Chapter Thirteen     Romantic Love

In the last chapter we looked at the necessity for a husband and his wife to have a “loving respect,” the one toward the other. Now I would like to move on and take a view of the necessity of having “loving respect” for one another in your walk in the roles of one husband and one wife in your family relationship.

In the Garden of Eden, as it was created by the Creator God, going back to where it all began, Adam and his wife Eve shared a wonderful aspect of “loving respect” as the necessity of being sexually fulfilled, these two things go hand in hand. We see from the very beginning of creation that “they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (See Gen. 2:25).  And we understand that God having created them in His own image, male and female, that He blessed them and commanded them to “be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth” (See Gen. 1:27-28).  And that this commandment came to them before their fall into sin and death. So we are blessed to understand that intimacy in “loving respect” and physical fulfillment have always been a necessary part of the relationship between the husband and wife. So it is by sovereign design that the husband and wife are to find their sexual fulfillment in each other.

The husband and wife are to set aside, reserve, and maintain this special relationship for each other. And they are to freely give special reserved time of intimacy to each other.

Today, that is to say, outside and out in the world, the subject of sex has been taken down to the lowest ditches possible. Because of the depravity of man, he has, and will continue to misuse and abuse this gift that God has given and intended to be kept between one husband and one wife! It seems like it is so hard living in this world where sexual promiscuously runs so rampant and there are so few restraints. And TV and paper ads are so provocative. All the emphasis is on the physical body alone. The world promises that their way is so fulfilling and so good, but in the end all that it will give is destruction and misery. It cannot, nor will it ever be able to fulfill the needs of a child of God!

The Apostle Paul knew that this was the case of life in the world when he wrote, “nevertheless, to avoid fornication,’ (that is to say, because of sexual immorality,) ‘let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2).

Today in our very sexually promiscuous age, there are very few restraints, and it seems that people everywhere are obsessed with mere human sex. And it is more important than ever that we protect our own faithfulness.

King Solomon, a man to whom God had granted great wisdom, a wisdom that was far above any other man, save our Lord Jesus Christ, after giving a stern warning about the necessity of avoiding prostitution, gave this wise words to husbands: “Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.  Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.” (See Prov.  5:15-19).

This wise man is saying that a husband, and also a wife must be faithful and true to one another. The sexual aspect of marriage and the family is not just a necessary evil that is to be endured for the purposes of procreation. No, the Creator God designed it, to bring continuing pleasure and an intimate, refreshing, enjoyable and renewing aspect to the relationship between a husband and his wife! God designed this intimate relationship, as a picture of the union between Christ and His bride. 

Then Solomon wrote, “There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.” (See Songs of Solomon 6:8-9).

How many women does He say that there are? Sixty queens, forty concubines, “and virgins without number.” But how many of these does He give His faithful love to? One, He gives his love to His “dove,” His undefiled, and there can never be another for Him. She’s his only one true love!

When a man and a woman come together in the union of marriage, they each have a right to expect sexual fulfillment from one another. The Apostle Paul writes: “Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency” (See 1 Cor. 7:3-5).

The Greek word that is here translated as “benevolence” is the Greek word eunoia, (yoo'-noy-ah) which means to render kind and charitable nuptial or marital duties to one another.

Paul goes on to say that their bodies do not belong only to themselves, but that they belong to one another. And he continues by saying that if either the husband or the wife decides that it is necessary to abstain, it is to first to be agreed upon with the other. And furthermore, the time of this abstinence is to only be for a brief period of time, so they may give themselves to “fasting and prayer” and then they are to “come together again,” otherwise they will find that Satan will tempt them in their incontinency, which means that he will tempt them according to their own carnal lusts.

Sexual fulfillment is not something evil, but it’s an important part of the marriage relationship. It’s not the sin, as some would have us to believe which brought about the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. But little Child of God it should be kept in its proper place and not be made to be more important than it is intended to be; nor should it be taken for granted, nor should it ever be degraded and brought down to the lowest point that the depraved heart of man can bring it. We as the citizens of the Kingdom Church of God must certainly keep in mind that it is a part of the overall marriage picture. It is a part of the “shared identity” that exist between one husband and one wife.

Sometimes what husbands very often fail to realize about their wives is one very critical fact. That is that their wives still need to be pursued! Pursued? What do you mean pursued? They say, “I’m already married, why do I need to pursue my wife?”  Let me say that I firmly believe that God designed the male and female relationship in such a way that the man pursues after the woman. That is that he is the pursuer and she is the pursuee. And today we have gotten the mistaken idea that the pursuit ends after the man gains the prize, which he was longing for, that is to say his bride.

But, let me assure you that this is most certainly not the case. In fact, if and when a husband stops pursuing his bride, he fails to meet one of her basic needs. Let me encourage you both to take out time to read and mediate from the Song of Solomon. This is a picture of Christ and His Bride. Notice the language of love and total devotion that they have for each other. The phrases “my love” and “my beloved” appear no less than 32 times in 8 chapters in the Bible! When was the last time that you told her that you “loved” her? And I don’t mean on the way out the door on your way to work! I’m talking about from the heart!

Listen to the bride as she is referring to her husband, “My beloved is mine, and I AM His.” Is there any doubt who she loves? She sees herself as having only a heart for Him (Song. 2:16).

And listen again as she was sleeping, and suddenly awoke to the sound of her husbands voice, “saying, open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.” (Song. 5:2). Can we feel the passion that she has for Him?

And again she says, “This is my beloved, and this is my friend” (Song. 5:16). Have you ever heard the popular song “all you need is love, love is all ya need?” What is meant is that if you only have love that everything will be okay. But listen she’s saying that her beloved is Her FRIEND! She needs to have her husband as her friend!

Let me also say here, that my wife is indeed my best friend! And Jesus is a “FRIEND that sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24).  So as we have already found earlier that mere human love will fail 100 % of the time. What a wonderful blessing it is to have and hold someone who is your lover, and to know that they are also your best friend!

And look at verse 4 of chapter 5 of the Song of Solomon, she says, “My beloved put in His hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.” She’s saying that her beloved has reached in to unlatch the door and that when He did her most inner heart was moved with her love for him! Look at the anticipation that she has for His arrival?

Husbands please learn something here; don’t assume that your wife knows that you love her. Tell her you love her! And show her by continuing to pursue after her affections! Okay you say, but how? Well, as simply as I can say it: surprise her, be spontaneous, and send her a card from work, just to say that you love her. I know that you can bring it to her when you buy it, but don’t…take out a little time and mail it! Husband hold her, and hold her often!!!  Take her out on dates. Yes, ask her if she wants to go on an old fashioned date. Save Saturday night, just the two of you all alone. I can’t say enough about this. Keep the spice in your marriage relationship! Forsake these things in your marriage relationship and you will fail as both a husband, and a friend!

In our next chapter of marriage and the family we will attempt to take a look at the necessity of “spiritual relationship” between the husband and his wife.