1 Peter 4:12&13

I Peter 4:12&13
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share in the sufferings of Christ, keep rejoicing so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.

Most of us are far from "suffering" any but the most mundane and common ordeals.  We have to admit that we have it pretty good when it comes to suffering for our faith.  I even think we have to admit that  a lot of the "suffering" we do experience is more the result of our pride and fears than it is from any sort of oppression.
But take heart, things are changing.  I believe we are beginning to see a concerted effort on the part of the godless to oppress, harass and persecute those who hold to a sincere and biblical faith.  I don't believe that we will experience the type of persecution our brothers and sisters in China experience but rather we will experience an attempt to shut our faith up within the doors of the church (meeting place) and make it all but impossible for us to make choices contrary to the culture without dire consequences.
It is our religious liberty that is being slowly reduced so that we seem more and more like a small fanatical hateful and ignorant group of people.  "They" (meaning Satan and all his little human helpers) want to silence and bind the church in our country.  They have no problem with us being believers as long as it's between four walls and not in the marketplace or general culture.  They want to isolate and in that way silence us.
Preaching in public will soon subject the preacher to accusations of hate speech and general meanness.  There will be little chance for public witnessing or teaching as we see believers being marginalized to a greater and greater extent.  All "they" have to do is make the claim that they are offended or somehow distressed by an open exercise or expression of our faith and we can and will be subjected to as great a level of persecution as "they" can possibly achieve.
We have no one but ourselves to thank for this situation.  We have been so busy opposing things in the culture that we have failed to preach the Gospel.  We have tried to snuggle up to the culture and be its "friend" which has led us to compromise the message into a meaningless jumble of "feel good," and "don't worry, be happy," commercials.
We have allowed false teachers to thrive while we smugly winked at each other.  We have failed to call the faithful to holiness.  We have even failed to make plain that obedience is the main consequence of belief or that belief can be legitimately called into question.
In short we have tried to accommodate and placate unbelievers into believing.  This is a sin from which we must repent and for which we are now paying the price.  We have offered "cheap grace" to the world and the world has called us on it.  We have tried to "make nice" for so long that we've all but lost the right to call men and women away from the fires of hell and to the Lord's feet.  We have "specialized" in opposing certain select sins until we have lost the right to be heard on the one most critical sin, unbelief.
We can "oppose" all kinds of pet sins in our culture but if we are not nailing the one fundamental sin, unbelief, to the wall then we are doing little - very little for the KIngdom and the glory of God..
In "The Christian in Complete Armor," William Gurnall makes the critical point that men and women will not be sent to hell for the numerous individual sins they have committed.  They will be sent to hell because they do not believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and Lord of all.  It is unbelief that we have failed to address directly and powerfully.  We have failed to present a holy God who has the right, the obligation, to sit in judgment of His creation.  We have been so busy addressing sinful issues we have failed to address the core sin, unbelief.
And so now we are reaping what we have sown, the results of a cheap gospel with cheap grace that only applies to our pet issues.  We have so diluted the message of the cross that men will not have the true message of the cross preached anywhere but the confines of the "church."