question which is its own answer. it rather requires a note of exclamation than of interrogation. by the law is the knowledge of sin and in the presence of divine truth, the psalmist marvels at the number and heinousness of his sins. he best knows himself who best knows the word, but even such an one will be in a maze of wonder as to what he does not know, rather than on the mount of congratulation as to what he does. know. we have heard of a comedy of errors, but to a good man this is more like a tragedy. many books have a few lines of errata at the end, but our errata might well be as large as the volume if we could but have sense enough to see them. augustine wrote in his older days a series of Retractations; ours might make a library if we had enough grace to be convinced of our mistakes and to confess them.
'cleanse Thou me from secret faults'. thou canst mark in me faults entirely hidden from myself. it were hopeless to expect to see all my spots; therefore, O Lord, wash away in the atoning blood even those sins which my conscience has been unable to detect. secret sins, like private conspirators, must be hunted out, or they may do deadly mischief; it is well to be much in prayer concerning them. in the lateran council of the church of rome, a decree was passed that every true believer must confess his sins, all of them, once in a year to the priest and they affixed to it this declaration, that there is no hope of pardon but in complying with that decree. what can equal the absurdity of such a decree as that? do they suppose that they can tell their sins as easily as they can count their fingers? why, if we could receive pardon for all our sins by telling every sin we have committed in one hour, there is not one of us who would be able to enter heaven, since, besides the sins that are known to us and that we may be able to confess, there are a vast mass of sins, which are as truly sins as those which we lament, but which are secret and come not beneath our eye. if we had eyes like those of God, we should thing very differently of ourselves. the transgressions which we see and confess are but like the farmer's small samples which he brings to market, when he has left his granary full at home, we have but a very few sins which we can observe and detect, compared with those which are hidden from ourselves and unseen by our fellow creatures.
'keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion 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 mus watch and pray lest they enter into temptation. there is a natural proneness to sin in the best of men and they must be held back as a horse is held back by the bit or they will run into it. presumptuous sins are peculiarly dangerous. all sins are great sins, but yet some sins are greater than others. every sin has in it the very venom of rebellion and is full of the essential marrow of traitorous rejection of God; but there be 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 fact is, that while all transgression is a greatly grievous and sinful thing, yet there are some transgressions which have a deeper shade of blackness and a more double scarlet dyed hue of criminality than others. the PRESUMPTUOUS (to take for granted, assume, suppose; undertake with unwarranted boldness..without right or permission) sins of our text are the chief and worst of all sins; thy rank head and foremost in the list of iniquities. it is remarkable that though no 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 and a more terrible portion of eternal punishment in the pit that is digged for the wicked. for this reason is david so anxious that he may never come under the reigning power of these giant evils.
'then shall i be upright 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 wilful 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 the worse to the worst. charles haddon spurgeon
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