How Will Love Grow Cold in the End Times?
00:00:00.000 | Well, on Friday we looked at the return of Christ.
00:00:07.560 | It has not happened yet.
00:00:08.920 | It's yet to come in the future.
00:00:11.200 | So when?
00:00:12.440 | Today we talk about timing.
00:00:13.760 | Namely, we're going to look at one of the clear pieces of evidence that Christ's return
00:00:17.960 | is drawing near.
00:00:20.440 | Here's the question from a listener to the podcast named Alex.
00:00:23.000 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:24.000 | I have a question about what Jesus said in Matthew 24, 12, where he said of the end times
00:00:29.400 | that lawlessness will be increased and that the love of many will grow cold.
00:00:36.280 | What does Jesus mean when he says love will grow cold?
00:00:40.600 | Where will this be evidenced?
00:00:42.240 | What is cold love?
00:00:44.440 | And how can we prevent this in our own lives?"
00:00:47.440 | Yes, that last question is the nub of the matter, isn't it?
00:00:52.240 | So let's set the stage from Matthew 24, where the quote comes from in verse 12.
00:00:58.800 | Jesus had just looked at the temple in Jerusalem and said, "Truly I say to you, there will
00:01:05.640 | not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down."
00:01:11.680 | And then the disciples asked him, "Well, tell us, when will these things be?
00:01:17.760 | And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
00:01:24.680 | Now that phrase, "end of the age," refers to the phase of history that we are in, ending
00:01:34.680 | with the coming of Christ in judgment, separating the sheep and the goats, raising the dead.
00:01:42.080 | We know that because of the way the phrase is used in Matthew 13, 39, and 43, where Jesus
00:01:49.840 | interprets the parable of the weeds like this, "The harvest is the end of the age, and the
00:01:56.880 | reapers are angels.
00:01:59.920 | Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the
00:02:05.880 | age.
00:02:06.960 | The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes
00:02:12.000 | of sin and all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace.
00:02:16.680 | In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and then the righteous will shine
00:02:22.320 | like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
00:02:26.960 | So the disciples had heard Jesus talk about this.
00:02:31.040 | They had heard this description of the end of the age, and they were asking about the
00:02:36.880 | end of this period of history marked by that amazing final judgment.
00:02:45.400 | They didn't know how that related to the destruction of the temple, where all the stones would
00:02:51.400 | be thrown down.
00:02:53.440 | They were asking about both Jesus' answers by describing the kinds of things that will
00:03:00.560 | mark this age leading up to the "end of this age."
00:03:08.040 | For example, verse 5, "Many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ.'
00:03:13.600 | They will lead many astray, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
00:03:17.760 | See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet."
00:03:25.240 | So he says, "The end is not yet."
00:03:28.400 | He has the end in view, but he warns them that there's going to be some time lapse
00:03:35.080 | here.
00:03:36.080 | It's not the very end yet.
00:03:39.120 | The end is not yet.
00:03:41.480 | These things will be happening on the way to the end.
00:03:46.320 | This will be your experience leading up to the end.
00:03:49.280 | Then he adds, "All these are but the beginning of the birth pangs," to make clear that there
00:03:56.080 | is some time lapse before the end.
00:03:59.200 | This is the beginning of the birth pangs.
00:04:01.180 | They will last for some time, unspecified, and then there will be the end of the birth
00:04:06.320 | pangs as the new order is brought to birth.
00:04:09.840 | He goes on in verse 10, "And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate
00:04:14.680 | one another, and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray."
00:04:19.120 | Here's the verse, "Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold."
00:04:29.000 | That's Alex's question.
00:04:30.000 | What does that mean?
00:04:31.000 | How can we avoid that?
00:04:32.600 | "But the one who endures to the end will be saved, and this gospel of the kingdom will
00:04:40.120 | be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the
00:04:44.760 | end will come."
00:04:47.760 | Now, four observations.
00:04:49.240 | Number one, cold love is the opposite of the warmth of familial affection.
00:04:58.760 | For example, Genesis 43, 30, when Joseph was about to reveal his identity to his brothers,
00:05:05.960 | it says, "Joseph hurried out, for his compassion grew warm," warm, not cold, warm, "for
00:05:15.400 | his brother, and he sought a place to weep."
00:05:17.960 | Same thing in Hosea 11, 8, God says to Israel, "How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
00:05:23.600 | My heart recoils within me.
00:05:25.360 | My compassion grows warm and tender."
00:05:29.520 | So cold love is the shell of love that has lost its inner familial warmth.
00:05:39.240 | Number two, the effect of this coldness is that brother betrays brother.
