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The sermon presents sin as rebellion against God and identifies presumptuous sin as willful transgression against light, conscience, deliberate intention, or claims of personal spiritual strength. Such sin carries heightened guilt because the sinner knowingly defies God rather than merely acting in ignorance or sudden weakness. Spurgeon warns both unbelievers and mature Christians that no one is secure through experience or strength alone; believers need God’s preserving grace. The sermon closes with a gospel invitation to confess guilt, mourn over sin, and trust Christ, whose sacrifice provides atonement even for presumptuous sinners.
Theological center: Human sin becomes especially culpable when committed knowingly and defiantly, yet Christ’s atonement offers mercy to repentant sinners while divine grace preserves believers from falling.
Applications: Pray for restraint from presumption · Confess and grieve over sin · Look to Christ for mercy · Distinguish degrees of guilt
Primary texts: Psalm 19:13 · Numbers 15:32 · Hebrews 7:25
“Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.” Psalm 19:13 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 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 fact is, that while all transgression is a greatly grievous 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. Now the presumptuous sins of our text are just the chief of all sins—they rank head and foremost in the list of iniquities. 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.” 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 sinned in this manner are made clean, yet without a doubt, presumptuous sinners, dying without 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 digged for the wicked. I shall this morning, first of all, endeavor to describe presumptuous sins. 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, mark you, of the holy man—the prayer of David—“Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.” I. First, then, WHAT IS A PRESUMPTUOUS 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 mark these points one by one. 1. A sin that is committed willfully against manifest light and knowledge, is a presumptuous sin. A sin of ignorance is not presumptuous, unless that ignorance also be willful, in…