3.017 They Shall be One Flesh

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as savory salt.

Hello, my friends, it's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve. How about we discuss a possible cure for evil today?

We are reading this week Genesis chapters 1 and 2, Moses chapters 2 and 3, and Abraham chapters 4 and 5. And yes, all of them are very, very similar. So kind of pick your poison.

Although I am going to be using Abraham chapter 5 today for our verse for the day. This one took me down an interesting road of study. As we go through the creative process and we've talked about different aspects of the creation, one of the things we see here on the tail end of Genesis 2 or Moses 3 or Abraham 5 is the creation of man and woman.

And we get man and woman together here in the tail end of this. And yes, it's going to lead into the story of Adam and Eve more as we go further into our studies. But this phrase, this verse here today, kind of caught my attention and it got me thinking and then I wanted to do some study.

And then I landed on an incredible talk from a long time ago. And so let's get to it and see what we can learn from it. Our verse for today is Abraham chapter 5, verse 18.

And it says this: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." Now, I don't want to step on anyone's toes here in terms of in-laws or outlaws or family relationships or what you should do in marriage or what you shouldn't do, or if you should be married or if you shouldn't be married, blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, we're not going to go all these. We are going to stay in the lane of Savory Salt and what can be to help each one of us be a little bit better.

This was interesting to me because I've often thought about this idea of husband and wife becoming one flesh, leaving their parents behind and becoming like a new entity. And as I thought about that, I thought about the different conference talks that I've heard about the work that husbands and wives can do. "The Spirit of the Times is worldliness. Hoodlumism is on a warpath.

Supposedly good youth from recognized good families express their revolt in destructive acts. Many defy and resist the law-enforcing officers. Respect for authority—secular, religious, political—seems to be at a low ebb.

Immorality, drug addiction, general moral and spiritual deterioration seem to be increasing, and the world is in turmoil. But the Lord has offered an old program in new dress, and it gives promise to return the Father to His rightful Place at the Head of the Family, to bring Mother Home from Social Life and Employment, the Children from Near Total Fun and Frolic. The Home Teaching Program with its crowning activity, the Family Home Evening, will neutralize the ill effects if people will only apply the remedy." Now, up until I got to that tail end of that, did you wonder when this was shared?

Obviously, the terms like Home Teaching Program and those aspects kind of let you know, the Family Home Evening, let you know that this is dated a little bit because these aren't necessarily phrases that we use anymore. But this comes from a talk from Spencer W. Kimball, one of our prophets.

Although this was a talk that he gave in 1965 when he was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. My friends, this talk is called "Home Training—The Cure for Evil." And yes, you can tell that there's some pieces in it that's dated 1965. But did you catch the aspects that he described just in one paragraph about the power of having mom and dad at home?

I'm grateful for the blessing the Lord has given us to be one. It is a commandment and it's an opportunity for each of us to say, let's join together under the power and authority of the priesthood of God and see what blessings are in store for us there. That's all for today, my friends.

You and I have come here for such a time as this. Step forward in faith, and let's be Savory Salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.