Why did Jesus describe the tribulation using the analogy of travail?
Jesus used travail because Scripture ties travail to childbirth, and the earth has been under the curse since Genesis 3. The seven-year tribulation is designed to bring the earth to the place of delivery from that curse, with labor-like pains increasing and coming faster as the end approaches.
Les explains that the word travail is always associated with childbirth, a woman in travail. He says Jesus uses this analogy because the earth has been under the curse ever since Genesis 3. One day the curse is going to be lifted, and the whole purpose of the seven years of tribulation is to bring the earth to the place of delivery. Les compares it to a young mother approaching childbirth: her labor pains start gently and rather far apart, but the closer she comes to delivery, the more intense the pain and the faster they come. That is exactly how the tribulation will unfold.
All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?