Pastor tells wives if they let themselves go, their husbands will look elsewhere

He is not fit to lead a church. He, himself, looks like a slob. There is no love, compassion and encouragement in his message.
He is expressing his personnel feelings, not God's word.

A lot of what he said was true, but it is hard to hear that from a man who is probably 40 or 50 pounds above his own ideal weight. Weight loss is not an easy thing. Some people have a high metabolism and an easy time with weight loss. My guess is this man has difficulty losing weight or just doesn't try, but wants his wife to be thin and pretty. It can be tough for some women, too as they age.

If he had said husbands and wives should try to stay fit to be pleasing to their partner, and taught on that subject, recognizing that it gets harder when you get to a certain age, I would not have had a problem with it.

Husbands should not 'look elsewhere' if their wives put on weight. Staying fit might reduce temptation, and that works for both partners. But that makes sense in our culture where thinness is associated with attractiveness. There apparently are or have been cultures where this is not the case. A teacher of mine at a Christian school said her missionary dad said fathers used to sell their daughters as wives by the pound in Egypt, and he would tease his daughters that he would not have been able to get much for them if he took them there because they were so skinny. I suspect Egyptian marriage practices were more complicated than that.

Calling this 'abusive' as the video text comments do seems a bit extreme to me. But he does not come off as a good, solid, sound teacher in these clips, IMO.

Wives also have power over their husbands body, too. Their sexual rights were established more explictly in the Old Testament.

I agree that it is good for a husband or wif e to maintain their attractiveness and dress well as marriage is about pleasing the other person and putting their needs first wherever possible.

so nothing wrong with that. My concern would be if the pastor were putting the sole responsibility for the husband straying upon the wife. Because an individual is responsible for their own sin. In judgement day we won't be able to say "they made me do it!"

Also the same should apply to both genders. Wives sometimes stray too and the husband needs to make sure he is pleasing to his wife. marriage is about considering the other person and loving them

This man is not a pastor that teaches God's word. This is reprehensible. He needs to be removed immediately.

Sorry, I've see this thread before today and have read through it once or twice; but all of a sudden I felt outraged by it. I cannot imagine sitting in a church pew and hearing this.

And btw, I'm a married 58 year old man.

The mistake he made was to devote a whole sermon to something which could simply have been said in passing: "Wives take care of yourselves. Husbands likewise". His focus should have been on Christ and the Gospel.

That would be unnecessarily extreme.

I agree. It is according to the word of God that make the best of ourselves, for we are the temple of the Lord. We don't make the best of ourselves for reasons that our social structure asks for.

1 Cor. 3:16 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?

Setting aside the actual content of the video for a moment...

Pastors frequently deal with marriages in trouble. They face and try to help couples who are going through adultery, abuse, financial ruin, in-law problems, and a host of other threats. Because the word of God addresses marriage in many places. it is appropriate for a pastor to address these issues, and how to avoid them, from the pulpit, in the context of teaching the word of God. It is in the interests of the Church to have its members in strong, healthy marriages.

Maintaining a marriage is the responsibility of BOTH partners. Both wife and husband are responsible to do what is in their power to preserve and strengthen the marriage. A man who is lazy and doesn't seek adequate income will be despised by his wife and probably, eventually, cheated on if not left for a better option. Would the pastor be out of line if he had addressed lazy husbands in the same tone with which he addressed slovenly wives?

Think carefully on that. Then think carefully why the Church tolerates the double standard.