Why God Winks

[Richard Myers]

Sister Glass has asked that we study the subject of  why God allows certain sins to manifest themselves in ages past without sending strong rebuke. Her example was God not rebuking the kings for having more than one wife and she points out that sometimes they were foreign wives.

Let us take a look.

[Richard Myers]

In response to Sister Glasses particular example, I would like to address part of the concern. We do see strong rebuke in the case of pagan wives even before the kings came on the scene. Can we think of some of the times?

God seems to be more concerned with who His people married than the fact they had more than one wife. Is this true? And if so, why?

Richard

[Randy S]

God's revelation of truth is progressive. It's just like child development.  You can't teach everything at once.

We see many examples of this.  Take the issue of divorce.  Christ told Moses to allow divorce but only if men made it legal.  That was an improvement over the previous custom, which was to abandon a wife yet not allow her to re-marry, which in those times might leave her destitute and doing who knows what to earn a living.

But when Christ came in person he pointed out that God hates divorce.  They shouldn't just write a certificate of divorce except in circumstances of infidelity.  Even then, by God's own example with Israel, and by His instructions to Hosea, we can see that there should be forgiveness.

Another interesting, and somewhat related aspect, is to notice how long God went before He told men that he was omniscient and omnipresent.  In fact, God even played along as if he weren't.

Consider Christ's words to Adam: "Where are you?", "Did you eat what I told you not to?".  God well knew where Adam was hiding and that he had sinned.  Even 2,400 years later, Christ said to Abraham: "I've heard Sodom is very wicked and I've come to see for myself".  In fact, God knew exactly how wicked Sodom was.

Why do you think God did not tell people for a very long time that he sees everything that they do.  Why do you think that God played along with their lack of knowledge, or even implied that He didn't know?

[Sister Marie]

God really was against having pagan wives. It was in their law. Remember when Nehemiah took it upon himself with God's leading to help get Jerusalem rebuild? He read to them their laws and showed them and told them to send back family that were pagan. Clean up their act and their life in every way and God would bless them. He was the only leader that I recall doing that in a long long time.

But God did not talk much about having only one wife. Does the Bible or SOP give us any idea when this practice started? Or did it start with Saul being a king and taking after the other kingdoms that did not follow God. Before this time did the Israelites follow God in this?? (I say follow God because if He had intended more than one wife per man He would have started it out that way)

You asked Randy,

"Why do you think God did not tell people for a very long time that he sees everything that they do. Why do you think that God played along with their lack of knowledge, or even implied that He didn't know?"

Jesus taught with questions. I think God (Christ) did in the Old Testament too and still does. Not always are the answers laid in our lap, but rather a question to make us think. They were told these things by God, but God in dealing with His people choose to get their mind thinking so they would remember what He had already told them.

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With Christian Love,
Sister Glass

[JimB]

Maybe this is a starting place worth looking at. According to Sister White Seth's children disregarded the restrictions of the 7th commandment...

PP p.81,82

To the crime of murder, in which Cain had led the way, Lamech, the fifth in descent, added polygamy, and, boastfully defiant, he acknowledged God, only to draw from the avenging of Cain an assurance of his own safety. Abel had led a pastoral life, dwelling in tents or booths, and the descendants of Seth followed the same course, counting themselves "strangers and pilgrims on the earth," seeking "a better country, that is, an heavenly." Hebrews 11:13, 16.

For some time the two classes remained separate. The race of Cain, spreading from the place of their first settlement, dispersed over the plains and valleys where the children of Seth had dwelt; and the latter, in order to escape from their contaminating influence, withdrew to the mountains, and there made their home. So long as this separation continued, they maintained the worship of God in its purity. But in the lapse of time they ventured, little by little, to mingle with the inhabitants of the valleys. This association was productive of the worst results. "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair." The children of Seth, attracted by the beauty of the daughters of Cain's descendants, displeased the Lord by intermarrying with them. Many of the worshipers of God were beguiled into sin by the allurements that were now constantly before them, and they lost their peculiar, holy character. Mingling with the depraved, they became like them in spirit and in deeds; the restrictions of the seventh commandment were disregarded, "and they took them wives of all which they chose." The children of Seth went
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"in the way of Cain" (Jude 11); they fixed their minds upon worldly prosperity and enjoyment and neglected the commandments of the Lord. Men "did not like to retain God in their knowledge;" they "became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Romans 1:21. Therefore "God gave them over to a mind void of judgment." Verse 28, margin. Sin spread abroad in the earth like a deadly leprosy.

[This message has been edited by JimB (edited 01-30-2003).]