00:05:47.720 | Verse 10, "Then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another."
00:05:57.200 | That hate is the final outcome of hypocritical love, just the shell of love where the warmth
00:06:05.360 | has gone out and ice has come in, and the upshot is no longer just hypocritical love,
00:06:12.120 | but rather hate that betrays brother to brother.
00:06:16.160 | Number three, third observation, Jesus says that the reason for this upsurge of cold,
00:06:23.280 | hypocritical love that eventually betrays a brother is owing to the increase of lawlessness.
00:06:33.960 | Verse 12, "Because lawlessness is increased, the love of many will grow cold."
00:06:41.320 | That's worth thinking about, because you might want to turn it around, right?
00:06:45.280 | Because love grew cold, there's a lot of lawlessness.
00:06:48.360 | The root of this growing coldness of love in the church toward each other is a deep
00:06:57.920 | hostility to authority.
00:07:01.080 | That's my interpretation of lawlessness, a deep hostility to authority, especially God's
00:07:08.360 | authority.
00:07:09.560 | That's what lawlessness is at root.
00:07:12.480 | I will not submit to law from outside my sovereign self.
00:07:18.480 | I'm not going to yield to authority anymore.
00:07:21.280 | Now, to use the language of Paul, the church becomes infected with the mind of the flesh
00:07:31.320 | rather than the mind of the Spirit.
00:07:34.000 | Romans 8, 7, "The mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law."
00:07:44.840 | That's lawlessness.
00:07:46.120 | Indeed, it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
00:07:52.560 | So the upsurge of lawlessness is the upsurge of self, the mind of the flesh, over God,
00:08:01.600 | the insubordinate, "I will not submit," stiff-necked self.
00:08:07.320 | And Paul speaks directly to this lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2 in relation to the second
00:08:13.640 | coming.
00:08:14.640 | He says, "A great apostasy must come before the end, and the man of lawlessness," make
00:08:20.480 | that connection between Matthew 24 and 2 Thessalonians 2, "the man of lawlessness is revealed for
00:08:27.920 | the mystery of lawlessness."
00:08:30.840 | Same word, "is already at work.
00:08:33.760 | Only he who now restrains it will do so until he's out of the way, and then the lawless
00:08:39.080 | one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and
00:08:46.720 | bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming."
00:08:51.280 | So just when anti-authoritarian lawlessness inside and outside the church seems to be
00:08:58.680 | reaching its fevered peak in history, Jesus will step forward and return on the clouds,
00:09:06.760 | and there will be a great reversal.
00:09:09.840 | Finally, a fourth observation to Alex's question about how we can prevent coldness
00:09:18.880 | of love from taking over our own hearts.
00:09:23.000 | This cold love, Jesus says, comes from the increase of lawlessness.
00:09:28.660 | We must fight upstream, so to speak, from the river of love.
00:09:35.440 | Get up there to the springs.
00:09:37.480 | We must fight against arrogance and pride and self-sufficiency that is against the spirit
00:09:44.880 | of lawlessness in our hearts.
00:09:47.000 | This is, I will not submit.
00:09:49.040 | I don't like people telling me what to do, least of all an omnipotent God.
00:09:55.280 | Lawlessness means we want to be our own law.
00:09:59.660 | We don't want anybody, especially an infallible, omnipotent God, telling us what to do.
00:10:05.400 | We want to create our own meaning, create our own identity, create our own rules.
00:10:11.000 | And when this happens, we have cut ourselves off from Christ and from the Holy Spirit,
00:10:18.280 | and therefore from love.
00:10:20.280 | Let me end with the way Hebrews 10.24 exhorts us in view of the second coming like this.
00:10:28.680 | Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to
00:10:36.760 | meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more
00:10:43.960 | as you see the day drawing near.
00:10:47.760 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you, Alex, for today's question.
00:10:52.680 | You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast,
00:10:56.400 | all at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:11:01.400 | Well in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, we find a remarkable story of a man
00:11:06.320 | born blind, made to see by the miraculous healing power of Christ.
00:11:13.160 | It was the kind of miracle, like so many of them, that could not be kept a secret.
00:11:17.560 | Word spread far and wide of what Jesus had done to this young man.
00:11:22.160 | And John 9 is a key chapter in understanding the work of God in physical disability, key
00:11:27.760 | there.
00:11:28.760 | But it's also a key chapter for us in understanding how we as Christians, changed by the grace
00:11:33.060 | of God, can testify of Christ before the world's most powerful and educated people.
00:11:40.240 | Pastor John explains how and why when we return on Wednesday.
00:11:44.320 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.
00:11:45.920 | [BLANK_AUDIO]