TE: MM, people don't become aware of all their cultivated tendencies all at once. This would be impossible.

MM: I agree.

TE: You're seriously (and I mean seriously) underestimating the extent to which our cultivated tendencies go.

MM: I disagree. I am fully aware of what it takes to "stay converted", to keep my eyes on Jesus, to prevent myself from becoming the "play thing" of the devil, to maintain the warfare against sin, self, and Satan, to keep my inherited and cultivated sinful traits and tendencies under the control of a sanctified will and mind. I also know what it feels like to fail, which is why I am so very motivated not to crucify my Lord and Saviour afresh.

TE: The SOP speaks of fights that go on for years. The fact that a person has to fight doesn't mean (s)he is not converted. She speaks of the importance of training the mind, and of the difficulty involved.

MM: I agree. But fighting and subduing our sinful traits and tendencies does not include sinning and repenting because we fail to keep them under control. Fighting the good fight of faith means successfully preventing our natural, evil traits and tendencies from regaining control of us. We shall have to labor, agonize, wrestle, and strive against our inherited and cultivated traits and tendencies until Jesus returns and replaces our sinful flesh nature with a sinless one.

SC 43
God desires to heal us, to set us free. But since this requires an entire transformation, a renewing of our whole nature, we must yield ourselves wholly to Him. The warfare against self is the greatest battle that was ever fought. The yielding of self, surrendering all to the will of God, requires a struggle; but the soul must submit to God before it can be renewed in holiness. {SC 43.2,3}

AA 560, 561
Sanctification is not the work of a moment, an hour, a day, but of a lifetime. It is not gained by a happy flight of feeling, but is the result of constantly dying to sin, and constantly living for Christ. Wrongs cannot be righted nor reformations wrought in the character by feeble, intermittent efforts. It is only by long, persevering effort, sore discipline, and stern conflict, that we shall overcome. We know not one day how strong will be our conflict the next. So long as Satan reigns, we shall have self to subdue, besetting sins to overcome; so long as life shall last, there will be no stopping place, no point which we can reach and say, I have fully attained. Sanctification is the result of lifelong obedience. {AA 560.3}

Mike,

I didn't understand.
The question is not how God considered this sin, but how the people who committed it related to it.
Were those people aware that polygamy was a sin or weren't they? Was this a willful sin or a sin of ignorance? Was it a cultivated sin or not?

I'm confused with your "I agree." I thought you've been saying when a person is converted they become aware of all their cultivated traits to evil, and have to confess them all, and they are all removed at that point.

So what are you saying? If they're not all removed, then some remain, and get removed as the Christian grows and becomes aware of them. I thought that's what Rosangela and myself and I think everyone but you have been saying. I thought you disagreed with this idea.

Polygamy is a sin. "God has not sanctioned polygamy in a single instance. It was contrary to his will. He knew that the happiness of man would be destroyed by it." (3SG 100) "It was one of the sins that brought the wrath of God upon the antediluvian world." (PP 338)

I searched the word "polygamy" in the SOP and it is clear to me that in some cases believers practiced it innocently and ignorantly, while others did it during a time of backsliding. Thus, some were guilty and ohers were not.

PP 145
Polygamy had become so widespread that it had ceased to be regarded as a sin, but it was no less a violation of the law of God, and was fatal to the sacredness and peace of the family relation. {PP 145.1}

4aSG 86
[David] finally fell into the common practice of other kings around him, of having a plurality of wives, and his life was imbittered by the evil results of polygamy. {4aSG 86.1}

TE: MM, people don't become aware of all their cultivated tendencies all at once. This would be impossible.

MM: I agree.

TE: I thought you've been saying when a person is converted they become aware of all their cultivated traits to evil, and have to confess them all, and they are all removed at that point.

MM: I do not believe it happens "all at once". The Holy Spirit gradually reveals them to us a little at a time during the "long wooing", the "patient, protracted process" that leads to conversion and rebirth.

Agreed! The Muslims are allowed to have not more than four wives. They claim this is much better than the poligamy of Christians who have many wives, just marrying one at a time, divorcing them before taking a new one!

Ok, I did understand you correctly. We're back to this:

TE: You're seriously (and I mean seriously) underestimating the extent to which our cultivated tendencies go.

MM: I disagree. I am fully aware of what it takes to "stay converted", to keep my eyes on Jesus, to prevent myself from becoming the "play thing" of the devil, to maintain the warfare against sin, self, and Satan, to keep my inherited and cultivated sinful traits and tendencies under the control of a sanctified will and mind. I also know what it feels like to fail, which is why I am so very motivated not to crucify my Lord and Saviour afresh.

What Waggoner wrote about this subject is that if God were to wait for him to confess all his sins, until probation closed wouldn't be long enough. Instead what the Holy Spirit does is to present to us our reprensentative sins. (I posted the quote a bit earlier in this thread).

I agree with Waggoner. I also agree with what I wrote earlier, that you are seriously misjudging the amount of cultivated sin that we have, and the idea that we can confess it all, or must confess it all, before being converted is also misjudged.

The true idea is communicated here:

I was thinking some more about this, and this is just so foreign to any experience I'm aware of that I had to comment. When I was converted, God didn't wait for me to confess my cultivated evil. A girl presented me the Gospel, the Holy Spirit presented Christ to me, and I considered what I wanted to do, decided to accept Christ, and that was it.

I can't recall the Holy Spirit convicting me of any sins, let alone all of them. There certainly wasn't any "patient, protracted process" which involved God's making my sins known to me.

Here's the SOP quote:



This isn't talking about sins being revealed before one is converted; it's talking about drawing the sinner to Christ! What she writes agrees exactly with my experience, but what you wrote not only doesn't agree with my experience, I don't know of anyone's experience that it agrees with.

Thank you, Tom, for this quote. It is quite similar to what I read yesterday in Steps to Christ. I agree with Paul that I am the greatest of sinners, and therefore I need the more of Jesus Christ. If I manage to be so "good" I need less of Christ, and become sufficient in myself. I believe in the words of Christ that without him I can do nothing, so I must hang my helpless soul on him and his merits.

An important part of our message is jusfication by faith and we must live constantly by this faith and by it is our sanctification.

There comes a sanctfied will power, but what is it, and how does it work?

Then why didn’t the Holy Spirit reveal it to them? Why didn’t the gleams of the purity of Christ make this spot of defilement painfully distinct to them?