LOVE OF NEIGHBOR
Has Grown Cold

MILLIONS feel lost and miserable, with nowhere to turn. A retired businesswoman observed: 'One evening a widow who lives on my floor knocked on my door and said she was lonely. I told her politely but bluntly that I was busy. She apologized for bothering me and left.'

Sadly, that very night, the widow committed suicide. Afterward, the businesswoman said that she had learned a "hard lesson."

Lack of neighbor love is often tragic. During ethnic conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, formerly part of Yugoslavia, over a million were forced from their homes and tens of thousands were killed. By whom? "Our neighbors," lamented a girl who had been driven from her village. "We knew them."

In Rwanda hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered, often by their own neighbors. "Hutu and Tutsi [lived] together, intermarrying, not caring or not even knowing who was a Hutu and who a Tutsi," reported The New York Times. "Then something snapped," and "the killings began."

Similarly, Jews and Arabs in Israel live side by side, but many hate one another. The situation is the same with many Catholics and Protestants in Ireland and growing numbers of peoples in other countries. Never before in history has the world been so lacking in love.

Why Has Love of Neighbor Cooled Off?

Our Creator gives the answer. His Word, the Bible, calls the time in which we live "the last days." This is a period during which, Bible prophecy says, people would have "no natural affection." Regarding these "critical times hard to deal with," also called in the Scriptures "the conclusion of the system of things," Jesus Christ foretold that "the love of the greater number will cool off."—2 Timothy 3:1-5; Matthew 24:3, 12.

Today's lack of love, therefore, is part of the evidence that we are living in the last days of this world. Happily, it also means that this world of ungodly people will soon be replaced by a righteous new world ruled by love.—Matthew 24:3-14; 2 Peter 2:5; 3:7, 13.

But do we really have reason to believe that such a change is possible—that all people can learn to love one another and to live together at peace with one another?