"And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters."-Gen. 5:4.
I suppose the question, "Who was Cain's wife?" has been asked thousands
of times since men began to read the Bible. It has probably been discussed
more than any other Bible problem. It is the stock question of the blatant
street-corner infidel and the soapbox orator. Every Bible-believing Christian
is expected to be staggered into utter silence and defeat when asked the
question, "If the Bible is true, then where did Cain get his wife?"
If I can answer this question to your satisfaction, it is reasonable
to suppose that all the other puzzling passages in the Bible may be satisfactorily
answered, for this is believed to be the prime poser, the hardest nut of
all to crack.
From one answer we may learn all.
The story of Cain has to do with the tragedy in Eden, and tells us
how the black curtain of sin was rung down upon the fairest scene this
world has ever known.
Senator Taylor of Tennessee once painted a beautiful word picture of
the Garden of Eden. We are apt today to forget the glories and grandeur
of that Edenic home into which God placed our first parents; so I would
like to give you part of that word picture. Speaking of Eden, the Senator
said:
It might have been a dream of God, glowing with ineffable beauty; rimmed
about with blue mountains from whose moss-covered peaks a thousand glassy
streams spread out in mid-air, and were like ten thousand bridal veils
catching a thousand rainbows from the sun.
Archipelagos of gorgeous coloring flecked with perennial green; where
grapevines staggered from tree to tree, drunk with the nectar of their
own clusters; where peach and plum and blood-red cherries, bending bough
and bush, hung like drops of rubies and pearls; a wilderness of flowers,
redolent of eternal spring and pulsing with bird song; where dappled fawns
played upon banks of violets; where leopards, peaceful and tame, lounged
in the copses of the magnolia; and where lions panted in jungles of roses.
A billowy landscape, festooned with tangled creepers, and curtained
about with sweet-scented groves of oranges and pomegranates.
The air was softened by a dreamy haze of perpetual springtime.
Through the midst there flowed a truculent river, alternately gleaming
in the sunshine and darkening in the shadows. Down in some vale, fresh
from the worship of God, slept Adam. No monarch ever slept upon a softer
couch, and no earthly potentate was ever draped with more costly and beautiful
tapestry.
God caused to pass over him a deep sleep, and forth from a painless
wound in his side there sprang a being blithesome as the air; her hair
hung like strands of gold, her teeth were like pearls, her cheeks like
roses. He gazed upon God's capsheaf of creation, His highest thought for
the happiness of man-Eve.
But in the morning of that beautiful creation, so eloquently described
by the Senator, a shadow fell upon the world, and its name was sin. For
man was a fool then, just as the man who leaves God out of his life today
is a fool, for in the exercise of his God-given free will Adam ate of the
forbidden fruit, fell, and oh, what a fall it was! That fall involved the
whole human race in rebellion against God.
That one sin of Adam became the father of all the future sins of men
and the parent of all perversity in fallen human nature. It was a sin that
would multiply with each succeeding generation until the progeny of that
first disobedience fills the earth today.
When Adam fell in that first fair test of his obedience, God placed
an angel with shining sword to guard the gate of Eden, lest man should
eat of the tree of life and live forever in a state of perpetual rebellion
against God.
In the fourth chapter of Genesis is the story of Cain. We are told
that, "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain"
(Heb. 11:4). Instead of approaching God through the shed blood of a lamb,
as God had shown his parents at the gate of Eden, "Cain brought of the
fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord" (Gen. 4:3).
It represented his own handiwork, the fruit of his labors; and by offering
a bouquet to God he tried to commend himself to God on the basis of his
own good works.
So because he rejected God's Word and God's way of salvation, God rejected
him.
Cain then became angry with his godly brother. One day, when they were
out in the field together, Cain first looked this way, then looked that
way, and when he thought no one was looking, he lifted his hand, and his
brother fell in his blood. Cain became the first murderer and Abel the
first martyr. But there was one way he forgot to look-up. And God saw!
Those were the days of mountain justice when men took the law into
their own hands and avenged the innocent by the death of the guilty; so
God set a mark upon Cain lest any finding him should slay him. Then:
"Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land
of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife."-Gen. 4:16,17.
The infidel idea declares there must have been another race of people
living on the earth in the days of Adam and Eve, because the Bible, they
tell us, says that Cain went away into the land of Nod and there got his
wife-but the Bible says no such thing. That is about as near as infidels
ever get to quoting a Book about which they really know very little.
The Bible does not say Cain got his wife in the land of Nod. Anyone
conversant with the Bible use of the word "knew," as used here in connection
with family life, knows that it does not mean to become acquainted with.
