My God and My Country

The Gospel According to Matthew

Chapter 24:12

Special Commentary

12 And because iniquity shall be increased, the love of many shall be cold.

Brethren:

Let us reflect a minute on what earlier in this Gospel, that is chapter twenty two, when Christ is queried as to what is the greatest commandments. To which He replies, to love God and to love one another. And yet, we see anger, vileness, hatred, animosity, envy, and other things that do not reflect the righteousness of God, towards each other. We've likewise seen a turning away from His precepts and wisdom, and in its stead have replaced it with worldly wisdom. Friends, this should not be so.

If we ask ourselves honestly, how did this happen, we must first examine the fact that we, as a people have turned away from our Creator. We have rejected His love for us, and replaced it with a love for each of us, that is to say; the individual. How can with love others, if we cannot love God first?

I can only speak upon what I see.

“By the abounding of iniquity here, we may either understand the rage, and malice, and cruelty of the enemies of the gospel; or the apostasy of such as are professors. Both these are great temptations, and though they will not extinguish that holy fire which God hath kindled in good souls, yet they have oft times a very ill influence upon them, to abate of their former warmth in the ways of God. Or if we understand it of love to brethren, the apostasy of professors much cools the Christian, not knowing who they may trust and confide in as sincere. If by the abounding of iniquity we understand the abounding of profaneness in the general, (which always also aboundeth most in times of persecution), that also hath no small influence upon Christians’ warmth in their profession, to cool and abate it.”

Matthew Pool's Bible Commentary

“Either the malice and wickedness of outrageous persecutors, which should greatly increase; or the treachery and hatred of the apostates; or the errors and heresies of false teachers; or the wickedness that prevailed in the lives and conversations of some, that were called Christians: for each of these seem to be hinted at in the context, and may be all included, as making up the abounding iniquity here spoken of; the consequence of which would be, the love of many shall wax cold. This would be the case of many, but not of all; for in the midst of this abounding iniquity, there were some, the ardour of whose love to Christ, to his Gospel, and to the saints, did not abate: but then there were many, whose zeal for Christ, through the violence of persecution, was greatly damped; and through the treachery of false brethren, were shy of the saints themselves, not knowing who to trust; and through the principles of the false teachers, the power of godliness, and the vital heat of religion, were almost lost; and through a love of the world, and of carnal ease and pleasure, love to the saints was grown very chill, and greatly left; as the instances of Demas, and those that forsook the Apostle Paul, at his first answer before Nero, show. This might be true of such, who were real believers in Christ; who might fall under great decays, through the prevalence of iniquity; since it does not say their love shall be lost, but wax cold.”

John Gill – Theologian

“Lawlessness. No word could more fitly represent [the present times]; of the many; the greater part ...who would be found in the Church of Christ; perhaps, also, the greater part of the nation as such. This was the natural result of the condition of things implied in the “lawlessness.” The tendency of all such times, as seen in the histories of famines, and pestilences, and revolutions, is to intensify selfishness, both in the more excusable form of self-preservation, and in the darker form of self-aggrandizement.”

J.C. Ellicott - Theologian