This is the second and last part of the introduction to my book The Theology Of Fruitology.
You will do well to read the First Part Of The Introduction, before continuing with this second and last part. Thanks.
Now read this appetizer!
THE STORY OF THE ANTS
“The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” Prov 30: 25.
Ants are eusocial insects of the family formicidae and along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the cretaceous period, about 140 million years ago, and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than 12,500 of an estimated total of 22,000 species have been classified. Ants can be found on every continent around the world except Antarctica. They live in large groups called colonies. They may nest underground, inside trees, or in the walls and voids of a house or building. There are ten interesting facts your need to know about ants, namely:
1. They have superhuman strength!
Yes, ants can carry between 10 and 50 times their own body weight.
2. Ants don’t have lungs.
Due to their small size, ants don’t have the room to accommodate a complex respiratory system such as humans have. Instead they breathe in oxygen through spiracles which are a series of holes located around the sides of their bodies.
3. Ants don’t have ears.
They use vibrations to hear, by picking them up in the subgenual organ located below the knee.
4. There are too many ants in the world. It is estimated that for every 1 human being in the world, there are 1 million ants.
5. Some ant species are asexual.
Some Amazonian ants have abandoned the normal way of reproduction and chosen to reproduce through cloning. The queen ants copy themselves to genetically produce daughters, resulting in a colony with no males.
6. Ants are farmers.
Apart from human beings, ants are the only creatures which will farm other creatures. Just like we raise cows, sheep, chicken and fish in order to obtain a food source, ants keep and protect aphids from natural predators and from heavy rain fall in order to gain a constant supply of honeydew. Talk of wisdom in action!
7. Ants have two stomachs.
Ants are not greedy because they have two stomachs; rather one of their stomachs is for storing food for their own consumption, whilst the second one is to store food to be shared with other ants. Talk of sharing love through alms giving!
8. Ants can swim
Well, not all ants can swim. But the ones that do can float for long periods of time, can hold their breath underwater for very long periods of time, and also build lifeboats to survive floods.
9. Some species are slave-makers.
The specie of ant known as the Polyergus Lucidus are slave-making ants. They attack neighbouring ant colonies, capturing its inhabitants and forcing them to work for them.
10. Ants are as old as dinosaurs
A study from Harvard and Florida state universities found out that ants first rose during the cretaceous period around 130 million years ago! They have survived the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T extinction) which killed the dinosaurs as well as the ice age.
What you just read was culled from Wikipedia.org and Rentokil.com with some editing to help our understanding of these fascinating creatures called ants.
Now what are ants actually and why were they created?
“The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Prov 30:25.
When the Lord spoke to me about the ants I was awestruck. Scientists say ants are insects belonging to a family called Formicidae, which in turn belong to an order known as hymenoptera. But here, the word of God says that ants are a people. According to scientists, ants have survived an extinction event known as K/T extinction. But I can also tell you that they also survived Noah’s flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
What’s the secret of their survival?
How did such a small, insignificant people get two positive rave reviews in the Bible (Prov 6:6 and 30:25)?
“Righteousness exalts a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Prov 14:34).
The ants have built a civilization that has lasted 130 million years on earth.
Isn’t that awesome?
The secret is that the ants are a righteous people. Righteousness has exalted them and they cannot be pulled down. Their civilization was built around one thing -bringing glory to God’s name by bearing good fruit. They discovered the purpose (destiny) for which they were created and built their civilization around it.
What is that purpose?
The word of God gives us a clue:
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Gen 1: 28.
I want you to take note of four words in the above verses “Fruitful, multiply, replenish and subdue”, because they are pivotal to what we are trying to reveal here.
Since the beginning of creation, everything God created has been fruitful in a physical sense, including man. But amongst this same creation, everything else has been 100 percent fruitful in a spiritual sense, except man.
What is the proof that man is spiritually unfruitful?
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth: both man and breast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repents me that I have made them” (Gen 6: 5-7).
Why would God destroy man together with the innocent beasts, creeping things, and fowls of the air, when it is obvious in verse 5 that only man was mentioned as committing wickedness?
The reason for this is that every other thing God created were meant to serve man and assist him in being fruitful, in multiplying, in replenishing and in subduing the earth.
It is in these that they find their purpose or destiny. Therefore, if God were to destroy man (the figure head) alone, He would be robbing every other thing He created of their reason or purpose for existence.
How unsearchable are the ways of God!
Another word I want us to look at is “multiply”.
Everything God created has been multiplying unto infinity, including man, the galaxies, stars, animals, plants, the water etc. Their multiplying is not without direction. Rather it is dictated by the purpose for which they were created - to serve and assist man.
“Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, sun, stand you still upon Gibeon and you, moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people has avenged themselves upon their enemies” (Josh 10:12-13). The word that the Lord wants you to catch a revelation from here is “Replenish”.
There is a people God gave the task of helping man to replenish the earth.
Those people are the ants.
A large percentage of the ants live in colonies under the earth’s surface. They have dug octillions of tunnels under the earth’s surface, through which they replenish the earth.
Plants take up nutrients from the earth and give back to the earth by shedding their leaves, seeds, ripe and unripe fruits.
But all these paybacks do not develop legs and get under the earth’s surface talk less of reaching where the deepest roots of plants may reach. It is the ants that carry the bits and pieces of plants, leaves, fruits, carcasses of dead animals deep into the earth. The faeces they also release in their underground colonies also make the earth fertile. These are the reasons why the earth’s nutrients cannot fully be depleted.
Another purpose the ants' underground tunnels serve is to aerate the earth and also provide channels through which water on the surface of the earth can permeate the earth and enter under the earth more quickly, thereby preventing flooding.
Naturally, nutrients under the earth are in solid state. It is through the ants' tunnels that water reaches these nutrients and turns them into liquid/semi-liquid state, enabling plants’ roots to take them up.
The ants’ network of tunnels also serve as a natural air conditioning system, helping to keep the temperature of the earth’s surface friendly to man, animals and plants.
It is a fact that what man consumes for food or for clothing/shelter is nothing compared to what ants carry beneath the earth’s surface. The ratio is 1 man = 1 million ants. Whatever one man can eat for breakfast, only a few ants can take it beneath the earth’s surface in less than 24 hours.
Another of the replenishers that assist man in replenishing the earth are the earth worms; yes, the humble, little earth worms. They assist the ants but to a lesser degree because they do not go as deep below the earth as the ants do. Nevertheless, they are fulfilling their God-given destiny.
For a period of 130 million years, a righteous people called the ants have faithfully borne fruits that bring glory to their creator. The ants have also managed to book a place for themselves in time and eternity, as a people/nation that walked with God and served His purpose.
Apart from man, ants are the only people that have subdued the whole earth!
Now, if the ants, as small as they are, manage to bear fruit that brings glory to God; as famous, rich, beautiful and strong as you are, what excuse do you have for not bearing fruit that brings glory to God?
“And now also the axe is laid to the root of the trees: therefore, every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." (Mat 3:10).
You owe God a duty to get this book into as many hands as possible, as time is running out on humanity! Remember the fig tree of Mat 21:19?
Pray This Prayer!
“Lord Jesus Christ, I release myself to the Holy Ghost, to carry me through this book on the wings of grace and grant me unrivalled revelations and divine encounters that will empower me to bear fruit that will bring glory to God now and forever more in Jesus most prevailing name. Amen”.
In a couple of days we will start reading the first chapter of the book; so be on the lookout for it, as it promises to be educative, inspiring and exciting at the same time.
Thanks for reading.