Jesus Said This Would Happen FIRST… Nobody Is Ready for It

There’s a single Greek word buried in Matthew 24:8 that most English Bibles translate as sorrows or troubles.

But when you understand what that word actually means in its original language, the entire prophetic sequence transforms because Jesus wasn’t describing chaos.

He was describing a pattern, one with a beginning, a progression, and a very specific destination.

By the time we finish this study, you’ll never read Matthew 24 the same way again.

Let me ask you something.

When you read about wars, earthquakes, and famines in Matthew 24, what’s your immediate emotional response? For most people, it’s some version of dread, a sense that the world is spinning into catastrophe with no clear structure or end.

But what if that’s not what Jesus was communicating at all? What if embedded in the very words he chose? Oh, there’s a framework that replaces confusion with clarity, a pattern that actually offers comfort instead of fear.

Here are the questions we’re going to answer together.

First, what did Jesus literally say would happen first? and why does the order matter? Second, what does the Greek word in verse 8 reveal that changes how we understand the entire chapter? Third, why did Jesus, in the middle of describing global upheaval, command his disciples not to be troubled? The answers are in the text, but they require us to slow down and look more carefully than most readers do.

Let’s set the scene with precision.

Jesus is seated on the Mount of Olives.

From that vantage point, he can see directly across the Kidron Valley to the temple complex in Jerusalem.

Massive stones covered in gold.

the architectural and spiritual center of Jewish life.

And his disciples have just marveled at the magnificence of the temple.

And Jesus responds with words that shake them.

Do you see all these things? Truly, I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another.

Everyone will be thrown down.

Understandably, they’re stunned.

Privately, they approach him with three questions that shape everything that follows.

When will this happen? What will be the sign of your coming? And what will mark the end of the age? What Jesus says next becomes the most detailed prophetic teaching he ever gave.

And it’s critical to notice how he begins.

He doesn’t start with the most dramatic events.

He starts with a warning about deception.

Verse four, watch out that no one deceives you.

Before he tells them what to watch for, he tells them how to watch with discernment without being misled.

Then comes the sequence.

At verses 6-8, you 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.

Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

All these are the beginning of birth pains.

Now read that last sentence again.

All these are the beginning of birth painans.

Most people gloss right over that phrase.

They focus on the wars and earthquakes and miss the single most important word in the passage, birth pains.

The word translated birth pains is the Greek word odin.

And this isn’t a generic term for suffering.

It’s a very specific medical term.

It refers to the contractions a woman experiences during labor.

The rhythmic intensifying pains that signal a child is about to be born.

Now that why would Jesus choose this particular metaphor? He could have used any number of images to describe suffering or tribulation.

But he chose labor.

And that choice is deliberate.

Because birth pains aren’t random.

They have three defining characteristics that ordinary suffering doesn’t possess.

And when you understand these three characteristics, the entire prophetic framework clicks into place.

Characteristic one, birth pains escalate.

If you’ve ever witnessed child birth or experienced it yourself, you know that contractions don’t remain at a steady level.

They build.

Each one is more intense than the one before it.

The pain increases in severity as labor progresses.

Jesus is telling his disciples and us that the signs he’s describing will follow this same pattern.

They won’t be static historical events.

They’ll intensify.

They’ll wars won’t just happen.

They’ll escalate.

Famines won’t just occur.

They’ll worsen.

The pattern is progressive.

Characteristic two, the intervals shorten.

This is the detail most people miss entirely.

Early in labor, contractions might be 20 minutes apart, then 15, then 10, then five, then they’re coming every couple of minutes, then continuously.

The closer the delivery, the shorter the time between contractions.

If Jesus is using birth pains as the controlling metaphor, and he explicitly is, then the signs he describes won’t just escalate in intensity.

They’ll also accelerate in frequency.

The time between major events will compress.

Scholars who study the historical pattern note something fascinating.

In the early centuries of the church, the kinds of signs Jesus described, wars, famines, earthquakes, ch persecution occurred across long intervals.

Decades or even centuries might separate major crises.

But as history has progressed, those intervals have shortened.

The signs begin overlapping, converging, happening closer and closer together.

That’s not speculation.

That’s the observable pattern.

and it matches exactly what the birth pains metaphor predicts.

Characteristic three, birth pains have a destination, and this is the one that should settle your heart.

A woman in labor isn’t suffering randomly.

The pain isn’t pointless.

It’s purposeful.

It’s moving towards something specific, the delivery of new life.

The signs Jesus describes are not the world spiraling into meaningless chaos.

They are prophetic markers with a destination.

They’re moving history towards something.

The return of Christ and the establishment of God’s kingdom.

And the pain has a point.

The suffering has direction.

And the direction is glory.

But here’s the detail embedded in verse 6 that almost everyone overlooks.

And it radically changes how we’re supposed to respond to all of this.

In the middle of describing wars and upheaval, Jesus gives a direct command, five words in Greek.

And if you miss them, you’ll misunderstand the entire passage.

The command is this.

