The Foundation Of Marriage
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Matthew 19:6
With the divorce rate hovering around 50 percent, will any homes be left in another hundred years? The impact of divorce on children is staggering and is still to be assessed as the psychological and emotional scars break through to harm some future families.
One of the primary reasons for the breakdown in the home is that we have forgotten the biblical commands relating to marriage and the family, commands which never change. Even some “Christian” writers are publishing books today which reject the Bible’s strict teaching on divorce.
The Bible does not allow divorce on grounds of “he doesn’t love me” or “she doesn’t love me.” The Bible says God hates divorce. He hates divorce because, as Jesus taught, marriage is a picture of the unity between God and the Father, God and the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. When people get divorced they are tearing at the very fabric of the unity of God.
From the beginning, Satan has tried to disrupt the unity of the Trinity. First, Satan tried to make himself a part of the Trinity by desiring to be coequal with God. It was his sin of pride that caused his expulsion from heaven. Second, Satan was successful in tempting our first parents into sin, thereby breaking the unique relationship between man and his Creator. Third, Satan tried to pry Jesus loose from His relationship to the Father when he tempted Him in the wilderness. Today, Satan is eating away like a large termite at the foundation of marriage and the family.
Satan never changes, but neither does God. God still hates divorce.
There is no marriage that is beyond repair in the sight of God. If we will first submit ourselves to Christ and then our marriage into His care and keeping, nothing is impossible with God. But we must humble ourselves and lay our pride and desire to please ourselves first on His altar. It is only then that God can restore feelings and bring healing to a marriage in trouble.
The first step in healing a marriage is ours. God provides the salve that heals.
Our Father and our God, I lay my pride and selfishness before You. Please forgive me, Lord, for allowing Satan to disrupt the unity of my marriage. Please help me restore love and devotion to my marriage through my relationship with Jesus, my Lord. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).