Who knew? After 20 plus years of preaching I am sure that at some point I managed to touch upon a few controversies or said something that was offensive to someone. But what has surprised me is the subject that would bring the most opposition in both a spiritual and a real-world sense has been…MARRIAGE! Now I have to tell you that I know a lot of married people, in fact I am even married myself! I have been married for 29 years this coming September 3rd, notice that I remember the date of my anniversary, which kind of gives me some credibility on this issue. Let me share with you some examples of the opposition and then I want to make a few observations. (You would think since there was opposition I would leave this alone.)
I had a woman tell me as she was going out the door the first Sunday of the series that when she heard I would be preaching on this subject she had decided not to come to Church until the series was complete, but she forgot. (I wonder if God had a purpose for her being there…just saying.)
A young lady left the service early one week and while she never actually spoke to anyone as to why it was just assumed by many that something I said was to blame…
Another week a visitor left the service even before I preached, without saying anything to anyone and once again speculation was that she read the sermon title in the bulletin and decided not to stay…
On the spiritual front every week that I preached this series I struggled, not with the subject matter, but with the mechanics of getting the messages from my head onto paper. Believe it or not, it really helps to have my sermons organized. Some you are surprised to hear that there is in fact any organization associated with my sermons!
I’m not going to address the second and third example because NO ONE knows exactly why these ladies left. But I will say that when these occurrences were told to me it had a chilling effect on my confidence about preaching this series. As for the first example, have we really gotten to the place where our Church attendance is going to be based on whether or not we believe the sermon topic is relevant to us? How many times in the course of my life have I heard a sermon on salvation since I was saved at eight years old? I can’t even attempt at a number, were all those sermons useless since I was already saved? Yet, I can tell you that in many of those messages even though the result wasn’t my salvation I heard things from them that I needed to hear. Sermons are not messages given by just the men and women preaching but also from the Holy Spirit.
I believe all of this was spiritual opposition from the enemy. So what I take away from this is that Satan is deeply opposed to marriage and he is especially determined to destroy Christian marriage. The fact is, when we talk about marriage we are getting at the heart of many of the problems that Christians are facing in today’s world. Here is the thing, no matter how difficult it is, take a good look at your marriage and at yourself as a spouse, are you doing everything you can to build a strong marriage that can withstand the attack of the devil? I am praying for every household in our Church, whether they are inhabited by singles or couples, or families because God has a great success story for you if you will take His Word to your heart!
