Foreshadow Now, ‘Season of the End Times’:

Blog note. Jesus indicated that ‘fearful sights’ (various natural disasters) would occur leading up to the time known as the Tribulation and Great Tribulation (a combined seven year period of great destruction on earth). Although these types of things have occurred in the past for centuries and thousands of years, they could be identified as the ‘season of the times’ due to the ferociousness of these events. They would be occurring in greater intensity, severity, frequency, size, duration, scope … just like the pains that a woman experiences in labor the farther along she is in the labor process. We are in the ‘season of the times’ that comes just before the seven (7) year Tribulation/Great Tribulation period

… And great earthquakes shall be in diverse places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. (Luke 21:11).

… And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; (Luke 21:25)

… Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken; (Luke 21:26)

… This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. (2 Timothy 3:1)
Jesus is giving a series of prophecies about what to look for as the age of grace comes to a close. These verses are several of many such prophecies from throughout the Bible. 2017 was the worst year in recorded history for the intensity, frequency, severity, duration and occurrence of a large number of severe natural disasters worldwide. Earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, torrential flooding, unprecedented wildfires in unusual places, devastating droughts, excessive/scorching heat setting records everywhere, record snowfalls in Europe and Russia. Snow in the Arabia. This list can go on. Most studied Eschatologists believe these ‘fearful sights’ and massive natural disasters are all part of the ‘CONVERGENCE’ of signs that this Biblical and prophetic age is closing. Most people who study prophecy are familiar with the routine reference(s) made that these things will be like a woman having labor.

Perilous, Dangerous Times: Great upheaval of humans. Mass migrations, refugees, homelessness due to war, famine, pestilence, natural disasters, political persecution, ethnic persecution, religious persecution, economic conflict. The time will be exceedingly ‘dangerous’ for migrant/refugee women baring young children, who have little to no access to food, shelter, medicine, water or protection. It will be so perilous that those women who don’t have babies or young children will be considered ‘lucky.’

2 Timothy 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

Matthew 24:19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

Mark 13:17 But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

Luke 21:23But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.

Luke 23:29 For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.

Matthew 24:21. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

‘Three (3) references to with child, denotes emphasis and intensity.’

Increasingly Perilous Times: The Coronavirus Shutdown Is a Disaster for Homeless People. As public spaces like libraries close, life has become unimaginably hard for those without housing.

By Rick Paulas Mar 23 2020, 11:29am Vice.com

With all the gyms in Los Angeles closed on Monday by city government decree, Angelo Mike, a 34-year-old filmmaker who’s currently living out of his car, had nowhere to shower. So he woke up early in the strip mall parking lot where he spent the night to give himself an improvised shower using a bottle of water, soap and a towel, thinking that it would be early enough in the morning to avoid the glares of any passersby. But what he didn’t plan for was that coronavirus panic had spawned crowds outside the shopping center that morning.

“I’m a little embarrassed because there’s already fucking people here,” Mike told the YouTube video diary he keeps before rinsing himself off as a line of shoppers idled nearby waiting for Target to open. “If anyone in the L.A. area has a shower I can use,” he pleaded to his camera, “let me know. I take very quick showers.”

As coronavirus containment bans and shelter-in-place regulations expand across the U.S., those with or without symptoms are being advised to self-isolate in their own homes to stop the spread. However, the obvious group missing from that dictum are those without homes. Instead, what we’re seeing now is how decades in cuts to federal spending to halt homelessness has created a system on the brink of collapse.

The places homeless people normally rely on are closed

People without homes still need to do the same things as everyone else. They have to go to the bathroom, change clothes, exercise and shower; many of them have to get ready to go to work. But all of these tasks become much more challenging when you don’t have a house.

Public gyms have always come in handy for many of these purposes. These are now closed. People need an indoor place to rest, or somewhere they can use the internet to communicate with family members and service providers or to work—Mike is a video editor—and so they go to public libraries. These are also now closed.

Some people get their meals from passersby on their way to or from work—a stream of people that’s considerably calmed, with many businesses ordering employees to work from home or shutting down entirely. Others get their meals from food banks, many of which have been seeing shortages of food donations due to grocery stores selling out of items faster than usual. Still others buy food with money made from part-time, unofficial jobs like selling street newspapers or lugging recyclable materials across town to reclamation centers, but those income streams are drying up: Bay Area street papers have gone on hiatus and recycling centers are now also closing.

“There are many people who simply don’t know what to do,” said Amber Whitson, who lives in an RV in Berkeley, California. “Berkeley will surely have deaths on their hands if they don’t provide a way for people to support themselves now that they have no way to earn a living.”

Shelters and other services can’t fill in the gaps

In New York City, school closures have altered the day-to-day lives of the over 114,000 students with unstable housing. The city has promised students who get their meals from school access to “grab and go” meals, which can be picked up Monday through Friday between 7:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., but it’s unclear how long this program will last. And while classes for housed students are largely shifting online, this isn’t an option for those who are living in the New York City shelter system.

