On Tuesday night, Halloween, I saw something that I can't get out of my mind. I guess you could say that I saw something that really is "haunting" me. A group of youngsters came to our door to "trick or treat" and included in their number was a young girl who looked to be about 13 or 14 years of age. She was dressed up in a costume, painted on freckles all over her face, giggling and laughing with what appeared to be her sisters, a big bag of candy in her hands, and she was pregnant. The pregnancy was not part of her costume  all too tragically, it was real.

What do you say about some-thing like that? Young enough to be "trick or treating," old enough to be pregnant?

We all know "how" something like this happens, but what about the "why"? That little baby is the result of sin. Hebrews 13:4 clearly states, "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7: 2, "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." That child on my porch was not married, that was apparent.

Who's to blame here? The girl's mother was standing out on the side-walk while her children went from house to house. Does the blame reside on the parents' shoulders? Paul told us in Ephesians 6:4, "And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and ad-monition of the Lord." Did they do their job in this case? I am not the judge and I don't know. I must confess, I have real difficulty with that girl being out there "trick or treating" as if nothing was wrong. "Trick of treating" is some-thing for children to engage in and like it or not, that young girl has left her childhood behind.

Is society to blame? That young girl is bombarded continually by sexual messages. The songs that she listens to (country or rock), the television shows, movies, magazines, even commercials, all use sex to sell. It is as Paul wrote in Romans 1:32, "Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." If she attends public school she is being taught to be tolerant of just about every sinful, perverse lifestyle that can be dreamed up by people. So many of her peers are pregnant that high schools now offer daycare centers for the students.

Pregnancy out of wedlock use to be something to be ashamed of, now we bend over backwards to make those who put themselves in that position feel as if they have done nothing wrong. Help them, yes, but don't make them think that they haven't done anything wrong!

Is the girl to blame? Of course she is! I realize that the sex drive is a difficult thing to harness once it is allowed to get out of control, but I also realize that responsibility to control oneself resides with each of us. Ezekiel wrote, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." She was old enough to get pregnant, she is old enough to know right from wrong.

Unless there is a general return to the standard of God's Word, a standard that used to characterize this country's morals, there will just be more pregnant "trick or treaters" in the future. Society is to blame to a certain extent. The ridiculous doctrine of humanism that now characterizes the curriculum of the schools is a classic example of "changing the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man." What we are seeing now in America is the same thing Paul wrote of in Romans 1:28, "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient...."

My heart goes out to the girl. I look at her and see the young girls of our congregation. I look at her and see my daughter. We have got to teach them right from wrong! They may ultimately make the choice to commit this sin anyhow, but I pray to God that they won't.

My heart goes out to that baby. It's tough enough in this world, without being forced to enter it on public assistance and to face a life of poverty. In truth, my heart just breaks.

Guardian of Truth XXXIX: No. 23, p. 1
December 7, 1995