Love Gone Cold
First Published July, 15, 2012
Robert Wurtz II
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“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:12-14)
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7:21-23)
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity (Psalm 5:5).
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If we are indeed living in the end times, it stands to reason that this passage applies to our generation more than at any other time in history. We are told that as iniquity (transgressing God’s laws) abounds, the love of many will wax cold. The term “abound” means to multiply. The phrase “wax cold” refers to “to breathe cool by blowing, to grow cold; spiritual energy blighted or chilled by a malign or poisonous wind” (Vincent). The love of many—the love of the brotherhood—gives way to mutual hatred and suspicion (A.T. Robertson).
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As a child, I remember my mother blowing on food that was too hot for the little ones lest it burn their mouths. Jesus prophesies that iniquity acts like the blowing of a poisonous wind, having a chilling effect on a people that once had love. What a horrific thought. The renowned Greek scholar A.T Robertson’s comment above suggests that there will be mutual hatred and suspicion among the brethren suggesting that the source of the evil is “in-house.” Otherwise, how would the world’s iniquities cause the saints to hate or be suspicious of each other?
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As the little bit of brotherly love that exists in this present evil world cools, the people will become less and less like our loving God. The same goes for the saints; as their love cools, they become less reflective of their Heavenly Father. It also applies to the churches of God, which are assemblies (ekklesia) of saints.
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The Ephesus Example
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In Revelation 2:1-4 Jesus commended the church at Ephesus because they did not tolerate people who were evil. What we don’t know is if a Pharisee type spirit developed within the church where wolves infiltrated the leadership, based on Paul’s warning in Acts 20:29-32, and behaved like the Pharisees and passed over justice and the love of God (Luke 11:42 NKJV). Understand that Pharisees condemned people who were evil, but they were just as bad or worse than the people they condemned (Matthew 23:2-3).
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Some have suggested that Ephesus left its first love due to constant dealings with sin, false apostles, and doctrinal errors. In other words, because iniquity abounded the love of many waxed cold. It gave rise to the warning in Revelation 2:5 that they must repent and return to their first love. If it is true that unrighteous “believers” and evil impostors in leadership wounded their love, it wouldn’t be the first time a child of God lost their love. Jonah is an example of a man who hated the Assyrians because he allowed their iniquity to cool his love and compassion for them as a people. He developed a bad spirit when he took their sins personally. The difference is that Jonah was bitter at Assyrians not people who claimed to be Christians.
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I also think of the Prodigal Son’s brother, who never left home. He allowed his brother’s sin to diminish his love for him. What a horrible attitude. We see this condition in Ephesus reflected in Revelation 2:2: “I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars.” They didn’t, as the Corinthians did, “suffer fools gladly.” (2 Corinthians 11:19) The Ephesians had a low tolerance for evil people. The question is, how did that good attitude badly impact their love?
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There is a thin line between hating iniquity as Jesus did and allowing iniquity to cause you to hate the person. Once that line is crossed, we who are called by the name of Christ become of no use to God. Jesus warned that many would cross that line in the last days. Their love will wax cold, and their light will go out. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13 if we don’t have love we are nothing.
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In our times, we are exceedingly at risk of leaving our first love as saints and the churches of God. Iniquity abounds. False prophets abound. People who flout God’s word abound. How are we reacting to this? When our spiritual energy is “blighted and chilled by a malign and poisonous wind,” what will we do? Will we return to the Lord for a fresh filling of His Holy Spirit so that we might endure the contradiction of sinners against us, or will we faint in our minds? (Hebrews 12:3) Will we adopt an attitude of returning evil for evil and railing for railing, or will we be spiritual enough to continue blessing? This is the great question of our times.
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The Nature of True Love
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No matter how deeply those who beat and crucified our Lord probed into His flesh and soul with their hate and violence, they still struck love. Jesus Christ could look at a sinner caught in iniquity and still have compassion for them. We need to ask ourselves: Do we take a sinner’s sin personally? If we do, why? God is the primary offended party in any sin, and He has chosen to forgive if the person is willing to acknowledge and repent. What about us? Do we forgive and forget, or do we forget that we have been forgiven?
