"Where did Cain get his wife?" is a question people seem to love to ask here in New York, I guess either thinking it proves evolution theories, or incest, and/or shows you can't take the Bible literally.

The simple answer, of course, is Adam lived 930 years (Gen. 5:5) and fathered perhaps a hundred or more children with wife, Eve.

"It is obvious that (Cain) married a sister, a niece, a cousin, or another female relative," writes Dr. Noah Hutchings in his 1998 book, "God Divided the Nations." "Before the Flood, God did not put on the conscience of man that it was wrong to marry within the family. The law against marrying close relatives did not come until God gave Moses the commandments."

According to "Halley's Bible Handbook," Cain must have been about 129 years old when he killed his brother, Abel, and the total population at the time numbered into the thousands!

The first 11 chapters of Genesis covers 2,000 years of history, representing the same amount of time covered in Genesis 12 all the way to the Book of Acts (directly following the Four Gospels).

"Have you ever wondered why there's 2,000 years of human history in just these short 11 chapters of Genesis?" asks my pastor, Richard Jordan (Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill.) in a sermon I have on tape. "Because the issue back here in the first 11 chapters is not showing you all the history, it's showing you these four divine institutions (marriage, family, volition, nationalism) God establishes."

Marriage is the divine institution God established from the fifth day of Creation. "It came off the drawing board of heaven," as Jordan reminds, adding, "No man would have ever thought of something that wonderful!"

God created Eve with the purpose of creating a wife for Adam.

"Eve was created to cure the only deficit that a perfect Adam had—he was alone," says Jordan. "God wanted Adam to experience in his life the divine principle of life. In the Trinity, there are three distinct people in the Godhead. God wants to share with us the way He lives and He doesn't live as a solitary being. So, He created Adam so that Adam couldn't live as a solitary being. You and I are created to be dependant upon others. You were created by God to be a dependant person. To be a creature means you are dependant upon the Creator."

Marriage isn't a civil governmental institution, as much as people want to make it that way today.

"God created it and He created it as an institution for the basic fundamental functioning of humanity on the planet," says Jordan. "It's God’s way of bringing about the population increase; bringing about children. Children are not designed to be brought into this world outside of the marriage bond."

In Gen. 4:17, we're told Cain, after disobeying God and settling in the land of Nod, "knew his wife; and she conceived, and bear Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch."

"Cain said, 'I'm going to build me a city and I'm going to name it after my boy, and I'm going to raise it for posterity and a name to myself,' " explains Jordan. "You know what the first city on planet earth, built by man, was built on? Absolute complete rebellion against God!"

Cain actually got the idea of creating a city from God.

"God lives in a city—New Jerusalem—and Cain stole the idea from God and said, 'I'll be my own god, I'll have my own city, and I don't care what you say, Lord,' " says Jordan. "And every city built on this planet from then until Revelation 20, represents man's rebellion against God. And you can live out in the country, but there's still a city around you. You can't get away from it."

In Genesis 4, we see city culture develop—and the implements of war—and what ultimately happens when man lives with only his conscience to restrain him; only the good of his own volition.

By chapter 6, the whole earth is corrupt and God's forced into making the decision to wipe everyone out, save for Noah and his godly family.

"When Noah steps off the ark and out on the earth in Chapter 9, something's added—

God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply,' " explains Jordan. "That's what he told Adam. Did you know you're not just a son of Adam, you're the son of Noah? Isn't that fascinating? You have two beginnings."