When we confess our sins, as we ought to do, we sometimes make the mistake of starting with the sin and ending with the repentance. It is good to confess your sins, of course, but it is also good to review the game film afterwards to analyze how you got in the position of being tempted in the first place. This ought not to be done in morbidity, but it ought to be done.
In Psalm 19, David helps us understand something about the genesis of sin. If we want to grow, it is not enough to confess the “great transgression.”
“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” (Ps. 19:12-13).
Notice how it goes. Secret faults, presumptuous sins, and then great transgression. Hidden sin, secret faults. This is like being just a “little bit” pregnant. Sin is organic; it grows. And secret faults are every bit as organic. Either you are killing it, or it is killing you.
Presumptuous sins are those that are more open to those who know you, but they (and you) excuse it because that’s “just you,” or just the “way things are.” They give it a pass.
But then it blows into the great transgression, the scandal, the thing that nobody could overlook. Too often we confess the great transgression in order to get back to the status quo ante, which was presumptuous sin. We are watching a movie that tumbles into a terrible scene, so we rewind it five minutes and try again.
Secret sin—hidden porn use. Presumptuous sin—tawdry entertainment standards for your home. Great transgression—adultery. The most tragic thing about this pattern is that we have trained ourselves to not see coming what had been noisily approaching for years.