For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
12 sermons cite this verse
… mean, maybe that's some common sense. Is there anything from the Bible that suggests that? Well, there is. We get a clue from Genesis 2.24, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. Without dwelling too much on that verse, it is striking that it says the man will leave his father and mother. You might think of it because a woman usually takes the man's name and the man becomes the head of the family. and I think all of us even today understand that usually there is a sense in which that relational cohesion is built around the woman, and there is a natural link for the woman to her family and the husband, yes, to his family, but there will be a stronger link usually from the daughter back to her mother. And so, a man leaves his father and mother, cleaves to his wife. The implication there is there is, now you're part of a family, but you are forming something unique. And surely, if the language is of leaving a father and mother, then there is a requirement that the parents can make upon their children that does change. Now, in that time, it would have naturally been when a child leaves and gets married, which would have happened very young, would have happened often as teenagers or in their 20s, would have generally happened young. …
… for just a moment. Let me illustrate what I mean. Ephesians 5 and 31. He says, For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. Now, what he is doing there is he is quoting. He is appealing to the way in which God has established things to be from the beginning. In other words, he says, Now, here is a social unit—husbands and wives. This is how you are to live, and this is why you're to live this way. So he takes it, and he substantiates his call by quoting Scripture. You find the same thing in Ephesians chapter 6 in relationship to the way in which children are supposed to submit to their parents. People who say today, well, the children don't have to do this. Why would they have to do this? The answer is, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. What makes it right? The law of God makes it right. What about the law of God? The fifth commandment. Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God gives you. So in other words, he says, husbands and wives, this is your part in the social climate. And this is why the Bible says so. Children, this is your responsibility, and I am underpinning it by telling you by quoting Scripture. Now, when he comes to the issue of slavery, he doesn't underpin it with anything. …
… At the beginning, the creator, God, made them male and female and said, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So what did we see? God created gender and God created marriage and God created sex and God called it all good. And the Bible consistently teaches something about marriage. Now, people didn't live up to it in the Old Testament and the New Testament, but he taught it. The Bible consistently teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman, and any sexual activity outside of God's design for marriage, the Bible calls sin. Whether it's pornography, lust, same-sex sexual behavior, any sex outside of marriage, the Bible says, is sin. Paul's very clear in 1 Corinthians 6, 18. How do you deal with sexual sin? Paul says, flee from it. He doesn't say flirt with it. He doesn't say, try to fight it off. He says, run, Forrest, run. Flee sexual immorality. Why? Because all other sins a person commits are outside of the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body. If you are a follower of Jesus, here's what Paul said. You are not your own. In other words, you don't get to make the rules. Your desires are not king. You are not your own. You are bought at a price. The blood that Jesus shed paid for the forgiveness of your sins. Therefore, Or honor God with your bodies. …
… All of which Scripture clearly speaks to in Genesis chapter 1, I'm sorry, Genesis chapter 1, verse 26 through 28, God's creation of man and woman in his image to Genesis chapter 2, verse 24, God's institution of marriage between a man and a woman for the purpose, Ephesians chapter 5, verses 22 through 33 of displaying the gospel and a husband's selfless sacrificial love for his wife, a wife's submissive respect and love for her husband, which leads to Ephesians chapter 6, verses 1 through 4, and a father and a mother loving their child in a way that reflects the love of God for that child. There's so much we could talk about here, but just to bring the data on to bear on why this is so important, do you know what percentage of women seeking abortions are unmarried in our country. Approximately 86%. So almost nine out of 10 women in our country who seek abortions are unmarried. We in our culture have decoupled sex from marriage and the effects are tragic for children in the womb. …
… How do you do that? Well, you get to Genesis chapter 2, verse 24, and it says, A man shall leave his father and mother, unite to his wife, they will become one flesh. That's the answer. How do you multiply and fill the earth in the context of a marriage relationship between a man and a woman that multiply and fill the earth. And this is the picture of God's blessing. He blessed Adam and Eve for that purpose. He blessed them, gave them this command, be fruitful and multiply. And as you go throughout the rest of Genesis, you just see the same thing. You fast forward to Genesis chapter 12, verse one through three, and God blesses Abraham. He says, I'm going to bless you and your offspring. How is God's blessing going to be evident in Abraham's life? certainly in the land, he promised to give him land, but also in descendants. God said, I'm going to give you descendants. He gave the promise to Abraham, then Isaac in Genesis chapter 26 verse 4, Jacob in Genesis chapter 28 verse 14. God says, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, I'm going to bless you, and that blessing is going to be evident in descendants like the stars in the sky. …
