THAT BOY IS NO HUSBAND!

While holding a gospel meeting in another state recently, I was asked by the local preacher to meet with him and a woman who had asked to talk with us. She felt helpless and really needed advice. This tenderhearted, forty-something Christian mother's eyes welled up with tears as she began, "My fifteen-year-old daughter is pregnant." Their hearts were broken, and their daughter is facing decisions no one should ever have to make. Now, that baby is pure and sweet and an heritage of the Lord (Ps 127:3). Nevertheless, for their family, today's heartaches and problems are real.

Go back to the days before the fornication was committed--before the unhappy decisions were made leading up to this pregnancy out of wedlock. Perhaps this girl, as most, reasoned this way: "We love each other so much. He loves me just like he is my husband." No doubt he told her he loved her and she believed it was so. But words sometimes have different meanings, and here is one great example of that sort of confusion. If the truth be told, his love consisted of 95% lust and 5% true affection. Boys and girls this age would say I was wrong and figure I didn't know what I was talking about. But the evidence speaks too loudly for me to be wrong. Read on...

Consider the difference between the way a real husband loves his wife and the way that 18-year-old boy loved his 15-year-old girlfriend.

The real husband:
(1) He loves her enough to die for her. Therefore, he loves her enough to live for her. He always want what is best for her. He would never intentionally hurt her. "Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it" (Eph 5:25).
(2) He loves her as his own body. Just as we naturally avoid things which would harm our bodies, such as drinking poison or jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, a man protects his wife from anything which could harm her. He does not want her hurt. He would suffer himself before he would let her be hurt. "So men ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh" (Eph 5:28-29).
(3) He provides her with the things which will help her live long and happily in this life. He loves her with a love that totally desires her best interest. As the Bible says, he "nourishes and cherishes" her. "For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church" (Eph 5:29).

Now, contrast that husband's love with that of this 18-year-old who chose to commit fornication with his girlfriend--a girlfriend who is now expecting her first child. Girls, WAKE UP to the truth! Perhaps this girl thought, "He loves me like I was his wife." No he doesn't! Think of the risk that boyfriend was willing to put that girl in, in order to satisfy his physical desires for a short time. He led that girl into a pit of physical and emotional serpents, and ignored that danger to her to get what he wanted. Could she walk through that pit and not be bitten?

The 18-year-old boy:
(1) He ignored the emotional guilt she would experience. Sex is not trivial and it isn't something you can forget. Women (and many men) who committed fornication in their dating years, who are now 35, look back on their teen years with deep regret for sexual sins. Did this girl's boyfriend think or care about that? What about later when she is middle-aged and is trying to encourage her teenage daughter or son to remain pure? Did he care that this even would probably roll a wave of guilt over her again and again through her life?
(2) He was not concerned about how she would feel when she had to look into the eyes of her Mom and Dad when they learned of her sin. Oh, how could you erase the memory of the pain in their eyes when they learned the truth? But he didn't think of that when he sought to satisfy his selfish desires. The potential emotional pain she could suffer meant nothing to him. All that mattered was the moment and what HE wanted. He didn't protect her from the pain of guilt. He produced it.
(3) He did not love her children. In fact, he had contempt for them. He knew that she was able to bear children, and that she would probably bear children sometime. To have his desires momentarily fulfilled he was willing to risk that she will conceive her first child by him, and such a baby would one day learn that he was conceived out of wedlock. Perhaps one day that child would suffer the poverty of a single parent house, and one day be the oldest child in a home where he is a stepchild of his dad and a half-brother to the other children. Many babies in America are being raised by grandmothers because their daughters misunderstood the word "love," and committed sin with a boyfriend. Who would be so heartless about your future children to do such a thing? Why doesn't he love the children more than that? Why doesn't he love YOUR children more than that?
(4) He ignored the gut-wrenching remorse she will feel now that she is pregnant and must face people she respects--her grandparents, her preacher and elders, her Bible class teacher, her old boyfriends, the kids in the church's youth group. Why should he care? All he knew was that he wanted her so much, and that's all that mattered. The rest did not matter enough to change his mind. He loves somebody, but it was not her. It was himself.

Take another look at that boyfriend. He may be handsome, sweet, and the envy of all other girls, but he is no husband. Do not let him treat you like you are his wife.

By Glenn Colley

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