Birth Pains

6You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains. Matt 24:6-8

This is a very important passage of Scripture and to be honest one that should stay in the forefront of any conversation whenever a natural disaster strikes. I don't believe that any recent natural disaster carries any prophetic significance by itself. In these cases you need to take a step back and look at the totality of these disasters in order to get an idea of where we are on God's prophetic clock. That's what Christ was saying when he compared these things to birth pains. Labor pains and contractions intensify as the moment of the birth approaches. As we all know, the birthing process is not always quick and could take many many hours before the baby is born. We have to examine natural disasters, wars, famines, etc., through these lenses first. The worst thing we can do after an earthquake or hurricane is to start setting the clock and claiming a major prophetic sign.

As a Christian we yearn for Heaven. We look forward to being with our Savior in eternity. We are supposed to live on this earth but not be a part of it. We are supposed to be strangers in a strange land. It can be very difficult to live this way though. But those who do can get really caught up in individual events like Katrina, Earl, New Zealand Earthquake, 911, etc., etc.. They take the bait and start declaring this or that. They fall into the temptation of date setting. They make foolish statements that only wind up discrediting themselves. This only hurts the cause, it never helps it and more people tune out the Gospel as a result.

This recent quake in New Zealand was nothing more than another contraction. It was another birth pain. The fact that it happened in a town called Christchurch has no prophetic significance in and of itself. However, when you step back a bit and look at the world as a whole and include this earthquake along with the seven earthquakes to hit Oklahoma, the mulitple hurricanes experienced recently, the threats of violence, terrorist attacks, the Middle East peace process, the threats against Israel, then you get a better idea of where we are.

As time goes by the frequency of this stuff intensifies. Barely a week goes by without a prophetic indicator leading the headlines. There always seems to be an earthquake here, a hurricane there, a volcano erupting here, a Christian killed there, a terrorist attack here, another threat against Israel there, you get the picture... But no matter how many birth pains we see we need to remember what they're for. They're meant to motivate us to fulfill the Great Commission. Just as the Bible points to Jesus Christ so do these birth pains. Yes, they seem to indicate that we don't have much time left before Christ comes for His church. So we should endeavor to win as many people to Him as we possibly can before it's too late. We need to witness any chance we can. Take the opportunities, ask the Lord for strength, time is running out. Be vigilent.