See that you are not troubled.

The Greek word for troubled is throwo.

It means to cry out in alarm, to be thrown into panic, to be terrified.

Jesus is saying when you see these things, the wars, the earthquakes, the global instability, don’t panic.

Now, why would he say that? Because he immediately explains such things must happen, but the end is not yet.

The word must is the Greek day.

It indicates divine necessity.

These events aren’t accidents.

They’re not surprises to God.

They’re required elements of a sovereign timeline that must unfold.

And then he adds, “But the end is not yet.

” This is huge.

The wars are significant.

So significant that Jesus addresses them directly.

But the wars themselves are not the end.

They are, as he puts it, the beginning of birth pains.

Let me trace the sequence Jesus gives because it’s not random.

Wars and rumors of wars, global conflict, nation against nation, ethnic tensions, famines and earthquakes, natural systems breaking down.

Then persecution in verse 9.

They will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death.

Then betrayal in verse 10.

Many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other.

Then deception multiplies in verse 11.

Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.

Then moral collapse in verse 12.

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.

Notice the pattern.

The sequence moves from global to personal.

From external events, wars, earthquakes to internal challenges, betrayal, deception, cold love.

And through all of this, Jesus calls it one thing.

the beginning of birth pains, not the end.

The beginning, the labor is starting, the contractions are building, and what they’re building toward is the return of the king.

Now, here’s where this teaching moves from historical observation to personal application.

Because if these signs follow the birth pains pattern, escalating, accelerating, converging, then the question isn’t just are we seeing this happen.

The question is, how are we supposed to live while it’s happening? And Jesus answers that too explicitly.

And throughout this discourse, Jesus doesn’t just describe the pattern.

He prescribes the response.

Verse four, don’t let anyone deceive you.

Verse 6, don’t be alarmed.

Verse 13, the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

The entire teaching is designed to produce not fear, but faithfulness, not panic, but perseverance.

And here’s why the birth pains metaphor is so pastorally brilliant.

When a woman is in labor, she doesn’t interpret the pain as a sign that something is going terribly wrong.

She interprets it as a sign that something is going exactly right.

The pain means progress.

It means the baby is coming.

Jesus is reframing how his followers should interpret global and personal suffering.

The escalation, the intensity, the convergence of signs.

These aren’t indicators that God has lost control.

In their indicators that history is moving exactly according to his sovereign plan, the pain has purpose.

The chaos has a trajectory.

And the trajectory ends not in destruction, but in the kingdom of God being fully revealed.

This is why in Luke’s parallel account, Jesus says in chapter 21:28, “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near.

Not crouch in fear, not run and hide.

Stand up, look up, your redemption is near.

” The birth pains don’t signal the death of hope.

They signal the imminence of deliverance.

So, let’s return to where we began.

Most people read Matthew 24 and see a chaotic list of frightening events with no clear structure.

But when you understand the Greek word Odin, birth painans, the passage transforms entirely.

Jesus wasn’t describing randomness.

Yet, he was describing a pattern.

Here are the three takeaways you need to carry with you.

First, the signs escalate and accelerate.

Each phase is more intense than the last, and the intervals between them compress.

That’s not speculation.

That’s what the birth pains metaphor predicts, and it’s what the observable pattern of history confirms.

Second, the pattern has a destination.

This isn’t suffering for suffering’s sake.

It’s labor with a purpose.

The delivery is the return of Christ and the full revelation of God’s kingdom.

Third, Jesus commands us not to be troubled.

In the middle of wars, betrayals, and false prophets, he says, “Don’t panic.

These things must happen, but the end is not yet.

Stand firm.

Keep watch.

Don’t let your love grow cold.

The birth pains are real.

The intensity is increasing.

But for those who belong to Christ, uh, the pain isn’t the point, the delivery is.

I wonder if you started this study with a sense of dread about Matthew 24.

Maybe you’ve read it before and felt overwhelmed by the weight of it all.

I hope that single Greek word Odin, birth painans, has shifted your perspective.

Because when you understand that Jesus was describing a purposeful progression with a glorious destination, fear gives way to something else.

Not denial of the difficulty, but confidence in the outcome.

A woman in the hardest moments of labor doesn’t give up because she knows what’s coming.

She knows the pain is temporary.

She knows new life is about to enter the world.

Jesus is telling you the same thing.

The pain is real, but it’s purposeful and it’s temporary.

And what’s coming is the kingdom of God in all its fullness.

When so when you see the signs, when the news feels overwhelming, when the world seems to be unraveling, remember the pattern.

Remember the command and remember the destination.

The labor is intensifying, but the delivery is near.

If this kind of careful Bible study helps you see familiar passages with fresh clarity and renewed hope, I’d be honored if you’d subscribe and continue this journey with us.

There’s so much more in Matthew 24 we haven’t touched, including what Jesus says happens after the birth painans and how his followers are called to live in the meantime.

Until then, may your study be deep, your faith be strong, and your hope be anchored in the one who told us these things in advance.