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Sin hardens the sinner, and witnessing sin or being on the constant receiving end of sin can harden a saint. We must guard our hearts and continue loving in the grace and power of God. We must wake up every morning and ask God to fill us with His Spirit, which is a spirit of love. We’re not spiritual because we can do miracles or prophesy. There will be many people in Hell who apparently thought miracles showed God’s favor or that they were “chosen.” (Matthew 7:21-23) We are known by our fruits, not gifts (Matthew 7:16-20). These fruits are the fruit of the Spirit such as love, joy, peace, self-control, etc. (Ephesians 5:9, Galatians 6:22).
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All the law is fulfilled when we move in brotherly love (Matthew 22:39-40). Breaking the law means we have done something against love, either God or our fellow man. A worker of iniquity is a person who disregards God’s laws by unrighteous and unjust behaviors and deeds. Jesus said many will believe they are still right with God. Sin deceived them into believing that their impartations of power and giftings were all that mattered. They found out too late they were beguiled as was Eve in the Garden.
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Understand that God has anointed and imparted abilities to countless people to do tasks for Him who weren’t even right with Him in the end. It took impartations of wisdom to make the Tabernacle and impartations of wisdom to be king in Israel (Exodus 31:1-5). Saul received such an impartation that the people wondered if he was a prophet (1 Samuel 10:11). Those abilities meant nothing regarding the recipients relationship with God. He opened the mouth of Balaam’s donkey by imparting the ability to speak as a human being (2 Peter 2:16 KJV). If the rocks had cried out in praise when Jesus entered Jerusalem, would the rocks have gone to heaven? (Luke 19:40)
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Obviously, the impartations of ability (anointings) are useless for detecting who is and is not right with God. Jesus said it. Keep this in mind when you are tempted to get cold in your spirit watching a person prophesy, pray, preach, sing, work miracles, cast out devils, or anything else and then they behave wickedly. God empowered Judas to cast out devils and heal the sick. Let that sink in. Jesus said it would be good for that man had he not been born. (Matthew 26:24)
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Lampstand in Jeopardy
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“I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”
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This was not an idle threat. Jesus said, “I will remove your lampstand if you do not repent” for having departed from the love you had at first for both God and man. If you do not turn back and become what you were in the beginning—men and women of God filled with the love of Christ as living examples of His person—I will remove your lampstand. Why? What good is a lampstand without Fire (love)? A dead lampstand is nothing more than a stumbling block in the darkness. Our Lord cannot condone with His presence the spiritual condition that the church at Ephesus had fallen into. Jesus is effectively saying, “I will leave you to your own devices.”
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The shocking thing is that generally it is good to have a disdain for evil and to not want to tolerate evil doers. This is especially true that we should not tolerate wickedness in leadership. However, the bad behavior caused the love to grow cold in the church and it was a picture of the fire going out on the lamp stand. They needed to be able to keep on loving while still dealing with the evil doers.
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The fire represented the love of God primarily, and without that sacred fire in the Old Testament, you could not do the service of God. The sacred fire was used on the altar, to burn incense, to light the tabernacle, and to bake the show bread. If that fire goes out, you cannot light a match or use a torch. When Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire to God, they were consumed by the fire of God. (Numbers 3:4) Why? Because God wanted every preacher and minister know, until eternity, that it is not acceptable to preach with any fire other than the fire of God’s love. Some in Paul’s day preached Christ out of envy and strife, and it was an abomination to God. But there were others who preached out of love. (Philippians 1:14-17)
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The Path to Decline
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How did the Ephesians get so cold? Jesus, per John’s Revelation, is our Great High Priest and had been speaking to that church by the Spirit, but the people were obviously not listening. This is why he kept repeating over and over again, “He that has an ear. Let him hear what the spirit is saying under the churches!” (Revelation 2:1-4:1) The high priest in the Old Testament was responsible for making sure that the lamp was burning. He serviced the wick and the oil. Jesus walks among the lampstands and speaks to the churches individually. This is how he services the lamp stand. However, The Ephesians had apparently stopped consciously listening for the Word of His grace and, as a result, missed many opportunities to remedy their condition long before it reached this crisis level.
