Overview
This Montana Christian Festival teaching considers the witness of the insect kingdom as part of the witness of God’s creation. Rev. Mark Ladwig examines insects’ variety, transformation, social organization, specialized abilities, and ecological roles. The speaker connects observable features of the created world with Scripture, emphasizing design, order, provision, interdependence, and the Creator’s care.
Transcript
Introducing the Insect Kingdom
I know some of you were taking your kids over to the bug guy. You've seen a couple insects in your lifetime, right? They've always been a little creepy to me. But I'm hoping to change that, because our next teaching topic is on the witness of the insect kingdom.
And our teacher is a man who has lived in Montana for a while, so many of you know him. But he now ministers in the great state of Tennessee. So please welcome, Reverend Mark Ludwig.
Hello. God bless you, in the name of Jesus Christ. How exciting to be here with you, to talk about some of the smallest creatures on the planet.
The insect kingdom. Guess I should get my notes out, cuz we got a few things to cover. Okay, who's willing to admit that at some point in time in their life, they had a mason jar with a little rag on top and a rubber band around it.
And inside it, maybe some grass clippings or a twig or two. And you would go out and collect insects, right? Why? Because you're fascinated by insects. That's me.
I was fascinated by insects as a child. And I'd go out, somebody told me, crickets make that annoying sound at night with their legs. So how could I prove that? Go catch a cricket, right? Put it in a jar and wait, and wait, and wait.
I think on that one I had to take people's word for it cuz in that little container, they never did make that noise. But I caught ants and crickets and grasshoppers. I caught ladybugs and lightning bugs.
Even caught a cicadas and a praying mantis one time, not cool. Praying mantis, they can be pretty doggone big with their animated arms and their little goofy head that looks all over at those great big eyes. Cool looking animals.
But when you contain them in an environment like a mason jar with a breathable lid on the thing, you can watch them for a while before they expire. So it was a fun little experiment. Now I'm kinda dating myself here a little bit.
But in the 1960s, I had this little machine called the creepy crawler machine, where you took a liquid plastic substance and you poured it in a mold and you stuck it in this little, well not by today's standards, but then a kid's safe oven, and then a little bit later out popped this creepy crawly, which somebody doesn't like around here, right? And it was lifelike, it was durable, kinda like a gummy worm or a gummy bear, right? But you could study their form and shape in the substance's hardened plastic. I looked it up on the Internet a couple of days ago. The original creepy crawler machine's not available, but somebody came out with a similar version back in the late 70s, early 80s.
And you can still buy an antique like that on Amazon for 60 bucks. But there's just something fascinating about insects. And so I thought today, well, how can we help people that tend to congregate in places where pest control is a priority? We have an exterminator in our audience here.
His livelihood is to remove bugs from the environment. So for those poor people that don't have the opportunity to observe bugs in a city, for instance, you can actually go online on Amazon and have delivered to your doorstep live insects. And with that, you can order the insect identification kit.
You can order all kinds of things so that you can experience what you and I have the privilege of experiencing right here today. And that is being in the presence of insects. That's right.
Don't freak out. There are insects all around you. I'll demonstrate this in just a second.
So let's go to Genesis chapter one. Genesis chapter one. I wanna make it clear early on that I am not an etymologist, someone who studies insects.
But God gave us everything around us, including the trees, which are real. We learned that this morning. And the insects, right, to learn from.
So I don't have to be an etymologist to get the message. All I have to do is pay attention to what God has given us. In the very beginning, when God was creating the earth that we know, right? Everything that he did, when he was done doing it, he said it was good.
Here in Genesis chapter one, it says in verse 24, and God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after his kind, and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was what? Literally, God saw that what he had made was very good.
Say insects are very good. Absolutely, that's the way God made it. Now, here's some interesting stuff from the words in these two verses.
The word creature here in Genesis 124 means swarm, S-W-A-R-M, which Strong's defines as an active mass of minute little creeping moving creatures. Those are his words. And then creeping things is also defined as a reptile or any other rapidly moving animal or creeping moving thing.
