Causes Of Heart Wanderings-Presumption

Another cause of backsliding is presumption---the taking it for granted that the soul stands so well with God that He will make great allowance for it, and that the guardian angel will take extra trouble to extricate the disobedient heart.

Satan tells you that you are the Lord's pet; that He thinks more of you than He does of most of His children; that He will make excuses for you that He does not make for others.

This was the temptation that came to Solomon. He had been assured of his high standing with God, and of his unparalleled wisdom and knowledge; and Satan played his tune of temptation on the strings of presumption, until the wisest of men mourned in the dust and cried, "vanity of vanities!" 

This was the temptation which the Devil presented to Jesus, when he urged Him to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple---that He was so highly favored of God that the angels would catch Him ere He struck the pavement.

This principle can have innumerable applications. 

God is as impartial in His chastisements as in His love. If He will show His love to the vilest wretch on earth who repents, so He will chastise the highest saint on earth---even a Moses, who talks face to face with Him.

Presumption is the sin that made the Devil, and one that Satan presents in a thousand varied forms to decoy the child of God.

~G. D. Watson~