The word "knew" is a generic term. It refers to the procreation of the
family, the begetting of children. "Cain knew his wife; and she conceived,
and bare Enoch."
Nor does the record indicate that the land of Nod was a distant country.
On the contrary, it merely states that it was on the east of the Garden
of Eden.
The whole presumption is that Cain took his wife with him when he went
to the land of Nod where their first child was conceived and born.
Who, then, was Cain's wife? Before answering that question, let me
say it is not essential to the salvation of any man to know where Cain
got his wife. The man who refuses to accept Christ and be saved because
he doesn't know who Cain's wife was, is just as sensible as the man who
has swallowed a deadly poison but refuses to take the medicine that will
cure him, because there is some mystery he cannot solve, and which it is
none of his business to solve, concerning the matrimonial affairs of the
man who printed the label on the medicine bottle!
The simple fact is, those who make such problems as Cain's wife an
excuse for not being saved are usually living in sin, want to continue
in sin, and are merely using Bible problems as an excuse for so doing.
Dr. R. A. Torrey was once called to deal with a skeptic. He asked him
if he was an honest skeptic. The man said he was. When asked what his problem
was, he said, "I can't understand where Cain got his wife."
Dr. Torrey then said, "If I show you where Cain got his wife, then
I take it you will accept Christ and be saved."
The man replied that he had never said he would.
Dr. Torrey answered, "If your real difficulty was about Cain's wife,
and if I solved that problem for you, then if you were an honest skeptic,
you would accept Christ and become a Christian."
The man saw he was cornered.
Dr. Torrey persisted: "Tell me, isn't there something wrong in your
own personal life?"
After a great deal of hesitation and evasion, the man finally admitted
there was.
Not long afterward Dr. Torrey discovered that the trouble with that
man wasn't Cain's wife, but somebody else's wife!
Who, then, was Cain's wife? The answer is found in the words of my
text, Genesis 5:4:
"And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred
years: and he begat sons and daughters."
If we figure according to statisticians who tell us that under favorable
conditions, such as would have prevailed on the earth in those days, population
would double every twenty-five years, and bearing in mind that daughters
as well as sons were born to Adam and Eve, we can see that there could
have been scores of people on the earth by the time Cain went into the
land of Nod.
Someone will say that is true only on the assumption that Cain married
one of the daughters of Adam. Certainly he did. How else could the race
have sprung from a single human pair unless there had been at first the
intermarriage of the sons and daughters of Adam?
We know that today the marriage of cousins is sometimes fraught with
disaster, but in the morning of human history and in the providence of
God, it was not so. Even as late as fifteen hundred years before Christ,
we read that Abraham married his own half-sister.
We must keep in mind that the genealogy of Adam takes no cognizance
of the birth of Adam's daughters. There could have been daughters born
before the birth of Cain and between Cain and Abel. We are not told when
they were born, who they were, or how many there were. The record states,
as clearly as language can put it, that Adam begat daughters as well as
sons.
When we remember, therefore, that the Bible does not say Cain got his
wife in the land of Nod, and that the land of Nod was not a distant country;
when we note that daughters as well as sons were born to Adam and Eve;
and when we recognize the necessity of the intermarriage of the children
of the first human pair, we see that the problem of Cain's wife is not
a problem at all. Cain simply married one of the daughters born to Adam,
and the mystery vanishes when we note exactly what the Bible says concerning
the matter.
The problem arises from men's judging the Bible by what they think
it says, instead of by what it actually does say.
A friend of mine, the Metho-dist class leader in a small town in western
Canada, told me this story.
On the previous Sunday the lesson was on Jesus' cleansing the leper.
My friend asked the local doctor, a member of the class, to tell them something
about leprosy.
The doctor told the class there were different kinds of leprosy, some
mild, others more virulent. He described a certain oil that was being used
to cure the mild cases, and closed by saying that with advancement of medical
science, he believed that eventually all cases of leprosy would be cured.
When he sat down, an old man rose up, red with anger, and denied that
any cases of true leprosy apart from the Bible record had ever been cured,
or ever would be cured. He ended his tirade by saying triumphantly, "I
take my stand on the Bible. It says, 'Can the leper change his spots?'"
[The Bible really says, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard
his spots?" (Jer. 13:23). Editor.]
When Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, his hands were red
with fratricidal blood, the brand of God was upon his brow, and he cried,
"My punishment is greater than I can bear."
He was branded by God's hand, and all who looked upon him knew of his
crime.
Now it is a natural and a spiritual law that no man liveth to himself.
