Matthew 24:11–13

So the Lord prepares the Jewish disciples, the faithful remnant, for their special trials. This was partly true after His own departure, until Jerusalem was destroyed. It will be more fully proved before Jerusalem is owned again, after the destruction of the Antichrist… There would be false profession and hatred of the true, even among themselves — not only troubles from outside… So there is a defined period of endurance. An end will come as surely as there was a beginning of sorrows.

Here false prophets and their deceptions stand out. Luke does not mention them, for there the warning is meant for believers before the siege of Jerusalem. But for the Jews waiting for Christ's return, the danger from this source will be very great. So the warning carries special emphasis, and it foretells how far the deception will spread.

False prophets are attractive because they always predict things that fit men's desires and seem perfectly reasonable. We must be on our watch, for false prophets are everywhere today in the pulpits of Christendom. The devil knows that if he can deceive men about Christ, he can deceive them in everything else. To be rooted in our knowledge of the true Christ makes us proof against the attractions of the false ones.

This Scripture prophesies of false prophets. They prophesy false things — the reverse of God's judgment of the world. They will speak of the world's abilities and its greatness, of man being made perfect, and of the world's institutions becoming his noble state. And the world listens to them.

Minds in such a condition welcome the words of the false prophet. Those words turn many aside from the truth and deceive them.

False prophets will arise, misleading many. The Jewish age has false prophets; the Christian age has false teachers. "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies" (2 Peter 2:1). Evil spirits will possess these false prophets who come at the end of the Jewish age. The same thing happened in Israel's great falling away under King Ahab. The Lord then allowed a lying spirit to take control of the false prophets, as the prophet Micaiah revealed (2 Chronicles 18:18-22).

False prophets also have arisen during this age, as they will at the end. "As you have heard that antichrist is coming… so now many antichrists have come" (1 John 2:18), and they have deceived many.

In tender concern for our weakness, then, the Lord, through His servants, has warned us in advance of what we have to expect among His professing people. Two important things follow. First, only in the light of the Scriptures can we read the state of professing Christianity correctly. Second, if we do not know the teaching of the Word of God, we are open to disappointments and deceptions of every possible kind.

Luke records the parts of the prophecy about the events before the destruction of Jerusalem. He leaves these verses out completely, because no such falling away as the one foretold here happened then. But such a falling away will be one great feature of the days Matthew's prophecy speaks of. Many who begin to wait for the coming of the Messiah will grow cold. They will grow weak under the persecution and oppression they will suffer then.

There were also their own immediate sorrows and trials. Men would hand them over to be afflicted and killed, and all the nations would hate them for Christ's sake. But this persecution from outside would produce desertions inside. Many would take offence. They would turn against people who were once their companions, betray them and hate them. And because lawlessness was everywhere, many hearts that were not fed straight from the flame of Christ's love would grow cold.

Opposition from outside is bad, but opposition from inside is far worse. People hate one another, betray one another and take offence. False prophets will rise and lawlessness will spread, while love grows cold. The loss of mutual trust, respect and affection is the greatest loss of all. When people cannot be trusted, faith in God must be very strong, because only His support can hold a person up.

The "many" here must mean some of the faithful remnant. It could not mean Israel at large, because they will be hardened and far from God, as they are now. So those whose love cools must be people who had love that could cool. Some will desert and betray, while many others will become half-hearted — which will surely grieve the eager and true ones.

"The many" is the mass of the people, in contrast with the godly remnant. They are the ones who will make the covenant.

"The love of many will grow cold" — and no wonder, when self-love grows so hot… Once a man makes self his whole aim, that is the end of loving others or praying for them. Love cannot live in a house as narrow as the self-lover's heart. In fact, love is opposed to it: love "does not insist on its own way" (1 Cor. 13:5).

You might have imagined that widespread lawlessness would stir believers to greater warmth, but it does not. Growing prosperity leads to growing lawlessness in the world. That does believers harm too, turning them away from the spiritual realities that are their true life.

"Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold" — this is a common, natural experience. The heart has been let down by the world around it. It had promised itself much from that world, and in earlier days it did gather something there, so now it tends to shut itself up. But it was not so with Paul. His heart was as large, as earnest and as loving as ever. If it could not go out and spread over a wider area, it would turn back and pour its warmth on the little that was left to it.

These words come in His prophetic discourse, recorded in Matthew 24 and Mark 13. They do not tell sinful men how to receive the salvation of their souls. The Lord was not addressing sinners. He was addressing men He had already brought into relationship with Himself — His disciples. At that moment they stood for the chosen remnant of Israel, who will be on earth at the time of the end.

Those whose love cools must be those in whom there was love that could be cooled. So while some will desert and betray, many will become half-hearted, to the grief, no doubt, of the zealous and true. Then follows a text which has troubled the peace of many a Christian. But it really belongs to the Jewish remnant of a future day — "But the one who endures to the end will be saved." It refers to salvation when the Lord appears in judgment.

"The end" here is not the end of one person's life. It is the end of the whole time of persecution, trial and sorrow. The second coming of Christ will bring that time to a close. Endurance is the supreme virtue which is to mark these saints, for their salvation is sure when Christ appears.

We are also quite free to say that salvation in its fullest sense looks on to the final deliverance from the very presence of sin — the consummation in heaven. There is also a governmental and external salvation; such, for instance, as is spoken of in our Lord's prophetic discourse: "he who endures to the end will be saved." This, we need hardly say, does not refer to the salvation of the soul, but the deliverance from the Great Tribulation through which the Jewish remnant will be called to pass, with an indirect application to us also.

The hatred of all men will grow, and it will be far more marked after the Church is gone. The remnant of Israel will suffer badly. In this connection we are told, "the one who endures to the end will be saved." Anyone who bears the suffering of the tribulation and endures to the end would be saved for earthly blessing in the millennium.

"The one who endures to the end will be saved." Some say, Oh! that is said to the Jew. True, it is so: but it is as true of you and of me as of the Jew. There is a present salvation, and there is also a salvation which is future. Who receives that future salvation? Those who prove their reality by continuing, or those who do not? I say, if I remain to the end I shall be saved. Does that disturb me? Not at all. I know God has worked in me, and I know that He will continue to do so. I am quite at rest about it. If, however, a professed believer turns away, and does not endure, but lives in sin, can we say that it is sure to be well with him? Never. The proof of reality is continuance.

The reason he endures to the end is not any perseverance of his own. What I believe in, and what the Word of God clearly teaches, is the perseverance of the Holy Spirit. When He begins a work, He never gives up until it is completed. That is our confidence.

But the one who endures to the end will be saved — whatever the end may be, whether a martyr's death or the coming of Christ to the earth. As ever, the test of reality is continuance. There may, indeed, be failure, and even the love of many growing cold, but those that are real will endure. Peter broke down, but his faith did not fail; he continued to the end.

That is the primary bearing of this passage. But there are, of course, many useful applications we may make for ourselves. Using it to teach that no one can be sure of salvation until death is not one of them.