This sermon emphasizes the importance of maintaining tenderness and love in marriage, highlighting how a change in tone and lack of honor can erode the foundation of a Christian home. It challenges individuals to reflect on their interactions with their spouses, urging them to speak with kindness and honor, as it reflects their relationship with God and their commitment to love as Christ loved the church.

Extreme statements of their love to each other. But it was always these lovely names flowing, you know. And of course, mommy and daddy couldn't resist the temptation to joke a little bit about it at home. Sweetness and honey pie. Rainbow, that's the other one. Rainbow. Wow, they were in love. Anyway, the years went by and one day daddy came home and said, you know, something's going wrong at home. I'm worried. So mommy says, why? So daddy says, it's the same words but it's a different tone. He says, she says, sweetness, you know. Dewdrop and, wow. That is a bit flabbergasting, isn't it? That words like that can, just through the change of tone, change meaning. But I'd like to ask everyone here tonight, and I want to ask you very, very carefully, has the tone changed in the way you speak to your wife, sir? Has the tenderness gone in the way you speak to your husband and lady? You're Christians. You say you serve God. Do you still love your wife, sir? Do you still speak with such tenderness? I want you to be utterly honest there now. I was in a German's home. Germans are very different. I suppose coming from Mennonite background, you might have a lot of German background here. But this German man really was something different. We sat at the table eating a meal with him and his wife. Tante Martha was her name. Tante means auntie in our country, in our language. And he would speak, you know, he would say, she would say. But he was older, and he would speak about all the different preachers that he knew from the movement that I came from and the years that had gone by and the things that had happened. And after a long time of him speaking, suddenly Tante Martha decided just to say something. And this German man sat back, you know, and his eyes went. Just a little statement she dared to make. And he said, Martha! So I looked at him, and he looked at her. That was, you know, he sort of like just undermined what she says is that she got the wrong side of it. So he carried on speaking, and after a while she dared to say something. And he said, Martha! So I got a bit uncomfortable, you know. After a while, anything she said. I think the third time was the worst. He said, Martha! And I sat there and thought, can't she say anything? Can't she say anything? There must have been a time there was tenderness in that man toward that woman. There must have been a time when she was able to be a human. Her opinion meant a lot to him. There must have been a moment where her conversation was not buried when she opened her mouth as nothing. How does it happen in a Christian home that even your wife's opinion becomes something that makes you get irritated? Where did the tenderness, when did the tone change, sir, in the way you spoke to her? In the way you spoke to him, lady? That's an extreme case. Tell me, does your wife, do you give her a chance to be a person anymore? Her opinion? Do you honor your wife, sir? Anymore? Does she know she's honored? Do the people who walk into your home know she's honored? You know, I can tell you how holy a man is by the way he speaks to his wife. Don't doubt that now. I guarantee you. I can tell you how holy a man is. By the way he speaks to his wife, full stop. I don't need anything else. And God knows how many things and incidents happened to make me convinced that the statement I'm making now is the truth. How holy are you, sir, in your marriage? Well, just look at how you speak to your wife, and that's how holy you are. Full stop. Don't doubt it. Don't doubt it. It doesn't work in the home. It doesn't work anywhere. If she's un-Christlike, and you're un-Christlike, that doesn't mean that you are right with God. When I thought of Uncle, oh, I nearly said his name, with Aunt Marta, Paul says, I suffer not a woman to speak in the church, you know. I forbid for a woman to never keep silence in the church. But I think many men take it and interpret it. The woman should never speak at all. In the home, she must be in silence. Many Christian men honestly treat their wives that I suffer not a woman to speak. Full stop. That's a tragedy. When did love leave your heart, sir? When did the way you speak betray that your condition with God means you betrayed God and defied God's commandment to love your wives, to be not bitter against them, to love them as Christ loved the church? Oh, my, what a commandment. Do you? Do you? Well, doesn't it matter that God expects that of you? I met a preacher once, a very well-known preacher. When he heard I was getting married, he walked along the beachfront with me on the sand, the shores of the sea, down there where we were preaching. And he was a very revered and wonderful preacher. But he said, Keith, can I give you some advice? You're getting married to Jenny. Can I give you some advice, boy? Don't ever allow yourself to say an unkind word. You don't have to. You can never take it back once it's said. Guard your lips from unkind words, Keith, no matter how much stress comes on you. Run out of the door before you answer rather than say an unkind word. Because once unkind words start in a marriage, it's almost impossible to get back the tenderness. It's only unkind words that you allow that take away the tenderness in a Christian marriage. And you don't have to say them. You don't have to say those words. I looked at him, and he began to weep for a while, and I wondered about his marriage.