So, how exciting to think of all of the active, creeping, moving, swarming creatures that God has made in the beginning. And that, at that time, they were very good. And not only were they very good, but they were meant to testify of him.
In your program, there's a wonderful verse of scripture. It's Romans chapter 1, verse 20 in the NIV, and I like the way the NIV reads. There's also another version called the Revised English Version.
And it reads, for since the creation of the world, his, God's, invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen, being understood through the things that he has made. Now, in this verse of scripture, there's a very interesting figure of speech. And figures of speech are designed to get our attention.
It's like something coming to a screeching halt. It's like me, early on when Terry and I got married, my wife Terry and I got married, one of the things I like to do is go out and look for animals. Hunters call it scouting, right? Or coming cross country when we were moving from, at that time, back in the 70s, Illinois to Oregon.
She didn't know what to look for in deer and elk and antelope and other things. So, I would teach her the things that I came to appreciate when I was a child. And I would say, now, look for movement.
When you see movement, then identify what you're seeing. And then say, is that a deer? Is that an elk? Is that a bear? Is that a whatever, right? Well, sometimes we'd have to come to a screeching halt to observe whatever it is her or I observed in the environment at that time. Now, figures of speech are meant to get our attention in a similar way.
They're meant to stop and think about this. This particular figure of speech here in Romans 120 is an oxymoron. It's an oxymoron because, can you really see invisible things? By definition, they're what? Invisible, and yet the verse explains that they can be seen by the things that he has made, isn't that cool? Insects, with their beauty and their diversity, they have been utilized in lessons and parables and metaphors throughout history to direct the thoughts and the imaginations of man to God.
So join me on this exciting adventure where we'll consider what we can observe from the insect kingdom that illustrates, that shows us God's invisible attributes, his eternal power, and his divine nature, as we just read. And we'll look at it in three categories. First, we'll look at it from nature itself.
We'll look at some references in the Bible next. And then finally, we'll consider some lessons from the Bible that utilize insects or insect concepts to communicate a truth. But before we begin, I wanna start off, I'm gonna move down, I'm a mover.
I'm gonna move down here to be with y'all and share some fun facts about insects. But before I do, I need a prop, which I almost forgot. All right, insect fun facts.
First, they're a highly designed and vital part of the entire ecology of the Earth. There are, somebody said, that's a lot of zeros earlier when they were talking about the figure that Ed gave about the cells in the body. Here's one for you.
There are ten quintillion insects alive at any one given time. I don't know how many zeros that is. Maybe some mathematician out there does.
But ten quintillion, do you know what that means? That there are two billion insects for every one of you out there. At any one given time that are alive and well, functioning on the Earth. In the United States alone, there are 91,000 identified species of insects just in the United States.
And in the world, there are over 925,000 identified species of insects. How'd you like that job? Counting all those insects. This dawned on me when Gene was teaching yesterday that no wonder Adam lived to 930 years.
Small Creatures and Extraordinary Design
It took him that long just to name everything. Purely speculation. 75% of everything living on our planet right now is an insect.
Now I'm gonna have you do a little something, a little exercise out there in your seats. I tried this seven times in the last hour, and it worked every time. Don't move your feet from where they are right now, because it'll mess up your experiment.
And you'll understand why in a second. What I want you to do is I want you to pick a two foot by two foot square right in front of you. A two foot by two foot square right in front of you.
And then I want you to stare at that square. And I want you to notice any kind of movement and differentiate between the breeze that comes by and the movement that you see on the ground or in those leaves. And here's what I found.
That it took between three seconds and 30 seconds to find one or more insects. And I tried not to find an insect one time, and I couldn't. 30 seconds, go.
That's what I thought. Done, done, done, done, done. Isn't that cool? Insects are all around us.
God designed these insects for you and I. Here's something. The largest, no, no, the smallest insect on the planet is called a fairy fly, a fairy fly. And the fairy fly, now take all those cones and rods if you could for a minute and focus up here.
