Confused about the law....

I've never heard of Andrew Wommack, but if you are indeed quoting him correctly, then he is wrong.

The law was not God "becoming harsh on sin." God has been harsh on sin from the moment that Adam and Eve rebelled against him in the garden. He punished mankind with the death penalty. Had Adam and Eve not sinned, they would have never died and neither would any other people that God created.

Death penalty....that's sounds pretty harsh to me.

Yet what of Andrew Wommack's two examples?

There are things worse than death, you know. And God knew that when punished Cain. God has already cursed the ground for Adam's sake and he cursed it again, specifically, just for Cain.

Because Cain would no longer be able to feed his family by his own agricultural skills, he would have to be nomadic. Constantly wandering the earth.......Cain and his wife and children were exiles from God and exiles from Godly people.

They were fugitives with each passing generation becoming deeper and deeper into moral decay until the Great Flood.

Cain was petrified that someone would take revenge on him for Abel's death and kill him, themselves.

He got angry with God, claiming that his punishment was too much and he found fault with God by saying, in essence,...."Well, gee God!! If you are going to punish me, then nobody is going to like me and someone will probably try to kill me for it!"

No where in the bible does it say that Cain was repentant for what he did. In fact, it says in Gen. 4:16 that Cain "left the presence of God".

God placing a mark on Cain was not a soft expression of mercy for Cain. It was to keep him alive........so that he could bear his punishment. And whatever that mark was....the bible doesn't say.....when people saw it, they understood that it meant that Cain could not be assassinated by them. It apparently told them that God wasn't playing around with sin and that God had Cain under control.

I see NO evidence of God's Grace being extended to Cain. I see no evidence of Cain desiring the Grace of God in the first place. He never repented. He was never remorseful for killing his brother.

He smarted off to God when God asked him about Abel's whereabouts and he found fault with God when God punished him for murder.

As for Jacob marrying two sisters....the law does not say that polygamy was forbidden. The sexual sins that are outlined as unlawful deal with adultry, incest, and beastiality. The law does state that kings were not to form political unions with other nations by signing the deal in multiple marriages to women. That would bring in foreign religions and idolatry and would turn the king's heart away from God.

This does not mean that God was pleased with Jacob having two wives. And I believe that there is the implication that polygamy was frowned upon by God from the Genesis. It didn't take the law to do that.

In fact, remember how Jacob showed favortism? He loved Rachel and hated Leah. And because he loved Rachel, he made her son, Joseph, even though he wasn't the first born....in fact he was one of the younger sons, he made Joseph the first born in his own eyes and treated him so.

God, in the law (Deut. 21:15-17) says this: "When a man has two wives, one loved and the other hated, and they both give him sons, but the firstborn is from the hated wife, at the time he divides the inheritance with his sons he must not treat the sons of the loved wife as the firstborn, cutting out the son of the hated wife, who is the actual firstborn. No, he must acknowledge, the inheritance rights of the real firstborn, the son of the hated wife, by giving him a double share of the inheritance; that son is the first proof of his virility, the rights of the firstborn belongs to him."

We could get into a huge discussion about how Middle Eastern culture in those times were different and how women were viewed differently in those times, but I would be digressing.

This Andrew Wommack person that you have read is wrong about Cain and he is wrong about polygamy being banned in the law.