Mark 13:8

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in many places. There will be famines. These are the beginnings of birth pains.”

Jesus then explained further. Wars between nations will necessarily come, for that is what man is like. Earthquakes and famines will occur, as they have throughout history, for that is what nature is like. But these will only introduce what is to follow. And certainly we know that in the first century there were a number of wars, devastating earthquakes and terrible famines. For the dreadful famine in the time of Claudius see Acts 11:27, and Jerusalem experienced a number of earthquakes, including one around the time of Jesus' resurrection (Matthew 28:2). Laodicea, for example, was destroyed by a terrible earthquake which shook the whole of Phrygia in 61 AD. Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed by volcanic action not long after. But Jesus was warning that these must not be seen as direct portents. What He was basically saying was that the troubles of a troubled world, portentous though they may seem to those involved, should not cause excessive speculation about the future. They would simply be reminders that there will be yet more troubles to come.

‘Birth pains.' A woman's birth pains were a common illustration to suggest the introduction of further trouble. All were aware of the initial contractions which were an early signal of a coming birth. Jesus may have had in mind what the later Rabbis called the Messianic birthpangs which would precede the Messiah and introduce the end of the age, but probably not, for He stressed that these did not introduce anything, ‘the end is not yet', and furthermore He knew that the Messiah had already come. Birth pains are regularly used as an illustration in Scripture (Isaiah 26:17; Isaiah 66:8; Jeremiah 22:23; Hosea 13:13; Micah 4:9) where they simply mean the start of trouble.