Why did Jesus compare the tribulation to a woman in travail?
Jesus used the woman-in-travail analogy because travail is always linked to childbirth. The earth has been under the curse since Genesis 3, and the seven-year tribulation is meant to bring it to delivery from that curse. Like labor pains, tribulation begins gently and far apart, then intensifies as delivery nears.
Les teaches that the word travail in Scripture is always associated with childbirth, a woman in travail. The reason Jesus uses this analogy is that the earth has been under the curse ever since Genesis 3. For the last 6,000 years, we have been living under the awful stigma of the curse, but Scripture says one day the curse will be lifted. Jesus uses the analogy of the earth being delivered from the curse, and the whole purpose of the seven years of tribulation is to bring the earth to the place of delivery. Les explains that just as a young mother approaching childbirth has labor pains that start gently and rather far apart, but become more intense and faster as the hour of delivery approaches, so the tribulation will unfold in that same way.
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?