Can you see the space between my fingers? Now, there is no space. I've got them pinched together. The point is, it's so small you can't see it really with the naked eye.
It takes a microscope. But when you blow that thing up, and you look at all its little legs and all the magnificent color, and at the end of the two front legs, it's like it's got feathers on it. They go out one way or the other like this.
And it looks like there's dozens of them. But you'd never see that with the naked eye. And yet, God put all that fabulous design into that teeny, tiny insect that he made that was very good for a purpose here on Earth.
I don't think we've yet to discover what that purpose is, but for teaching illustrations, it is an awesome specimen. Now, the largest insect in the world is called a titanus gargantuus, or a titan beetle. What I'm holding in my hand here is Rob Miller's drone.
This is a close approximation to the size of that beetle, the titan beetle. It will not fit in my hand. Maybe I'll put it this way.
That is how big that titan beetle is. And here, I'm gonna hand this off to my son, my son Steven. Thank you very much.
And the thing about the insects is no matter how small, the fairy fly, or how large the titan beetle, there are just so many wonderful things that you can learn about how God designed them, first of all. When you think about how they sustain life and contribute to life overall, but also in their design and functionality, the things that we know and understand how they work and why they work, they're just fascinating. And they all contribute to Earth's ecosystem.
And they all help to maintain balance in what God designed for man. Pretty neat, huh? Just think of all that God designed in a 24-hour period. That in and of itself, when it comes to the insect kingdom, illustrates his indivisible attributes, his eternal power, and his divine nature.
I think it's pretty awesome. And to the point that there are a few bad insects and there are a few bad actors out there, we would all agree, right? How and why these insects that were created as very good in the beginning for the Earth's ecosystem became very bad is not the subject of our teaching today. We're not gonna handle that.
We're gonna focus on the positive, right? Because I'm not an etymologist. But I can observe good things from the insect kingdom. And oftentimes, the description, good or bad, of that insect is a fair characterization of what they do to maintain the balance in our ecosystem.
Let me give you an example. How about the dung beetle? He has a job to do, right? And his job is to clean house in his little corner of the Earth. You know what a dung beetle does? That's right, it rolls up poop.
And moves it out of the way, stores it, whatever it is he does with it, but he's doing his job, right? Absolutely. All right, find my place here, because there's other wonderful insects. How about a maggot? Now, maggots disgust me.
And maybe they disgust you too, right? If you run a commercial property, I've run two motels in the heat of southern Florida. And during a hot, sweltering afternoon, four days before garbage day pickup, after all my guests have thrown everything in the garbage can, oftentimes, there's this little collection of white, squirmy little things called maggots. And what those maggots do is their little garbage disposals.
They go in and they clean up garbage and they digest it, and that helps feed them so they can turn into annoying flies, which we're not gonna talk about. But they're doing their job in their small part of the Earth to keep the Earth livable. Did you know that insects promote life? 75% of all insects are pollinators, as are almost all of the insects that sting.
That's right. Insects are beneficial to our ecosystem. Think about it, they provide food.
They provide food for other insects, they provide food for animals, they provide food for birds, and even for humans. God even went so far in the law as to identify those insects that were clean and good for food, and those that were unclean, meaning that they're not good for food. So in Western civilization, it's kind of hard for us to imagine having a plate of grubs for dinner.
But in other parts of the world, that's part of their diet. That's a staple in their diet. Are there any children here? So, no, I can't say it.
No, I can. We like to watch survival shows, right? And a lot of the survivalists that are put on places that are uninhabitable, they're tasked with surviving for periods of time. And in those adventures, invariably, because food is so hard to come by, they'll open up a rotten log and they'll find these big white grubs with a little tiny brown head on it, right? And they painfully go through the process of eating that so that they can get 12 grams of protein, 8 grams of protein.
But whatever it is, it's enough to lift their spirits and help them make it through to the next day. But as I said, in other cultures, they don't look at it quite that way. They actually harvest insects and eat the things.
And so anyway, enough of that. So one of the other interesting things about insects is their ability to adapt and to change. They adapt to certain environmental conditions.