The human race is so intermingled and our relations with each other so
complex that if one man sins, other people suffer.
Herein lies the tragedy of Cain's wife. The shame and disgrace of Cain's
sin fell upon the innocent head of the woman who had married him. She is
compelled to hear the stigma of his crime and to share the disgrace of
his sin.
She avoids the company of her neighbors: she knows they are talking
about the murder. She can still hear the voice of her murdered brother's
blood crying out for vengeance. She wonders if life will ever again be
worth living because of her marriage to Cain. She knows people are pointing
at her and saying, "There goes the woman who married infamous Cain. He
murdered the godliest man on the face of the earth. He crimsoned his hands
in his own brother's blood. There goes the wife of Cain."
Who is Cain's wife today? Are there any such sorrow-laden, brokenhearted
women in the world today who have to suffer shame and bear reproach because
of their husbands' sins?
There are, and I would speak now of modern Mrs. Cain.
The Wife of a Murderer Is Cain's Wife
Some years ago at the home of a friend in Toronto, I met a woman who
seemed bowed down beneath some great load of sorrow. Although in her early
thirties, her hair was prematurely gray. I was moved by her troubled appearance
to speak to her of Christ. I learned her story later from my friend.
Some years before, in England, she had married, and their homelife
was happy and sweet. In due time God sent three little children into their
lives, and everything seemed to be well. Then one dark day a blow fell
upon that home. Her young husband, in a sudden fit of insanity, murdered
his three little children and himself became a maniac, worse than dead.
The young woman had crossed the ocean to escape the publicity, although
she could never escape the memory of her husband's crime.
I think of that woman today, with her sorrowful face, her hair almost
white, and carrying such a load on her heart. And I say that the wife of
a murderer is the wife of Cain.
The Wife of a Drunkard Is Cain's Wife
I was preaching one Sunday morning in a country church in Manitoba
where I was pastor. Sitting before me was a stranger, a woman with a little
boy at her side. She was drinking in every word of the message. She waited
behind after the service, and when the people had gone, she told me her
story.
Her home had been over in Scotland, and a happy home it was-until the
shadow of drink had fallen. Her husband had become a slave to the drink
habit and seemed helpless to gain deliverance. He went down and down until
his employers cast him off. Then his relatives cast him off. Finally he
sank so low, his wife had to leave him.
Now out into a strange country, away from the land of her birth, away
from family and friends, and with an ocean and half a continent between
her and her once happy home, this brokenhearted woman was working by the
day in order that her little boy might grow to manhood without hearing
of his father's shame.
I can still, after many years, see that woman as she stood in the aisle
of that country church, tears filling her eyes. I can still hear her story,
and I say to myself-the wife of a drunkard is the wife of Cain.
The Wife of an Infidel Is Cain's Wife
Dr. French E. Oliver told of the daughter of an infidel who lay dying.
Her mother was a Chris-tian and had often tried to lead the girl to Christ.
When she was about to take the step, the things her father had said about
the Bible would come into her mind, and she would refuse to yield. The
mother had to pray and live the Christian life alone.
One day the doctor told the girl her days on earth were numbered. She
called her father and mother to her bedside. She said, "Father, Mother
has often tried to get me to become a Christian, and you know how your
influence has kept me from it. On my deathbed I now ask you, Am I to follow
your infidelity, or am I to take my mother's God, Mother's religion, and
trust her Saviour?"
The old infidel stood looking at his daughter whom he dearly loved.
Her question left him stunned. Finally he said, with broken voice, "Daughter,
my infidelity holds out no hope for you in this dark hour. In God's name,
turn from it and take your mother's God, your mother's Christ, and your
mother's Bible."
A few days later the dying girl, with her arms about her father's neck,
pleaded with him to promise to meet her in Heaven. He gave the promise
and was soon afterward converted to God.
But things might not have had so happy an ending. There might have
been no time for that girl to be saved on her deathbed. When I think of
women I have known who were married to infidel husbands, and who have told
me they prayed daily that God would keep their children from growing up
to be like their infidel fathers, I have said in my heart, The wife of
an infidel is the wife of Cain.
The Wife of a Drug Addict Is Cain's Wife
One Sunday night in my Montreal pastorate I preached on Cain's wife,
using the suggestion of Dr. French Oliver that Cain's wife was the wife
of the murderer, the drunkard and the infidel.
Next evening a man came to my home, trembling from head to foot. When
I asked him his name he said, "My name is Cain, and my wife is Cain's wife."
At first I thought he was under the influence of drink, but soon I
saw it was drugs. He told me his story, which later I verified by letters
from his mother in England.