“Virtual learning is a challenge because none of the shelters have Wi-Fi, and most of the families do not have their own computer or laptop,” said Christine Quinn, president and CEO of Win, the largest provider of shelter and supportive housing for the city’s homeless families. “One of the reasons [Mayor Bill de Blasio] gave for not closing the schools as quickly as other cities was concerns about how to deal with the special challenges of homeless children who he’s so frequently referenced as his priority. Quite frankly, all of this should have been resolved before they closed the schools.” (Quinn, a former New York City Council speaker, ran against de Blasio in the 2013 mayoral election.)

Many homeless adults spend their daytime hours in “drop-in centers,” which give people access to showers, food and healthcare professionals. Sometimes they are simply a place to stay warm or cool, depending on the season. But as worries over the virus spread, these auxiliary services have been closing, putting a further strain on an already-taxed system. “One big drop-in center shut down entirely, and now we’re feeling a surge of those clients come to us,” said Alex Rogue, president of the Ali Forney Center, a community center in New York City that focuses assistance on LGBTQ homeless youth. “Working to figure out staffing has been a big concern. What will happen if there’s a mass callout of staff?”

The Providence Community Care Center in Olympia, Washington, has a day room and outdoor space that offers people dropping-in access to clinical exam rooms, handwashing stations, showers and laundry, a phone, an address where they can receive mail and a bag check, so that if people have appointments elsewhere they don’t have to haul their belongings along with them. On average, the site sees a few hundred people per day. But last Thursday, Providence sent out an email announcing the closure of these spaces after a confirmed positive case of COVID-19 “in our community.” They don’t know when they’ll reopen.

“It looks like our healthcare system is abandoning our folks,” said Phil Owen, the executive director of SideWalk, a nonprofit that partners with Providence. “If coronavirus spreads the way it is anticipated—and people we serve typically already have significant chronic health conditions, as they sleep outdoors in the cold and don’t have access to proper hygiene—it’s going to kill a lot of people.”

Shelters can also be places where the virus spreads

In the U.S., homeless people are often told to enter the shelter system—that is, if there is room. But there are already reports that some shelters have been closing due either to contamination worries or too many volunteers self-isolating at home. In San Diego, shelters have occasionally been putting a freeze on allowing new people inside. The city of Los Angeles, meanwhile, is finally taking the homelessness crisis seriously and scrambling to open up 6,000 new shelter beds before the contagion spreads like wildfire through the community. California Governor Gavin Newsom said that the government’s models estimate that 60,000 homeless folks in the state will get coronavirus, 20 percent of whom will need hospitalization, while a new report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness says that homeless folks are “twice as likely to be hospitalized, two to four times as likely to require critical care, and two to three times as likely to die than the general population.” Numbers like these could overwhelm the medical system.

Shelters considering whether to stay open have no good options. These facilities are normally designed like barracks, with beds laid out near one another and very little private space, two big problems when it comes to trying to contain an outbreak. On Friday, it was announced that six new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the NYC shelter system. (The Centers for Disease control, in guidance for shelters, asks them to place beds or sleeping mats at least three feet apart and isolated people exhibiting symptoms in separate rooms, when possible.)

“The model of sheltering that we’ve chosen is going to create more problems, and that’s unfortunate because it will cost people’s lives,” said David Gillanders, executive director of Pathways of Hope, a homelessness service in Orange County, California. “People are legit to be fearful right now.”

Without use of the shelters—either because they’re closing, or because they’re perceived as places that can be contaminated and therefore people don’t want to use them—all that’s left, as usual, are the streets. And, as of now at least, police in major metro areas are still patrolling and telling folks to keep moving along.

“While folks are having to ‘shelter in place’ in their apartments and houses,” said Kelley Cutler, the human rights coordinator for San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness, on Twitter, “folks who are unsheltered still can’t even sit down to rest without law enforcement telling them to go away.”

(Night Watchman Note: What will happen when millions of Christians suddenly ‘disappear’??? Those who may be first-responders, doctors, nurses, support staff, policemen, firefighters, homeless volunteers, those in the red cross or other emergency aid and relief organizations, in the national guard or military, pharmacies, grocery stores, etc. You get the picture.)

Jesus Christ’s Offer of Salvation:

The ABCs of Salvation through Jesus Christ (the Lamb)

A. Admit/Acknowledge/Accept that you are sinner. Ask God’s forgiveness and repent of your sins.

. . . “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23).

. . . “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10).

. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8).

B. Believe Jesus is Lord. Believe that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be; that He was both fully God and fully man and that we are saved through His death, burial, and resurrection. Put your trust in Him as your only hope of salvation. Become a son or daughter of God by receiving Christ.

. . . “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:15-17). For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13).

C. Call upon His name, Confess with your heart and with your lips that Jesus is your Lord and Savior.

. . . “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10).

. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (John 1:8-10).

. . . “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (John 2:2).

. . . “In this was manifested the love of god toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (1 John 4:9, 14-15).

. . . “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:8-10).

. . . “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).

. . . “Jesus saith unto them, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6).

. . . “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” (Romans 1:16).

. . . “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts: 4:12).

. . . “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:4-6).

. . . “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).

. . . “But as many as received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12).

True Church / Bride of Christ Spared from God’s Wrath:

 Romans 5:8-10. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

Romans 12:19. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 1:10. And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

1 Thessalonians 5:9. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

Romans 8:35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Jeremiah 30:7. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.

Revelation 3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.