Blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood.
Prevention of sin an invaluable mercy
These words are David’s retraction, or laying down of a revengeful resolution; which for a while his heart had swelled with, and carried him on with the highest transport of rage to prosecute. By a happy and seasonable pacification, being taken off from acting that bloody tragedy, which he was just now entering upon, and so turning his eyes from the baseness of him who bad stirred up his revenge, to the goodness of that God who had prevented it; he breaks forth into these triumphant praises and doxologies, expressed in the text. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who has kept me this day from shedding blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand.” Which words, together with those going before in the same verse, naturally afford us this doctrinal proposition. That prevention of sin is one of the greatest mercies that God can vouchsafe a man in this world. The prosecution of which shall lie in these two things: first, to prove the proposition; secondly, to apply it.
I. That transcendent greatness of this sin-preventing mercy is demonstrable from these four following considerations.
1. Of these in their order: and first, we are to take an estimate of the greatness of this mercy, from the condition it finds the sinner in, when God is pleased to vouchsafe it to him. It finds him in the direct way to death and destruction; and, which is worse, wholly unable to help himself. For he is actually under the power of a temptation and the sway of an impetuous lust; both hurrying him on to satisfy the cravings of it by some wicked action. It is a maxim in the philosophy of some, that whatsoever is once in actual motion, will move forever, if it be not hindered. So a man, being under the drift of any passion, will still follow the impulse of it till something interpose, and by a stronger impulse turn him another way: but in this case we can find no principle within him strong enough to counteract that principle, and to relieve him. For if it be any, it must be either, first, the judgment of his reason; or secondly, the free choice of his will. But from the first of these there can be no help for him in his present condition. For while a man is engaged in any sinful purpose, through the prevalence of any passion, during the continuance of that passion he fully approves of whatsoever he is carried on to do in the strength of it; and judges it, under his present circumstances, the best and most rational course that he can take. (John 4:9; Acts 26:9). But to go no further than the text! do we not think, that while David’s heart was full of his revengeful design, it had blinded and perverted his reason so far, that it struck in wholly with his passion, and told him, that the purpose he was going to execute was just, magnanimous, and most becoming such a person, and so dealt with, as he was?
2. Thing proposed; which was to show, What is the fountain or impulsive cause of this prevention of sin? It is perfectly free grace.
3. Demonstration or proof of the greatness of this preventing mercy, taken from the hazard a man runs, if the commission of sin be not prevented, whether ever it will come to be pardoned. In order to the clearing of which, I shall lay down these two considerations.
(1) That if sin be not thus prevented, it will certainly be committed; and the reason is, because on the sinner’s part there will be always a strong inclination to sin; so that if other things concur, and providence cuts not off the opportunity, the act of sin must needs follow. For an active principle, seconded with the opportunities of action, will infallibly exert itself.
(2) The other consideration is, that in every sin deliberately committed, there are, generally speaking, many more degrees of probability, that that sin will never come to be pardoned, than that it will.
And this shall be made to appear upon these three following accounts.
(1) Because every commission of sin introduces into the soul a certain degree of hardness, and an aptness to continue in that sin.
(2) A second reason is, because every commission of sin imprints upon the soul a further disposition and proneness to sin: as the second, third, and fourth degrees of heat are more easily introduced than the first. Everyone is both a preparative and a step to the next. Drinking both quenches the present thirst, and provokes it for the future.
(3) The third and grand reason is, because the only thing that can entitle the sinner to pardon, which is repentance, is not in the sinner’s power.
4. The greatness of this preventing mercy is eminently proved from those advantages accruing to the soul from the prevention of sin, above what can be had from the bare pardon of it. And that in these two great respects ” Of the clearness of a man’s condition.
Of the satisfaction of his mind. And
(1) For the clearness of his condition. If innocence be preferable to repentance, and to be clean be more desirable than to be cleansed; then surely prevention of sin ought to have the preference of its pardon.
(2) The satisfaction of a man’s mind. There is that true joy, that solid and substantial comfort conveyed to the heart by preventing grace, which pardoning grace, at the best, very seldom, and, for the most part, never gives. For since all joy passes into the heart through the understanding, the object of it must be known by one, before it can affect the other. Now when grace keeps a man so within his bounds, that sin is prevented, he certainly knows it to be so; and so rejoices upon the firm, infallible ground of sense and assurance. But on the other side, though grace may have reversed the condemning sentence, and sealed the sinner’s pardon before God, yet it may have left no transcript of that pardon in the sinner’s breast. The pardoned person must not think to stand upon the same vantage ground with the innocent. It is enough that they are both equally safe; but it cannot be thought, that without a rare privilege, both can be equally cheerful.