This man had been wounded in the eye in World War I, necessitating
eleven operations, with cocaine administered. He had contracted the drug
habit. His father, an English doctor, had died drinking absinthe, a French
drug.
In the three years since his discharge, he had spent several thousand
dollars on drugs. He was now a slave to the habit and helpless in its power.
Then he said, "I was one of the crowd gathered to hear you last night.
I heard you say your God could save from sin and keep from sin every man
who came to Him. I have come to ask you if that is true. Did you say that
because it is true, or because you are a preacher and are paid to say such
things?"
I felt led to say to him, "If you will kneel down right now and accept
Christ as your Saviour and really allow God to come into your life, if
He does not break the power of that habit and deliver you from drugs, I
will never preach another sermon."
The man knelt to pray, and I think he tried to pray, but he was still
under the influence of the drug, and I felt that the prayer was not real.
He was still in a daze when he left, and I knew he had not come clean for
God.
That man went down and down until about a year afterward when I was
called to his home where his wife had been told by the doctor that he was
dying. He had been brought home from a drug dive in Montreal's underworld
so that he would not die there and get them into trouble.
His home was a dingy, three-roomed flat where he lived with his wife
and little boy. When I entered the room where he lay, he was beating his
breast and crying, "O God, could Hell be any worse than this?"
I told him of the doctor's verdict and reminded him of his failure
a year ago to give his life over to God. He admitted it.
At that moment God led me to say, "Mr. Ridd, I am going to ask God
to spare your life. Before I pray, you will have to promise me that if
God does so, you will definitely turn to Him and be saved."
He gave me his solemn prom-ise.
I then asked God, for the sake of the weeping wife and child standing
there, and for the sake of the soul that could be won for the glory of
Christ, to spare his life.
God was pleased to answer that prayer. Slowly William Ridd was brought
back from the shadow of death.
Some six weeks later, almost before he was able to walk, he made his
way to our church. When the invitation was given, he made his way forward
and asked God to save him.
God answered that prayer instantly. God broke the power of that habit
and freed him that very moment.
I had many letters from him thanking God for his happy Christian home.
When I visited Montreal many years later he was there to greet me and to
tell me that from the moment when God came into his heart, and through
all of the eleven years since, he had as he put it, "never once looked
back."
But let me repeat it: that story also might have had a far different
ending. When I think of that palefaced little woman and the Hell-upon-earth
she endured for three years, and finally threatened with the death of her
drug-enslaved husband, then I am ready to tell the world that the wife
of a drug addict is the wife of Cain.
The Christian Wife of an Unsaved Man Is Cain's Wife
Mind you, her husband may be a good man. He may love her with all his
heart. He may even go to church with her, but because she is saved and
he is lost, every tick of the clock and every step they take together along
the pathway of life bring them nearer the parting of the ways. And I say,
God pity the wife of Cain who has nothing to look forward to except eternal
separation from the husband she loves.
Hear me! The cross of Christ is the Great Divide in the lives of women
and men. The cross is the great separator. It was back yonder on Calvary's
hill where we see on one side of that cross a criminal dying in sin, and
on the other side, a criminal dying in salvation; and the dividing factor
was their attitude toward the Christ on the central cross.
Today, as we preachers present the Gospel, the cross of Christ divides
our hearers into two classes: those who believe and so will be saved; and
those who reject and so will be lost.
Not only in the past and pres-ent, but in that future day, which, as
sure as God is truth, will come, when as John tells us:
"I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were
opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the
dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according
to their works.ÉAnd whosoever was not found written in the book
of life was cast into the lake of fire."-Rev. 20:12,15.
On that dread day, which is one day nearer us now than it ever was
before, the cross will again divide; the cross will forever separate; and
oh, what a separation!
On one side I see a Christian wife; on the other side, her unsaved
husband. On one side I see a Christian mother; on the other side, her unsaved
son. On one side I see a Christian daughter; on the other side I see her
unsaved father. On one side I see a Christian sister; on the other side,
her unsaved brother.
'Twill divide, then, the world,
O my friend, it is true-
The great cross of Jesus;
On which side are you?
I appeal to every unsaved husband, sweetheart, son and brother to get
on the right side of the cross this very hour-not only for your own soul's
sake, but for the sake of the sweet, believing Christian woman God has
sent into your life.
To every unsaved husband I say: Let that ring you put on her finger
become the symbol of a union which even death cannot break. Decide now
to become one with your wife in Christ Jesus, and life for you together
on earth and in Heaven will never end.
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