With the recent tsunami, the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center and the war on terrorism, our attention is drawn to the prophecy in Matthew 24. Jesus said, "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows" (Matthew 24:7-8).

According to Strong's Concordance, the word translated "sorrows" is defined as, "A pang or throe, especially of childbirth." So verse 8 could be translated, "All these are the beginning of the labor pains of childbirth."

This is very interesting when we realize that God compares the pain that man will experience during the last days just before Christ's return with the pain of childbirth.

In Isaiah 13:6-9 we read, "Wail, for the day of the LORD is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty... Pangs and sorrows will take hold of them; they will be in pain as a woman in childbirth."

Knowing that God uses the example of the pain during childbirth to illustrate the pain experienced by those just before Christ's return, we may safely assume that the frequency and magnitude of the pain will increase as we get nearer to the end of this age.

The good news is that the entire earth, as well as the universe, is looking forward to that new birth. It is looking forward to the time when the children of God will be born into the family of God. Paul, writing about the future, said, "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God... because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now" (Romans 8:18-22).

Even as a pregnant woman must experience the increasingly intense pains of childbirth and sometimes excruciating pain during delivery, once the baby is born and she holds it in her arms, it overshadows all the previous pain that she experienced. And so it will be for this world and everyone in it when the Kingdom of God is finally established.