II. Its application.
1. This may inform and convince us, how vastly greater a pleasure is consequent upon the forbearance of sin, than can possibly accompany the commission of it; and how much higher a satisfaction is to be found from a conquered, than from a conquering passion. Do we think, that David could have found half that pleasure in the execution of his revenge, that be expresses here upon the disappointment, of it?
2. We have here a sure unfailing criterion, by which every man may discover and find out the gracious or ungracious disposition of his own heart. The temper of every man is to be judged of from the thing he most esteems; and the object of his esteem may be measured by the prime object of his thanks.
3. We learn from hence the great reasonableness of, not only a contented, but also a thankful acquiescence in any condition, and under the crossest and severest passages of Providence which can possibly befall us: since there is none of all these but may be the instrument of preventing grace in the hands of a merciful God, to keep us from those courses which would otherwise assuredly end in our confusion. But to make the assertion more particular, and thereby more convincing, let us take an account of it with reference to the three greatest and deservedly most valued enjoyments of this life:--Health, reputation and wealth. He who ties a madman’s hands, or takes away his sword, loves his person, while he disarms his frenzy. And whether by health or sickness, honour or disgrace, wealth or poverty, life or death, mercy is still contriving, acting, and carrying on the spiritual good of all those who love God and are loved by him. (R. South.)
Preventing grace
Nabal was under an obligation which ought in justice to have moved him to a hearty compliance. But as uneducated or low-minded rich man is almost proverbially insolent. Associate wealth with ignorance, and the likelihood is, that you make a rude and an overbearing character. Money in the possession of a rustic or clown will too often give him nothing but opportunity to exhibit at his ease the ruggedness of his disposition. Now, we desire to fix your attention chiefly on the fact, that David held it as a matter for devout thanksgiving, that he had been withheld from avenging himself on the insolent Nabal. And the great truth to be evolved from this is, that the being prevented from sinning is one of the greatest mercies which can be vouchsafed by God to man whilst on earth.
I. We should like you to examine this with reference to those who remain unconverted, now, we believe it to be witnessed by the experience of all ages, that the mischief of a sinful act lies as much’ in the increased facility which it gives to future like acts as in the exact penalties which it entails on the perpetrator. The yielding to a temptation will occasion comparatively only slight injury, if after yielding once the man were as well equipped as ever for resistance; but the fearful thing is, that the first yielding just makes way for a second, and a second for a third, and a third for a fourth, it being impossible to commit sin without deadening in a degree the remonstrances of conscience, or at least without rendering oneself less sensitive to the appeal. You must be wonderfully unobservant of the testimony of your own experience, as well as ignorant of that given by the history of men, if you do not know that familiarity with sin will rapidly destroy all repugnance to its commission, and that as ye go on complying with an imperious desire there will be ever an augmenting facility of compliance. There is a very accurate correspondence between our physical constitution and our moral: the great pain in a surgical operation is at first, when the knife is near the surface; the sensitiveness decreases as the instrument descends: thus also with moral sensitiveness; we shrink from the first contact with any form of evil, but if once we overcome our repugnance the almost certainty is that we shall soon cordially embrace it; and if every act of wickedness smooth the way for its repetition, you must see at once of what worth is that preventing grace of God by which a man is withheld from yielding to some potent temptation. If, then, when plied, like David, with a mighty temptation, soliciting to an act, which, if performed, must sear and deaden his moral sensibilities, if preventing grace be mercifully vouchsafed, strengthening him to resist, there will be no Divine interference in his behalf which shall more powerfully constrain him to burst into the exclamation--“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel”? Indeed, I know what you may say. “The unconverted man may live to be converted; if he do, then preventing grace deprives him of a present pleasure, the guiltiness of which would be ultimately forgiven, and thus the injuriousness destroyed. Is this a benefit?” we will not go at length into the hundred answers which might be fairly given to this question. You cannot commit a sin, without introducing into the soul a certain degree of hardness, and an aptness to continue in that sin. This truth is finely expressed by an old writer, when he says, “Every act of sin strangely transforms and works over the soul to its own likeness, sin in this being to the soul like fire to combustible matter; it assimilates, before it destroys it. One visit is enough to begin an acquaintance, and this point is gained by it, that when the visitor comes again, he is no more a stranger.” You go upon the supposition, that one year will be just as suitable for repentance as another--a supposition which, even if it involve not a long line of falsehoods, marks forgetfulness of the fact, that repentance is God’s gift, and not man’s achievement; and though it be a glorious truth, that God hath promised forgiveness to everyone who repents, it is equally a truth, and that too of the most solemn import, that God hath not promised to give everyone at every time grace to repent. Observe the diminished probability of any attempt after salvation, whilst every moral feeling grows more and more torpid. Remember that forasmuch as sin provokes and grieves the Holy Spirit, the very acts which make a sinner more need repentance make him more in danger of never obtaining it. And can you deny that of all the gifts which God pours down on an unconverted man there is none which can exceed preventing grace in its worth?