Even to the chagrin of a lot of people, they can adapt to pesticides that are used to control insects. They can develop a resistance to it. All because God designed them for a purpose.
They have something to perform. And just because we don't like their performance and try to kill them, God designed within their package the ability to adapt. Any farmers in the room? Yeah, is that true? Yeah.
A microfarmer, that's right, he's a microfarmer. Do you deal with micro pests? Yes, I bet you do. How about this? I didn't think about this, so this is a loaded question.
Did you ever think about how all 925 million species of insects survived the flood in Noah's day? They did. Two by two on the arc. That would have been a big job for Noah, right? But you know what? Think about it.
Our invisible God, our powerful, eternally powerful, and God with such a great divine nature figured out how to save, how to restore or preserve almost one million insects when the earth was completely covered in water. Isn't that amazing? And they survived for our benefit. Because everything God made is for our benefit, right? Sure.
All right. Here's a few things about ants. Now, when I was doing my little experiment out here, I saw ants.
But that's not the only thing I saw on the ground. But here's some facts about ants. There are thousands of species of ants.
Some researchers believe that there's so many ants in the Amazon that they make up 30% of the animal biomass in the Amazon Basin. 30% of all animals, that's the biomass, in the Amazon Basin is made up of ants. That's a lot of ants.
Metamorphosis and Transformation
A single ant colony can have up to 5 million busy members in one ant colony. So I did see an ant. And I tried to follow it to see where its hole was.
But it went outside my two foot square. But somewhere, it may have 4,999,000 other little brothers and sisters busily working at something. All right.
Ants have a communication language. I was talking to Gene on the walk over to the mess hall. He says, I just love the way their little antennas rub against each other when they communicate one with another.
They also communicate by laying down pheromones, a scent trail. So my wife and I just moved to Nashville from Florida. And we had a brand spanking new fifth wheel trailer delivered to our Nashville location.
And we were in it for three days. And my dog decides it doesn't like the dog dish or the food it's eating or whatever. And it tips over the dog dish with the food in the middle of our kitchen in our brand new trailer sometime after dinner.
I wake up in the morning. This is day four. I wake up in the morning.
And there are thousands of ants all over that food. And there is a visible red trail of ants that went over to the step up to the living room, along the front of the step, around here, and out the side of the door. Now, there's only like nine points of contact with the ground.
And it was ant free when I got it. Somehow, they figured out, they sent out a scout or something how to get in my trailer and leave a stupid little scent trail, which is indetectable to me. And then all their little buddies came up and they were munching on dog food.
Talk about industry. These guys know how to survive, right? Even if it means invading my private space. Ants have a complex social organization.
And they take on a lot of building projects. And unlike any other animal that depends on leadership, our ants just see the task and they get it done. Proverbs illustrates that.
And we'll get that in a few minutes. So what an amazing creator that we have to pack all that complexity inside that teeny, tiny, little body and in that even tinier little brain. Isn't that awesome? How about bees? I like bees until I'm stung.
But I do like bees. And there's a fascination with bees in America, partly because the bee population is dwindling. But now you can actually buy mason jar kits where you can actually have a beehive outside your window.
And you can watch them work and make honey. And they're just little kits. They're not very much money.
How much are they, Scott? I know Amanda looked into them. $15. And you can have your own little beehive and make your own little honey.
And it's a great way to teach and illustrate a lot of things about insects to your kids or just get sweet stuff put on your toast. But like ants, they have a very highly complex social structure. Here's something interesting I learned this week is that the word bee comes from or means orderly motion.
Now, when you think about a bee, if you look at a bee in a hive and you look at the motion and all the different things that they accomplish with purpose to get the honeycomb built and all the things that they do in their little hive, orderly motion is a wonderful root of that word for bee to consider. So there's over 16,000 known species of bee in seven biological families in the world. Isn't that fascinating? How many have seen a dragonfly before? My wife and I were having dinner eight weeks ago on the intercoastal in Fort Lauderdale at this nice restaurant.
