Matthew 24:9-14: in context

The disciples have asked Jesus when the temple will be destroyed and what the sign of his coming will be. This passage is part of his answer, and it is a description of conditions rather than a timetable.

He tells them they will be handed over to persecution and put to death and hated by all nations for his name. Then something worse than the persecution: many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. The damage he describes is internal. False prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.

That phrase is the center of it. Not that love will be attacked from outside, but that it will cool, the way a room does when the fire goes out, in a climate where wrongdoing has become ordinary. Then the promise: the one who endures to the end will be saved. And then the one thing he does put a marker on, this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Endurance and proclamation, in a setting where the main risk is going cold. Where has something in me cooled, not from a blow, but from the general temperature?