… But that does not mean that the Bible is teaching us that polygamy is good. You go right back to Genesis 2.24, and it's one man and one woman. That's right. It's not many. So I'm convinced that polygamy is not what the Bible teaches. Brilliant. Cliff, how do you, okay, over the years in speaking about world religions and faith systems like I have, not anywhere near to the degree that you have, it's been interesting because a lot of times people really do a pushback, even though I say people matter to God. I love Muslims. I love Mormons. But let me just talk about the religion. How do you negotiate that, Cliff? And have you had, I'm sure you've had people get angry at you as well. Tolerance does not mean there is no such thing as truth. Tolerance does not mean we agree on everything. Tolerance means in spite of the fact that we disagree, I still respect you and I still love you as a fellow human being created in the image of God. …
… talking about procreation, making babies. In Genesis 2, what we saw last week is God's design for how that happens. Marriage. Genesis 2.24. A man shall leave his father and his mother, hold fast to his wife, they shall become one flesh. And as man and woman come together as one flesh in marriage, they multiply. That's the whole picture that Genesis 1.28 is talking about. And this is really important for us to see because as we keep reading throughout the Old Testament, the blessing of God is often tied to husbands and wives having children, multiplying. Look at this. When God forms his people in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, look at what he promises them in Genesis 15. God brought Abraham, the father of the people of Israel, outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. God said, I'm going to give you offspring, innumerable children and grandchildren, which necessitated marriage to Abraham's wife, Sarah. …
… So we are members of his body. For this reason, and here's Genesis again, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself. And the wife must respect her husband. Love and respect. I was excited. I got all the way through all this, and then I discovered this book that a lot of you apparently already know called Love and Respect. And this was a book of a year book. and he did a study of 400 guys and 400 ladies and he was asking them, would you rather be alone and unloved or disrespected? And 75% of the guys said, I would rather be alone and unloved than disrespected. And 75% of the women in the survey said, I would rather be disrespected than to be alone and unloved. And he was just drilling down into this idea that guys wanna be respected. …
… encourage you, fight for unity. Fight for your marriage. A love that lasts. Watch what Jesus says. He's quoting the book of Genesis here. Watch Matthew chapter 19. For this reason, a man will leave his father and his mother. That means get out of your parents' basement and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but they are one flesh. Therefore, Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate. Let nobody separate you. Why? Why does God need to quote all the way back to the first book of the Bible? Because there's going to be some things that try and separate you and your spouse. There's going to be some people that try and get in the way of your marriage. And you've got to fight for unity. What God has joined together, let no man separate. When I was in Bible college my freshman year, I was in a class, big class for our Bible college, like 60-something people. …
… She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife, And they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." So in Genesis chapter 2, God basically creates a man, and then from that man creates a woman, and inaugurates what Peter calls the grace of life, which is marriage. And marriage in Scripture has a number of purposes. One, companionship, and that's what you see here. Man needed a helper suitable for him. Marriage also has the purpose of procreation. Back in chapter 1, it says, in a broad sense, God created man in His own image and said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So God's design for marriage is companionship and children. In 1 Corinthians 7, we find that God's design for marriage is also moral purity. We are instructed there about the fact that you must marry rather than to burn. …
… All a marriage is just wrapped up in verse 31. For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife. Do you know what the highest relationship on this earth is? It is not parent-child. And it is not child-parent. It is husband and wife. For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife. It's so important here that we see that the priority of marriage is the relationship between a man and his wife. And the permanence of marriage is, shall be joined unto his wife. That word in the Greek and in the Hebrew in the Old Testament has the idea of being welded. I mean, put together. And the Bible teaches what God hath therefore joined together, let not man put asunder. That's the permanency of marriage. And the purpose of marriage is, and they too. shall be one flesh. Now I'm going to tell you something else, folks. My heart breaks for our teenagers today. …
… AND GOD'S PLAN IS ONE MAN FOR ONE WOMAN UNTIL DEATH DO THEM PART IN A MONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE. AND THE BIBLE SAYS IN GENESIS CHAPTER TWO AND VERSE 24, THEREFORE SHALL A MAN LEAVE HIS FATHER AND HIS MOTHER, AND SHALL CLEAVE UNTO HIS WIFE, AND THEY SHALL BE ONE FLESH. MY DEAR FRIEND, THAT IS GOD'S ETERNAL PLAN, and that's why the Lord Jesus Christ clearly said, without equivocation, stutter or stammer, thou shalt not commit adultery. But the devil, the devil has aimed the artillery of hell against your family, against your home, against my family, against our homes, because the devil knows that if he can hurt us at home, he can hurt us all over. Satan's plan has always been, number one, to deny God as to a mere superstition. And once he's denied God, he wants to debase man and make man a mere animal. And if there is no God, and if man is the product of blind evolution, it follows one, two, three, you deny God, you debase man. …