Isaiah 7:21-25. God is describing to Isaiah the the suffering that is about to befall Judah and Israel due to their sinfullness. In the midst of describing it, however, He says "In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep; and because of the abundance of milk which they give, he will eat curds; for everyone that is left in the land will eat curds and honey." Everywhere there used to be a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels will become instead full of briers and thorns. Men will come there with bows and arrows. The hills will be a place that no one will go for fear of the briers and thorns. But they will, instead, be places where sheep and cattle roam free.

The people left in the land will have curds and honey! God always has a remnant of the faithful and He always protects them!  This is what gives me the hope that I expressed in the post Does Everyone Have to Drink from the Rivers of Blood? And it's very similar to what I was talking about in God takes Care of the Poor about the poor left behind in Jerusalem after the exile who had vineyards while the rich were taken away in exile. All of this is true individually, and true of Israel and Judah, but it is also indicative of how God always preserves a remnant for His Church. Remember, the Church is the New Jerusalem. We are coming in to very difficult times (as if they haven't been difficult enough already!). i believe our systems will collapse (in other words, the vines worth a thousand shekels will fail), that is part of the overarching punishment or consequence of our sin that is coming, I think. But on an individual level, God will call his faithful to preserve what they need to be kept during this time of sorrow and pain. He will preserve them like the cow and the sheep that He has them preserve. He's preserving both the cows and the sheep who are roaming free on the hills protected by a barrier of thorns and briars, but He is also protecting the people left behind by inspring them to keep one cow and two sheep and thus be blessed with an abundance of milk and curds.

In discussing what the coming warning and aftermath will look like, Daniel O'Connor is quite sure the faithful be called to refuges where we will be protected from most of what is going on in the outside world. As I heard him describing these, I thought that I can see them forming now in the groups that we are being drawn to and the people who are willing to help each other in these difficult times. I think those are the people who are going to be preserved, and that is the way that God is going to preserve them. He is leading us to each other now, so that we know the people that we should help and who will help us when the time comes.