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’?and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh’?And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?
8 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. …
Because in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus told us he demonstrated God's pattern for human sexuality. He said, for this reason, a man shall leave his mother and father and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. God said, here's my plan for sexuality, one man with one woman in a marriage relationship. The problem with same-sex marriage is this. Anytime you counterfeit something, you devalue it. The reason the government doesn't allow you to make your own currency at home is. If you make your own money, you devalue the real currency. You make it less valuable. And it's the same thing with marriage. If we say to people, okay, marriage is whatever you want it to be, then you have devalued marriage. If you say it doesn't matter whether it's a man or a woman, or if it's two men or two women, or one man with three women, or one man with his favorite pet, marriage is whatever you want it to be. Whatever floats your boat, you know, go ahead and do that. What you do is you devalue marriage. And the problem is, is not with a lot of gays going out and getting married. It's what it does to the heterosexual rate of marriage. …
… created them from the beginning made them male and female? And he said, for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Consequently, they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. Jesus said you can answer this whole question about divorce and remarriage by going back to God's original plan and pattern for human sexuality. You know what God's pattern for human sexuality is? Jesus said it right here. He said a mouthful. He said sex is reserved, first of all, for people in a marriage relationship. He said a man shall cleave to his wife. Sex is reserved for the marriage relationship. Secondly, he said, sex is between a man and a woman. God created them male and female. A man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. God's plan for human sexuality is very clear. Yes, it's true. Jesus never mentioned the word homosexuality. He never said, thou shall not commit homosexuality. But guess what? Jesus never said, thou shall not commit incest. Jesus never said, thou shall not commit bestiality, or pedophilia, or necrophilia. He never spoke out against any of those things. Was it he was pro necrophilia and pedophilia? Of course not. By upholding God's pattern for sexuality, by saying, here's the way God designed it. …
… 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. …
… 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. …