"Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake....and a person's enemies shall be those of his own household" (Matthew 10: 21 22a, and 36)
The Christian of many years has read this passage many times....and passages similar to it in Mark and Luke....and unless I am mistaken....we tend to place this at a time in the future when even our friends and family have become so pagan that they put to death Christians as readily as did the Roman citizens send the Christians to the lions. This interpretation in itself by necessity looks at least decades to the future because we are not quite like that today....but that interpretation is by no means binding....because perfect storms....and possible sudden unexpected circumstances....can in effect bring imminence to this horrid situation described in these verses.
The vast majority of professing Christians today in America may be god-fearing.....and certainly assent to gospel truths.....but have never been born again.....only enlisted....either in the liberal false Christian church of the day....or the political and nationalist church developing right now on the Republican side. This being the case....should extraordinary turns of events come about....they may not see the deception....because the Spirit of God does not dwell within them....and they will thus be so certain that they are right in whatever these 'sudden unexpected circumstances' demand.....and that they are the ones that are doing God's will....that they will consider any and all others to be hopelessly fanatical if they refuse to follow the leader....or the agenda...and therefore....difficult as it may be.....those who rock the lifeboat will have sealed their own fate by their fanaticism....and whatever the punishment determined may be....they will have to suffer it....for the good of the whole.
My point is that the fulfillment of these verses in Matthew and Mark and Luke....and all the other verses that fill God's Word on our Lord's return in glory and power and righteous judgment....are not to be scheduled by our personal predilections on timing....and therefore we should make every effort to be vigilant....double-check the 'oil' that we have available for our lamps....never permit the temporal to overtake the eternal as our focus....rightly fear arrogance....and seek humility....in pleading along with the father of the convulsed child...."Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."
It would help to revisit what the Bible says about....few being saved....for one cannot really understand the reality of what these verses tell us unless one realizes that....comparatively speaking....few shall be saved. J. C. Ryle addressed this and you might want to Google up and listen to.....Few Saved: Old Paths)
