Supplement #2 to Spiritual Warfare Study Sheet
Psalm 19:12-14
Psalm
19:12-14 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. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be
acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.
Background to this prayer® Psalm 19:10, “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.” It is impossible to overestimate the great value of the word of God in our lives. The word of God is valuable (Job 23: 12; Ps. 119: 162) and pleasant (Ps. 119:97,103; 1 Pet. 2: 2). If it is not pleasant to us it means that we are in bad spiritual condition®1 John 5: 3.
Ps. 19: 11, “Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.” God sends us warnings in His word and we are foolish if we do not heed them. Satan tells us there is no advantage in keeping God’s word, but he is a great deceiver and a liar®Ps. 73: 13; Gal. 6: 7. Spurgeon says of this warning, “On the sea of life there would be many more wrecks, if it were not for the divine storm signals, which give to the watchful a timely warning.”
Verse 12®These “secret faults” are sins that we ourselves are not
aware of. Leupold says, “They are the sins that we ordinarily do not even
discern as being committed by us.” Speaking of these sins Spurgeon says, “We have but a very few sins which we can observe and detect,
compared with those which are hidden from ourselves…” See Jer. 17:9. Sins we
are unaware of are very dangerous, because they may lead to greater sins.
Spurgeon says of this, “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.” We must recognize the progressive nature of sin and realize that
we cannot play with it®James 1:13-15.
Let us
have a sensitive heart about secret sins as did David (Ps. 139:23,
and 24) and Paul (Acts 24:16).
What are
some “secret sins” that we may be guilty of? _______________________________
___________________________________________________________________________.
We can
discover some of our “secret sins” by: 1) Asking God to show them to us.
2) Graciously accepting and evaluating criticism. (Having a “learner’s
spirit®Prov. 15:12; 29:1; 13:1; 15:32). 3)
Asking others we trust to point out our faults to us. (Prov. 27: 6). 4) Observing godly people and
comparing our lives to theirs. (Prov. 13:20).
5) Constantly reading the Scriptures and comparing ourselves with
the standards that are revealed in them® 2 Tim. 3:16,17.
Verse
13® The word translated “presumptuous”
is used 13 times in the Old Testament. Twelve of those times it is translated
as “proud.” We sin in this way when we do it willfully, knowing that what we
are doing is wrong. The godless reprobates always sin in this way®Rom.
1: 32. Many times God’s children also do so when they become spiritually weak.
That is why we always must practice self-denial®Luke 9: 23. I like what
Matthew Henry says about this® “We have great need to pray to God, when we are pushing forward
towards a presumptuous sin, to keep us back from it, either by his providence
preventing the temptation or by his grace giving us victory over it.”
Spurgeon
says of these presumptuous sins, “This earnest and humble prayer teaches us
that saints may fall into the worst of sins unless restrained by grace, and
that therefore they must 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.” See Matt. 26: 41.
“Let
them not have dominion over me.” Robert Sanderson says of this “Any small sin may get the upper
hand of the sinner and bring him under in time, and after that is once
habituated by long custom so as he cannot easily shake off the yoke…” See also
Ps. 119: 133. An example of the progressive nature of sin in found in
Ps. 1: 1.
When sin
does have dominion over an individual the results are horrible. That person
becomes a slave to sin. See Prov. 5: 22. See 2. Tim. 2: 26.
Verse 14®Our desire should be to obey God in thought, word, and deed.
“The words of my mouth”®See Eph. 4:29; Ps. 141:3.
“The meditations of my heart”®Ps. 1:2. One meaning of “meditate” in the Hebrew is “mutter, or whisper.” The picture is one in deep thought talking to himself.
“Be acceptable” has the meaning of “giving pleasure or delight.”
“in Thy sight”®Prov. 15:3
“My strength and my redeemer”®Eph. 6: 0; (John 15:5/Phil. 4:13)
We should try our hardest to not sin at all!®Eph. 5:3; 1 John 2:1