The news has been dominated by the disaster that has overtaken the coastal regions of Asia. For the Christian, compassion for poor souls lost in heathen darkness and swept away into a Christless eternity is our uppermost thought. While we naturally join in financially supporting government agencies sending out aid, we chiefly think of the spiritual and eternal consequences of these events. Again, whenever the Christian thinks of earthquakes, they think of our Saviour's prophecy in Matthew 24:6-8. At the end of this age there will be an intensifying of those natural disasters that have been part of sinful man's history. This intensifying marks the "beginning of sorrows." The word "sorrows" refers to the pain of travailing in birth. That reminds us of what Paul says in Romans 8:22. "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," Romans 8:22. These things tell us that the end of this age draws on and the beginning of a new age, that of Christ's millennial reign, is near.