II. But let us now examine the cause for thankfulness which preventing grace furnishes to the converted. We have already allowed, that in the ease of David there was a certainty that the sin, if committed, would have been pardoned; and we must equally confess, that those who are justified through faith in Christ Jesus are sure of finding their every offence forgiven at the last. It becomes, then, a question, though no great labour will be required for its answer, in what degree and in what respects a prevented sin has the advantage over a pardoned sin--why, that is, David, secure of forgiveness, had he gratified his passion, was bound to utter praises for having been withheld from the gratification. Now, whatever the likelihood, on a mere human calculation, that a man who feels himself safe for eternity will be careless of his practice, there is nothing more certain than that Scriptural belief in our own election will cause us to spurn the thought of continuing in sin that grace may abound. We do not deny that there may be equal safety, so far as the eternal state is concerned, whether the sin be committed and then pardoned, or whether it be prevented, so that forgiveness is not needed. But it is not possible that, there should be equal assurance of safety; it is not possible that the Christian yielding to a temptation should have that, clear proof of his calling which he had when enabled by grace to overcome that, temptation. The proof, the only real proof, lies in the growing holiness; and undoubtedly, whenever evil gains the upper hand, there is so palpable an interruption to the sanctification of our nature, that there must be a suspension of the proofs of election; for there must, you should observe, be necessarily this great difference between preventing grace and pardoning grace--we may be quite sure of the application of the one in our own case, but not of the other. If I have been restrained from the commission of a sin to which I was tempted, I possess a proof not to be withstood, that I have been the subject of God’s preventing grace; but if I yield to the temptation and commit the sin, I cannot, pretend to an equally strong proof that I have been the subject of God’s pardoning grace. We thus argue, and the argument we think, will be responded to by the feeling of every true Christian, that pardon is not to be compared with prevention, on the simple principle, that a sin if committed, will, though pardoned, impair our evidence of justification, whereas, if prevented, it will rather enlarge and strengthen that evidence. Oh! we think quite wrongly, if we think that sin ever goes unpunished to the people of God. And then, again, there is such a thing as the temporal punishment of a sin, as well as the eternal, and though the eternal be remitted, the temporal may be exacted. It is certain that faith in Christ does not put away from us the temporal consequences of sin, although it undoubtedly does the eternal. Conversion, for instance, will not repair the broken constitution of the debauchee; he must endure through the years of his godliness diseases of which he sowed the seeds in the years of his dissoluteness, it is the same in other particulars. If serenity of mind and repose of condition be in any degree precious--if the clear ministerings of God’s favour be preferable to the tokens and actings of his anger--if, for such may often be the fact, the paying through long years the penalties of sin, in the tossings of a disturbed mind, the unkindnesses of friends, the bankruptcy of circumstances, the ingratitude of children, the wastings of sickness--if these be less to be chosen than the spending those years in comparative calmness, surrounded by the bounties of mercy, in the full expectation and in the rich foretaste of joys laid up at God’s right hand, then, though pardon be a great, an unspeakably great privilege, prevention vastly outdoes it in magnitude. Such are the applications which we would make of the truths which appear involved in the narrative of David’s being intercepted by Abigail. We have only, in conclusion, to exhort earnestly all classes among you, that they never think lightly of sin, as though under any circumstances whatsoever it might be committed with impunity. (H. Melvill, D. D.)