If we take into consideration Paul’s warning in the book of Acts that there would be “leaders” who came to draw disciples after themselves, and there would be grievous wolves among the people (Acts 20:29-32), there could’ve been leaders in place who did not allow the church to hear what the Spirit of God was saying. They were likely interfering in the relationship that the individuals had with God. This is what it means to draw a disciple after yourself. You insert yourself between a person and God and that is Catholicism, not the priesthood of all believers. The people are supposed to be discipled to Jesus not to the pastor or leader. The leaders may have been usurping God’s authority by doing what rabbis do in making sure God runs anything He wants to say to a person by the rabbi first. Whereas Paul commended the leaders and the people to God so He would speak to them and the people individually by the word of His grace.
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Is it any wonder we have the repeated command, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Revelation 3:22)? They chose not to listen or they were being prevented from hearing. In time they were merely going through the motions, having learned how to have a meeting without Jesus. If they had listened in the first place and had leaders who encouraged people to obey the Spirit themselves, they would not have been in this predicament.
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When you stop listening, it’s over for your lampstand. It is only a matter of time unless there is repentance and a return to the things that were done at first. There must be a return to first love. There must absolutely be a return to an attitude that says, “What is God saying, and what do we need to be doing to obey him?” When people in a church start doing whatever they want to do, from the leaders down to the person who scrubs the floors, you will have a church that is as dead as a hammer and cold as an ice cube. In fact, the lamp stand is likely already gone.
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Life Without the Lampstand
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Only God knows how many churches have lost their lampstand over the last 2,000 years. All that remains is to bring in programs and religious exercises to prop up a dead carcass. The masses are skilled at “having church.” Some are even very pious and holiness-driven, they speak in tongues and boast of how they walk in the “old paths,” but Christ is not in their midst in the book of Revelation sense. He is not the Head. If He were the head, they would obey Him and love one another and love their neighbor, and they would not behave the way they do. It is impossible to overstate how important it is for Jesus to be the High Priest over his own people. Everyone must have their own personal relationship with God and be led of the Spirit. 
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Many have no concept of the Word of His grace. They act as if Jesus is a careless absentee landlord on a far journey, rather than the active Head of His Body, the Church. They forget that He shed His blood on the Cross for the thing that they flippantly treat as meaningless. They forget that in Revelation 2-4 that the warnings were given to the angel of the church, which was very likely the “Pastor.“
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Playing Church
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Others simply turn up the music and create a soulish atmosphere to fool the unsuspecting and corrupt the spiritual concepts of the young and ignorant. The consequence of a dead cold church is that they end up treating people exactly as the world does. They offend individuals by acting in unChristlike ways at critical times, leaving scars that only God can heal. They drive them away from the true knowledge of Christ. Far too often, the love people exhibit is no more than what the world offers: if they like you, they will love you, but if they don’t like you or you cross them, you are shunned or cast out. This is not the Mob, it’s the Church. You don’t get to even the scores on the ones for whom Christ died.
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They call it Christian, but it is not how Christ loves. He loves all, and that is what we must do. We are told to love our neighbor as ourselves, and that is a tall order. We know how to love well—as long as it is someone we like. What good is that love among people in desperate need of compassion? A lampstand without Fire is merely a stumbling block in this darkened world.
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We Need a Miracle
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In our times, a generation has changed the face of Christianity in such a way that only God can bring this back around. Like Ephesus of old, false apostles in the name of organized religion often work against the local church and its lampstand with Christ in the midst. Instead of Jesus speaking, they are speaking. The arrogance and wickedness is such that one would think Jesus needs permission from some of the pastors and leaders to lead His own children by His own Spirit. Could you imagine a leader contradicting what the Spirit was trying to say and do in a person’s life? That is seriously dangerous ground.
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God has faithfully given us many faithful shepherds for His people. But he also warned us, as did Paul, of self-serving shepherds (pastors). But rather than letting these things cause our love to grow cold, we must keep in mind that the Lord Jesus said that the owner of the vineyard is coming home and he’s going to deal with these people. (Mark 13:32-37) We must walk in forgiveness lest our love wax cold.