We're sitting on the water enjoying a wonderful dinner. And all of a sudden, I see this cloud coming my way. And it got closer and closer.
And then against the backdrop of a high-rise building, as it came through, I noticed that it was dragonflies. Dragonflies in the millions. They came so close and it got so bad that the restaurant had to drop the flaps on that side of the restaurant and eventually around the whole restaurant because the dragonflies were just taking over.
I'd never seen anything quite like that. God probably did it because I'm teaching on insects today. But it was so cool to see all those dragonflies.
I've seen them. I lived in Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, right? There's dragonflies everywhere there, but never saw them in that mass quantity. Fascinating creatures.
They have an interesting life. They lay eggs. And then those eggs lay.
And those larvae, or what's called nymphs, they can survive up to seven years underwater. And during that seven years, they will molt four, five, six, seven times. As they molt, they shed the old skin.
They get new skin. At some point in time, wings develop that are not functioning. But at the final stage, they come out of their skeleton, their external skeleton, and they sit on a branch.
They climb up on a branch like a cattail. And they'll unfurl those wet wings and hold them out to the sun. And they harden and become waterproof.
And from there, they can take flight. And all that's left of that little egg and larvae is this weird, creepy-looking, ghostly skeleton that they leave behind. Fascinating creatures.
How about the caterpillar and the butterfly? That's the one I like the most because I think it's the most dramatic, to go from a creepy, crawly, ugly, uncomely caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly. This insect has four stages. It has the egg stage, the larvae stage, the pupa stage, and then the adult stage.
And the larvae stage is what we refer to as a caterpillar. And caterpillars go by names like inchworm or silkworm or woolly bear. You ever seen a woolly bear? I've seen lots of those in my lifetime.
And the sole agenda of a caterpillar is to eat and not be eaten. That's the agenda of a caterpillar. And they have among the fastest growth rate of any animal in the animal kingdom.
For instance, a monarch caterpillar grows 3,000 times its size in its short span as a larva. Isn't that amazing? A monarch caterpillar has 3,000 muscles. How many do we have? 600, right? 3,000 muscles.
So this bulky little creature has a lot more muscles than we do. When you think about a caterpillar, they have a pretty lowly life, don't they? Wiggling around down there on the ground, they're muscular, they're bulky, and they move very slowly. They move on the ground.
They move in vegetation, that kind of thing. But they don't have a whole lot going for them. Their perception of the world is what they can see through their very poor eyesight and detect through their almost indistinguishable antennae.
Not to mention that they're susceptible to predation, right? Lots of things like to eat caterpillars. But thankfully, God had a better plan, a better purpose for the butterfly. In order for these creepy, crawly little creatures to achieve adulthood, they have to go through a radical transformation.
When the larvae are fully grown, they stop eating. And they look for a safe place to build a chrysalis or a pupa. The way I look at it, like with the monarch, it's sort of like an elongated acorn.
That's kind of what they look like. They're actually a little bit hard on the outside. Once they're fully concealed in this pupa, every physiological system of that caterpillar, it dissolves into like a liquid soup.
Cooperation, Communication, and Order
It becomes liquefied. And it is rearranged at the direction of an unseen hand into something completely new, a butterfly. This process is called metamorphosis, which describes the transformation, in this case, of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
We know tadpoles turn into frogs and other things. But for our purposes today, metamorphosis here describes the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly. And now, no longer earthbound, the butterfly has fully functioning eyes and large antenna with which to survey its new, ever-changing surroundings.
And with those eyes and with those antennae, they can detect the most imperceptible smells that lead them to food and places to mate or lay their eggs and so on. So think about it. This poor, lowly caterpillar doesn't know what life has in store for it.
It submits, at some point in time in its lowly little life, to a process that turns it in to a butterfly, giving flight to its life. It goes from the ground to being elevated to a beautiful flying creature. Hey, that is not a butterfly.
But think about how their perspective now changes. Doesn't that remind you of the new birth? How you go from what it says in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1, being dead in trespasses and sin, to what it says in Ephesians 1, to being seated in the heavenlies. Our perspective changes.
