Peace on Earth?

Wednes­day. [II Thess. 2:1-12; Luke 12:48-59] Sup­pose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rath­er di­vi­sion: For from hence­forth there shall be five in one house di­vid­ed, three a­gainst two, and two a­gainst three. The fa­ther shall be di­vid­ed a­gainst the son, and the son a­gainst the fa­ther; the moth­er a­gainst the daugh­ter, and the daugh­ter a­gainst the moth­er; the moth­er-in-law a­gainst her daugh­ter-in-law, and the daugh­ter-in-law a­gainst her moth­er-in-law. What is the rea­son? Those who be­lieve in the Lord are fill­ed with an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent spir­it, con­tra­ry to that which reigned in peo­ple be­fore His com­ing; that is why they can­not get a­long to­geth­er. The pa­gan world pur­sued ex­clu­sive­ly world­ly and earth­ly in­ter­ests. The Jews at least had in­di­ca­tions of higher good things, but to­wards the end they in­clined to­ward the path of the pa­gans. The Lord, com­ing to the world, show­ed peo­ple oth­er trea­sures, out­side of the fam­i­ly, out­side of so­ci­e­ty, and awak­en­ed oth­er as­pi­ra­tions. Those who ac­cept­ed His teach­ing nat­u­ral­ly es­tab­lish­ed a way of life dif­fer­ent from be­fore, for which they were sub­ject­ed to hos­til­i­ty, op­pres­sion, and per­se­cu­tions. This is the di­vi­sion. The A­pos­tle Paul then said that all de­sir­ing to live god­ly in Christ Je­sus shall suf­fer per­se­cu­tion (II Tim. 3–12). So it was and so it is. When world­ly and earth­ly in­ter­ests be­gin to pre­vail in so­ci­e­ty, then so­ci­e­ty looks un­fav­our­ab­ly at those who dis­play oth­er, un­earth­ly striv­ings; it can­not even un­der­stand how it is pos­si­ble to be in­ter­est­ed in such things. Peo­ple can­not stand those who serve as rep­res­ent­a­tives of a way of life which is not sim­i­lar to their life. This is hap­pen­ing now be­fore ev­ery­one’s eyes. Is this not a sign of the times?…