"And ye shall be hated of all men [nations] for [M]y name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."
Rarely - in the 'Western hemisphere', that is - have such words been more relevant to the situation we find ourselves in. Yes, as good preachers such as Chuck Misler/Chuck (Charles) Swindoll and others have long since maintained, we are now - indeed long since - living in a post-Christian era... ...and (actual physical) persecution (such as 'Eastern' Christians in the likes of the old Eastern Bloc, China, the Islamist Middle East have long since experienced) surely cannot be all that far away... But then, as already noted, the Master Himself gave us plenty of warning thereabouts, didn't He... "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted...and then many shall be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another..." "then shall be great tribulation ["in those days shall be affliction"] such as was not since the beginning of the world ["of the creation which God created"] [un]to this time, no, nor ever ["neit...