Thank you, Rob. The caterpillar's perspective changes as it submits itself to what it's genetically programmed to do, form that pupa, turn into liquid soup, and by an invisible hand, God changes it into a beautiful butterfly. Isn't that awesome? These are some of the attributes.
These are some of the distinguishing characteristics, if you please, of our eternally powerful God, the God that made you and me fearfully and awesomely, right? Fascinating. So ants, bees, dragonflies, butterflies are just a few examples of the 925,000 identified species of insects known to man today. And each has a story to tell.
I'm going to walk back upstairs. Give me just a second. I found this quote as I was working this topic from a 17th century theologian named Matthew Henry.
Some of you might be familiar with him. Matthew Henry said, quote, the curious formation of the body of animals, their different sizes, shapes, and natures, with the admirable powers of sensitive life with which they are endued, when duly considered, raise high thoughts and praises to God. Isn't that what we're doing this weekend? We're duly considering all the things that God has made so that we can come to greater appreciate his invisible qualities, his divine nature, and his eternal power.
Now, how about some insects that are mentioned in the Bible? I was surprised to note that, depending on what version of the Bible you look at, that no fewer than 98 insects are mentioned in the Bible. 54 of those passages deal with insects as pests or plague. 37 of them use insects as a metaphor.
And another seven are simply observations of insects. So when you think about it, insects get a lot of coverage in the Bible. But you've got to think about it, because I never thought about it, until I had the thought, when I was asked if I wanted to teach, what would I teach on? Then I was forced to think about it.
So here's a sampling of insects that are mentioned in the Bible. Ants, bees, fleas, flies. Grasshoppers, grubs, hornets, lice, locusts, maggots, midges, moss, scorpions, spiders, and worms.
As noted in Proverbs chapter 6, the ants are well-known for their diligence. And you don't have to turn there. Proverbs chapter 6 says, go to the ant, oh lazy one.
This is from the REV version. Watch its ways and become wise. So do you think that we can become wise by watching something God has made that illustrates his invisible powers and attributes and divine nature? Says it right there.
Because it, the ant, has no leader, overseer, or ruler. Yet it prepares its bread in summer. It gathers its food in the harvest.
And we learned that lesson yesterday about how diligent the ants are at getting things done. Bees are mentioned only four times in the King James version. Can you believe that? Four times.
But 56 times, the fruit of the bee, the honey, is mentioned in the Bible. And we all benefit from honey, right? Absolutely. Honey has been used for centuries as an antibiotic.
It's been used to treat wounds, to treat coughs, to treat indigestion, and for food, just to name a few of its usages. In Matthew chapter 3, verse 4, it said John the Baptist ate locusts and peanut butter. What did he eat? Honey.
John the Baptist ate locusts and honey. Both are products of the insect kingdom. Matthew 6.26, Jesus said, behold the fowls of the air.
We're going to learn something about that this afternoon, right? Behold the fowls of the air. For they sow not, neither do they reap, neither gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are you not much better than they? Where's the insect in that illustration? They eat them. That's right. God provided for the birds.
And one of the things he provided to sustain them is insects. Then it goes on to say, are you not much better than they? Yes, and I expect better food. We haven't had insect on the menu yet.
Although I have a friend of mine that prides himself on it. Every year he goes on a venture with other etymologists, and they look for edible insects. And they make meal out of edible insects.
He's been doing it for decades. Matthew chapter 23, verse 24 says, ye blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. In the Bible, a gnat is actually a midge.
And a midge breeds in fermented or evaporating wine. And I don't know the value a midge has to mankind at this stage of my understanding. But most of the vineyards that my wife and I have visited over the years have all had insectaries.
And that's something we like to do. We like to go visit wineries, learn about wine, taste some nice wine. But invariably, each of them has a large plot of ground with beautiful blooming flowers of all kinds meant to attract the insects that pollinate that then go out into the vineyard and do their thing.
Think about this. When Adam was placed in the garden to tend it and to keep it, you think he might have had something to do with managing insects? I think so. All right.