The prevention of sin a great blessing
I. The first important practical instruction suggested is, that the prevention of sin is a great blessing. Let us attend to the state of the sinner’s mind, at the time when he is arrested in his guilty career, when sin is prevented. The state of the sinner’s mind at that time is one which, but for experience and observation, we would have declared to be utterly impossible in a reasonable being. It is a state which, we would have said, could be the result of nothing short of madness. What is the state of the mind, at the period when the sinner is prevented from executing his purpose? Why, the man is resolved to violate the Divine law; the rebel has his weapon in his hand, and is just about to hurl it at the Most High. The mind, at the period when the sinner is prevented from executing the guilty act that he is resolved on, is in actual determined rebellion against God. This was the case with the Jews in Egypt, when, in opposition to Jeremiah’s expostulation, they distinctly avowed their determination in these remarkable words, “As for the words which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto them, but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth from out of our own mouth.” I believe this state of mind is not often avowed; but it does not follow; on that account, that it is not often felt. But the truth that the prevention of sin is a great blessing will become still more apparent, if, turning from the state of the sinner’s mind at the time sin is prevented, we allow ourselves to rest on the consequence, either direct, or necessary, or ultimate and probable, which would have resulted from the sin, if it had not been prevented. In medicine it is an axiom, that prevention is better than cure, and surely in morals it is also one, that innocence is better than reformation. There is, indeed, no such thing an absolute innocence in this world of guilt and misery; but so much as there is of preventive sin, so much is there of comparative innocence. God often does bring good out of evil; but God, with all his omnipotence (I speak it with reverence) cannot strip sin of its ruinous circumstances. Were that possible it would go to counteract all the purposes of His moral government. The prevention of a sin may produce consequences that may materially affect the individual during the whole of his life. This may suffice for the illustration of the first principle, that the prevention of sin is a great blessing.
II. That God is the Author of this blessing and that His sovereign kindness should be gratefully acknowledged by all on whom it has been conferred. The first thought that occurred to David’s mind was, what blessing he had received in the prevention of this sin; and the second was, that he had received it from God; and the third is, to Him be all glory. God is the author of the prevention of sin, in two ways; it is by the arrangement of His providence, that those events take place by which sin is prevented; and it is by the influence of His Spirit, that these events are rendered effectual for the purposes they are intended to serve. To be delivered from sin, is far more than to be delivered from excruciating pain, from fatal disease, or even from death itself. It is, indeed, a manifestation of sovereign kindness, to arrest the individual in his mad career. These remarks throw a new light on human life. They make some of apparently the most unimportant events of our life become the most important, and render some of the most disastrous events the greatest blessings that ever could have befallen us. When a man is prevented from committing sin--and who has not often been prevented from committing sin?--the hand of God is always about him, and in mercy about him. You were in danger, it may be, of yielding to those youthful lusts which war against the soul, and God prevented your sin by chastening you, and making you say, Surely the hand of God was there in mercy. Such sovereign kindness demands grateful acknowledgment, and not only shows us, that many of the dispensations of Providence have a benignant character, which wear a very different aspect to our minds, but that much that we think unimportant, has indeed an awful solemnity in it.
III. That in conferring the blessing of the prevention of sin, God usually employs the instrumentality of human agents, who are also entitled to the gratitude of those who, through their means, are prevented from committing sin. David, primarily, and principally, gave thanks to God, but not to God alone. He pours a benediction on the head of Abigail, the instrument of Divine agency, who, by her wise persuasives, had prevented him from carrying into execution his awful purposes, and plunging himself in guilt, it might be in ruin. God is always the author of the prevention of sin. But God ordinarily makes use of sundry means, and operates in a great variety of ways. Sometimes he employs no human agency, and, so far as we can perceive, no created agency. There are cases when the sinner, resolutely bent on violating the law of God, is just about to put, forth his hand to commit the sinful deed, when it is withdrawn by an influence he cannot understand. In other cases, God makes use of human agency, but acting quite unconsciously so far as the prevention of sin is concerned. But more frequently God makes use of the conscious agency of man for the purpose of preventing sin. He did so in the present case. This is God’s most ordinary method. It is very often by the wise advice of Christian parents, or ministers, or friends, that men are prevented from committing sin on which they had resolved; and in every ease where means are used to prevent sin, and where these are effectually used, a heavy debt of gratitude is contracted to the human instrument as well as to the Divine agent. Look what a striking demonstration we have of the madness that is in the heart of man, in that, while we can scarcely meet with one who is not grateful to the physician for what he does to ward off disease from his frame, means cannot be used, in very many cases at least, to prevent, men from sinning, without being resented as injuries and insults! This must, not prevent us from following our course. Even though in but a few instances we meet with that grateful acknowledgment David made to Abigail, this is more than recompense for the number that disappoint, us; and we know, that if we act from a principle of genuine love to God and man, we will in nowise lose our reward. (John Brown, D. D.)