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Scriptural Examples
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What if people fall into sin? Do we act like the Prodigal’s brother and pout when they come home? God forbid! All of these things written in the Old and New Testaments are written for our learning and example. It’s almost like every situation we could possibly encounter has already been revealed in scripture. One of these days we’re going to be judged by the things that are written in the Bible. We are living in the days that Jesus spoke of when the good master of the house was on a far journey and left the vineyard to his servants. We are living in those days. (Matthew 21:33-41) In Jesus day they rejected Him in Jerusalem, in modern times leaders reject Him and His voice as our great High Priest. They would never admit it, but it’s true nonetheless.
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Spreading Death
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The late G.W. North once said that preaching without Fire is spreading death. This is a fiery love for God and brotherly love. A church without a lampstand and its accompanying Fire spreads death. We end up with a wholesale corruption of the concept of Christianity today. It is staggering how many things are being presented as “Christian” or “Evangelical.” We should weep when we reflect upon such deplorable acts and blasphemies against the name of Christ. These and a host of other iniquities seek to cool the love of even the very Elect. God forbid that as our love for Christ waxes cold, along with our love for our neighbor, we simply stop feeling compassion. We risk being spiritually frostbitten by the cold winds of lawlessness surrounding us. The danger is that we would become insensitive, void of compassion and love, and risk hating both the sin and the sinner.
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The Impact of Unloving Behavior
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When Christians and especially leaders treat fellow believers in an unloving manner, they are engaging in behavior that starkly contradicts both God’s word and His character. It is iniquity. This unrighteous treatment can lead to a chilling effect on the love within the community, causing that love to wax cold. Jesus warned against such actions, emphasizing that workers of iniquity—even those who may profess full gospel beliefs (Baptists and Presbyterians generally don’t operate in the gifts) but act contrary to God’s love—face hell itself. Why? In their arrogance, they never considered that the impact of their actions extended beyond personal wickedness; it eroded the very fabric of the church’s love, threatening to extinguish the Fire that fueled their lampstand.
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Imagine a character who consistently interacts with others unrighteously and conducts themselves behind the scenes in ways that would disillusion those who knew them publicly, creating a cold atmosphere devoid of love. This behavior not only diminishes the love that should permeate the church but also risks the loss of the church’s lampstand, symbolizing its light and witness in the world.
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The tragedy lies in the fact that those perpetuating this unloving conduct often remain utterly blind to the harm they are inflicting. Despite the clear warnings in Scripture, they may fail to reflect on their lawless deeds and the detrimental effects those actions have on the church’s love. The poor sheep fear challenging them lest they be destroyed. As a result, they contribute to a cycle of coldness that not only impacts individual relationships but threatens the very essence of what it means to be a body of believers in Christ.
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Repent and Do the First Works
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Many in the last days will lose their love because the workers of iniquity will not change. We expect it from sinners, but not from the Saints and especially not from leaders. Many have already been reprobated, though they still have their positions and titles. They will continue to blow the poisonous wind of their behavior on the Saints, who are trying to burn for God, and many Saints will grow cold. The good news is that it does not have to be this way. Many will grow cold, but it need not be so for you and me.
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We can seek God alone and immerse ourselves in our Bibles with a willingness to return to our first love and the prescribed measures that God put in place, measures that have not changed. We need to return to preaching genuine repentance and faith. We need to preach water baptism and Spirit baptism. We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit every day of our lives.
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Ephesus Returns to Love
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If we do what the church at Ephesus initially did in the Book of Acts, we will experience the same success. When Ephesus strayed from that path, it was all downhill from there. Historians tell us that Ephesus existed for a few centuries after the writing of Revelation, indicating that they did repent and return to Christ. However, today it is a heap of ruins. There came a point when the conditions were such that Christ removed the lampstand, and Ephesus was no more. Like Nineveh of old, which repented for a while but was ultimately destroyed by God, the reprieve will last only as long as the repentance lasts.
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Christ does not instruct us for a temporary change of behavior and practice, but rather that we would walk in this way for the rest of our days. The key to a lasting, vibrant Christian life and a spiritual church is to repent, do the first works, and keep walking in that way. Walk in love. Keep yourself in the love of God, no matter how “they” behave. He is the Lord of the Lampstand. If we refuse Him who speaks, we will find ourselves upon the ash heap of history, as bywords and solemn examples of those who failed to hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
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