So let's go to lessons derived from insects or related concepts. Go to Ezekiel chapter 6. Whoa, been a while since I've been there. Ezekiel 6. And while you're going there, in Matthew chapter 6, here's a lesson that Jesus Christ put forth.
He said, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal. That lesson needs no commentary.
Here in Ezekiel, God sent Ezekiel to speak to the rebellious people. And here's how he handled it. He says, in Ezekiel chapter 2, verse 6, Ezekiel, you, son of man, do not be afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words.
Though briars and thorns are with you, and you sit on scorpions, do not be afraid of their words or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. Look at how God used an insect here, a scorpion. God said, Ezekiel, no matter how their words sting, be not afraid of their words.
That must have been a great comfort to Ezekiel. Today, it says to us, it says in 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 14, but if ye suffer after righteousness or suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye, and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. The point is, Old Testament, new, all time, God says, fear not.
God is with us. God takes care of his people. I will never leave you nor forsake you.
God was right there with Ezekiel. Even though their words hurt like scorpions and barbs and thorns, God said, be not dismayed. I'm with you.
Pretty cool. Here's another lesson. Proverbs 16.24 says, pleasant words are as in honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones.
Insects in Scripture
This metaphor draws a vivid image of words or speech that are agreeable and satisfying to the hearer. We're not talking about paying lip service to somebody. What we're talking about is speaking forth words that are sweet to the soul, that bring nourishment and soothing to individuals.
Think about the lessons in the Gospels of Jesus Christ and how he spoke to people. His words of comfort and exhortation, the compassion that he showed on the least deserving people. His words were sweet as honey.
Isn't that cool? All right. So Ed talked a little bit about the new birth and what happens inside us at the moment of the new birth. We become a new creation.
God's Holy Spirit, Christ in us, is formed in us. Here in Romans chapter 12, I'd like you to go to Romans chapter 12. Because even though something happens inside that takes us from being a natural man, a body, soul, spirit, we become a new man, a new creature.
We're able to walk in newness of life. But when one gets born again, does that happen instantaneously? It doesn't happen instantaneously. There's a process.
And Ed talked on that as well when he talked about the renewed mind. But there's a very cool process that takes place here in a great reference to an insect, the insect kingdom, a concept in the insect kingdom. I'd like to read to you.
Romans 12.1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable, your logical service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. In these two wonderful verses, God implores us as his children not to be conformed or fashioned after this world, but be transformed.
In the Greek, this is the verb metamorpho, from which we get our English word metamorphosis. Like we learned earlier from the caterpillar, metamorphosis is the term used to describe developmental stages from infant to adult in a caterpillar. As a caterpillar submits to the natural growth processes that are written into their DNA, they emerge a beautiful, heaven-bound butterfly.
Be transformed here in Romans chapter 12, interestingly enough, is in the passive voice, the passive voice. Passive voice is something being acted upon. So I cannot transform myself.
Did that caterpillar transform itself? It did not transform itself. It submitted to the process. And it was transformed by an unseen hand.
But as we control our thinking, as we submit to God's will and control our thinking, renewing our minds to the word of God, as we do, like the caterpillar concealed in that pupa, our lives are rearranged, transformed by an unseen hand, by the hand of God. Isn't that cool? So we submit to the process, make His will our will. And then God transforms us.
Here's another lesson on transformation in 2 Corinthians 3.17. I'll read it to you from the REV Bible. It says, now the Lord is the spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Amen. And we all, with unveiled faces, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same appearance from glory into glory, just as one would expect from the Lord, who is the spirit. This beautiful verse, we see that the believer continues as we continue to look at Jesus Christ, who Hebrews 12.2 says is the author and finisher of our faith.
As we continue to look to Jesus, as we continue to look to His example, as we continue to emulate Him as the head of the body, the head of the church, as our example, we are transformed into His glorious image. And then we reflect the glory of God. Isn't that awesome? I want to reflect the glory of God.
