Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3301
“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold.” Matthew 24:12.
Christ had spoken to His disciples of earthquakes in divers places, famines and pestilences—but these were only the beginning of sorrows. Such things as these need not trouble Christians, for though the earth is removed and the mountains are carried into the midst of the sea, yet may the Believer be confident and his heart may abide at rest. Even when the Master told His disciples that they would be hated of all men for His name’s sake, that needed not afflict them. He had taught them before, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.” They were thus braced up to meet the fiery trial. Earthquake, pestilence, war and persecution fail to disturb the serenity of Believers in Christ! But the evil spoken of in our text—this is the wound, this is the sorrow! Here is something to tremble at! “Because iniquity shall abound”—that is worse than pestilence— “the love of many shall grow cold”—that is worse than persecution! As all the water outside a vessel can do it no harm until it enters the vessel, itself, so outward persecutions cannot really injure the Church of God. But when the mischief oozes into the Church and the love of God’s people grows cold—ah, then the boat is in sore distress! I fear that we are much in this condition at the present hour. May the Holy Spirit bless the alarming prophecy now before us to our awakening!
I. Notice, first, THE CAUSE OF THAT GRIEVOUS CHILL OF HEART which is here spoken of—“Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold.” When love grows cold, it is a serious sign. Then the heart is affected—affected with a chill! Is not this the forerunner of death? What is the cause of it? According to our text, it is the abounding of iniquity!
Sin does its best to destroy Divine Grace. So much sin, so much the less of holiness, so much the less of every Christian Grace! Sin is like a poisonous atmosphere—if a man has to live in it, he has good need to pray that he may not be overcome by it. You and I, seeing that we are in this world and cannot go altogether out of it, will come into contact with evil. In our daily avocations however careful we are, we must encounter this infection. We cannot but feel that the evil around us is a hindrance to our holiness and a detriment to our growth in Grace. When the society around the Christian becomes flagrantly wicked, corrupt and offensive, it is difficult for him to maintain the purity of his life and the strength of his spiritual character. At this time, we live in an atmosphere which hinders our growth, yet in the early days of Christianity the Lord’s people had, as a, rule, to live in worse society than that which surrounds us today! I will not say this without an exception. There are quarters of London, I am told, as vicious as ever existed in Corinth, or in old Rome. And I am afraid that some of the grossest vices which we dare not even mention, abound in this city. We have a fringe of respectability which barely conceals the licentiousness and abomination which abound. I have been reading today some details as to the number of illegitimate births and I am perfectly astounded at the awful wickedness of this land! We call ourselves a Christian country. Do not dareto speak so falsely! This is growing to be a heathen land—part of it bowing before images, another part howling out, “There is no God,” and a third secretly reveling in unutterable filthi-ness.
Still, the most of us do not come into contact with vice to the same degree as the first Christians did. Society in the Roman Empire was utterly rotten. It is a wonder that God permitted the world to exist in that loathsome age! It tended greatly to the depression of Christian principle for infamous crimes to be tolerated in the society which surrounded the faithful. Look at these first Churches which some think so much of! They were not half as good as the Churches of today,
bad as these are. Take the Church at Corinth, for instance. Did you ever hear of a Church in our day which allowed drunkenness at the Lord’s Supper? Have we personally met with a Church which would knowingly allow a person living in incest to remain in its membership? I hope not! But gross offenses had become so common in general society in Paul’s day that it did not strike even Christian people that some of these things were wrong! Iniquity abounded and it was greatly detrimental to Grace.
Again, iniquity is especially injurious to the growth of love. Because iniquity abounded, therefore the love of many grew cold. Men inside the Christian Church found themselves betrayed by other members of the Church. Frequently, the heads of the Brothers and Sisters were sold to the executioner by hypocrites like Judas. That would greatly tend to injure Christian love. Men began to suspect one another. You did not know that the man who sat next to you at the Lord’s Table would not tomorrow inform against you and get blood-money for you! Therefore suspicion entered with its wintry breath. It was natural that it should be so, albeit that there was sin in it, yet you and I would have probably fallen into the same. All around, men were so loathsome that Christian love, which teaches us to pity the most degraded and to do good to the most unworthy, found it a difficult struggle to live. Godly men endeavored to win the ungodly from their lusts, but they found themselves persecuted in consequence—the more they sought to do good, the more they were hated—and this put their love to a severe test.