The Storm

TO READ: Matthew 7:21-29

Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.

Matthew 7:25

We live in a society where the concept of Christian marriage —of marriage itself —is under incredible attack. The problem could well be described as a rising flood of divorce statistics. We feel that we are indeed going against the stream of general opinion if we hold to a marriage ethic as taught in the Scriptures.

Some friends of mine were introduced at a neighborhood party as the only couple in the room still on their first marriage. “How cute!” commented one of their new friends. It’s now “cute” to be married more than five years!

Hundreds of people busily construct their homes on the sand of secularism and allow themselves and their marriages to be engulfed in the mainstream of public opinion. When their tottering house collapses around their ears, they make little effort to save it. The Bible says that fools build their houses on the sand.

The world may consider it wise to opt out of a marriage at the slightest hint of a storm, but that is being worldly wise. When we build our individual lives and our marriages upon the Rock, they will not be shaken by the floods of opposition. God’s wisdom teaches us that there is another way. Notice the text says that the floods came and the winds blew; it doesn’t say if. Difficulties and trials will inevitably come. But we can weather the storms if our marriage is built on solid rock!