Do you? Sure. There's a process, part of which is renewing our minds, putting on the mind of Christ, walking in His steps, seeing yourself doing the works that Jesus Christ did and even greater. Handling people like Jesus Christ handled people.
He yielded Himself to the Old Testament. A soft answer turneth away wrath. How often do we read that in the Gospels about Jesus Christ? He's being hammered verbally by people from all walks of life.
Soft answer turneth away wrath, right? He was able to reach more people. He was able to heal them all. You know what? We can heal them all.
We can take on His characteristics and attributes and we can reflect the glory of God. Just keep looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. So in order to do that, it takes time to pray.
It takes time to think and meditate. It takes time to self-evaluate, check up from the neck up, whatever you want to talk about. And how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
So how do we take on things in our life? I've been a Christian now for 45 years or so. I'm still in the process of changing. But how I do that is one thought at a time, one action at a time, right? And I don't get discouraged that everything in my life isn't completely transformed right away.
But I take responsibility for what I know. I renew my mind. I put on what the Word says about how I'm supposed to think and act.
Put away anger, lying, right? Deceit, be angry and sin not. Speak words that are comforting. All that stuff, right? Control my tongue, says in James, right? Like the bit Kip talked about.
There's a leadership principle in a book called The One Thing. And it's constant, gentle pressure. And that's how we lead people.
That's how we guide people. That's how we get our employees to do what we want them to do. It's how we teach our children.
Consistent, gentle pressure. How about working with your own mind? Consistent, gentle pressure. Renew your mind.
Keep pouring on the Word. Keep thinking about the Word. And as you do, that invisible unseen hand is right there to transform you, to transform me.
Pretty neat. So, in Genesis, when God was finished with his creation, he saw that all of it was very good. And as we've clearly observed, insects were no exception.
I found this great verse of scripture last week I just gotta share with you. Because in Romans, it points to man's ability to see and to know God from the things that he has made. Well, how long's this been going on? What's the first book that's commonly known to be the first book written in the Bible? Job.
Listen to this. Job chapter 12. You can read it with me.
I'll wait. It's great. It's a gem.
When you think about how long God has been getting man's attention through the things that he's made, this is a beautiful verse. Job chapter 12, starting in verse seven. Job says, but ask the animals now, they'll teach you.
The birds of heaven, they'll tell you. Or speak to the earth and it'll teach you. The fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who doesn't know that in all these, the hand of Yahweh has done this? In whose hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. Reminds me of that verse of scripture that says, ask and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Anybody that wants to know God, all they gotta do is pay attention to the things that he's made. He's set it up that way and for centuries it's been that way. We learn of our invisible God through or by way of the things that he has made.
Learning From God’s Smallest Creatures
God bless you.
Key Takeaways
- The the witness of the insect kingdom presents observable patterns that point to order, purpose, and design.
- Creation can be studied as a classroom that deepens respect for God when it is considered alongside Scripture.
- Natural systems display provision, boundaries, interdependence, and remarkable specialized abilities.
- Romans 1 supplies a biblical foundation for perceiving invisible qualities of God through what He made.
- The proper response is gratitude and worship of the Creator rather than worship of the created world.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the witness of the insect kingdom reveal about God?
The teaching presents the witness of the insect kingdom as evidence of purposeful design, ordered systems, provision, and care that direct attention to the Creator.
How does the teaching connect nature and Scripture?
The speaker compares observable features of creation with biblical passages, using the natural world as a classroom that illustrates spiritual truths.
What response does the teaching encourage?
It encourages attentive observation, gratitude, humility, stewardship, and worship of God rather than worship of the created world.
Scripture References
Romans 1:19–20; Psalm 19:1–4; Genesis 1; Genesis 124; Romans 120; Ephesians 1; Matthew 6; Ezekiel 6; Proverbs 16; Romans 12; 2 Corinthians 3; Hebrews 12
Verification Note
The recovered source is labeled AUDIO QUALITY MEDIUM. Verify uncertain wording, species names, technical terms, quotations, and verse wording against the original recording before publication.
