Bible Study Romans Part 35-Waggle Dance

If the word “wrath” makes you uncomfortable, Romans 1 is about to feel very personal. We’re walking straight into Romans 1:18 and asking the question many churches try to dodge: if God has no wrath toward sin, what exactly is the Gospel saving us from, and why did Jesus endure a Crucifixion instead of a painless death?

We trace Paul’s logic in plain terms. The Gospel is revealed “for” a reason, and Paul connects that reason to God’s wrath against ungodliness and unrighteousness, including the human habit of suppressing truth. When that bad news gets edited out, “righteousness by faith” turns into religious vocabulary instead of a rescue, and church can shrink into music, habit, or social time. We also push back on the idea that the Old Testament God is harsh while the New Testament God is soft, using Malachi 3:6 to underline a God who does not change.

From there, we follow Romans into the real-world consequences of denial. Genesis 3’s “you shall not surely die” is still the script, and Romans 1:19 insists people cannot finally hide behind ignorance because God has made what can be known plain. To show how suppression works, we look at creation and Darwinism through a surprising example: the honey bee "waggle dance", a packed dark hive, and communication that researchers describe with geometry, coordinate transformation, and navigation cues tied to gravity and the sun.

If you care about Bible Study, Christian doctrine, Romans, apologetics, and the hard edge that makes Grace feel like Grace, this one is for you. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Why Romans Shapes Christian Life

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Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel. God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries. We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God. We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day. The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold. And we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture. Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible. It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision. Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us. It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word. We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death. In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death. Never treat what God has said lightly. There's truly nothing more important to you. Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

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We are making our way through the letter to the Romans, Paul's letter to the Romans. It is one of those things that I would call an instruction manual for Christians. And listen, being a Christian is not a natural thing. We don't naturally know what we're supposed to do when God calls us. That's why we have the word. That's why God gave us the word, the entire word. And for those of us that are interested in how to be a Christian in a way that gives God the glory, we have Paul's letter to the Romans. If you're going to read one book of the Bible and no other, please don't do that. But if you're going to do it, the letter to the Romans is the one you want to do. If you're stuck on a desert island somewhere and someone says, I'll send you one book, ask for Paul's letter to the Romans. It will serve you the entire time you are left on this planet. So as I said, we are in the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans. We have been working on this now for some months. We are up to the 18th verse, so why don't I go ahead and read that to you? I'm going to read out of the King James. Please read out of the Bible in front of you. But notice if you're not reading out of the King James, it is going to sound different and sometimes quite a bit different. The meanings are close to the same, but it will sound different to you. If you didn't bring a Bible with you, which I'm warning you, don't do that. But if you didn't bring a Bible with you, we do have the verses up on the screen for you. Romans 1, 18, I'm reading out of the King James.

Wrath Is Why The Gospel Exists

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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. What are you crazy? Don't use the word wrath when you're teaching. Don't use the word wrath when you're preaching. But I'm not preaching, I'm just reading out of the Bible at the moment. I know. Change it. Skip over it. Glide right by it. And listen, don't use words like ungodliness and unrighteousness. No one's going to appreciate that. They're not going to like it. Friends, if it were not for the wrath of God, there would be no need for the gospel. Why do you think Jesus went through what he went through? He didn't just die, he was crucified. That's heightened death. That's the type of death that could only be brought on by wrath. For the wrath. Whenever you see the word for here or anywhere, it's to indicate to us that what is about to come is connected to what came before. For the wrath, because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. We've turned a very important corner in the introduction to Paul's letter to the Romans. He has arrived at the reason he's been talking about the gospel. He's telling us why this gospel has been revealed. That's what the word for means. For the wrath. He's explaining why we have the gospel. It's because of God's wrath. That's why we have the gospel, because the wrath of God has also been revealed. This is why the gospel has been given. This is why the power of God, which is the gospel, reveals a righteousness of God to everyone that believeth. This was no random act of kindness. The death of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection weren't just gee whiz events. The gospel is the gospel because the wrath of God is revealed. The wrath and the gospel are related. Their revelations are connected. Because God's wrath has been revealed, a righteousness of God has to be revealed in the gospel. Listen, if you don't want to talk about the wrath of God, there is no sense in talking about the gospel of God. I mean, forgive the understatement, but God's wrath is the bad news whose counter is the good news, the gospel. Without the bad news, this good news loses its power, loses its goodness. Without bad news, the good news is just news at best. The reason why our churches are empty is because the good news isn't preached as good news. It's just news. I mean, who cares if the gospel is the power of God unto salvation if we don't know why we need the power of God unto salvation? If we aren't taught what makes the good news good, then it's uninteresting. It's not inherently uninteresting. It's just delivered that way. It's not the fault of the content, it's the fault of the content provider. And I can't help but wonder if the good news isn't good news to you, then why are you wasting your Sundays? What is it about going to church that's attractive to you if you're not going to get something that's important to you? Oh, well, my church has the best choir. I love to go and listen to them. Get Spotify and sleep in. In fact, go on nice Sunday drive and listen to all sorts of good choir music. Oh, but I love the fellowship. I love the I love the people in our church. We talk about baseball, we swap recipes. You don't talk about the gospel or the doctrine of righteousness by faith or anything like that. Well, I guess sometimes, but mostly we chat about how disappointed we are in our begonias this year, you know? Misery loves company. Join a bowling league for crying out loud. Now, some of you might be angry with me for my sarcasm, but you know I'm right. If that's all you're going to church for, stay at home and start a Zoom chat or have them come over and bring donuts. I just don't understand why people bother with church if they want it to be what it isn't. And if your pastor is willing to cons willing to censor his sermons to accommodate your sensitivities, then all he's doing is making church no better than your living room. So why bother going? For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Paul, why are you telling us this? Why are you talking about this righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith? Why should I care about being just by faith? For because of the wrath of God. Oh my gosh, the wrath of God, what about it? For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

Old Testament Wrath And A God Who Doesn’t Change

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Now, this is one of the reasons that it's best to spend time learning the Old Testament and the law and all of that before tackling the subject of the gospel. You see, in the Old Testament, there are stories of God's wrath scattered hither and yon. And they're there to let you know what his wrath looks like. Someone who has, for instance, studied Genesis 6 through 9 would know that God's wrath exists and that it has in the past been revealed from heaven on all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, because there in that early section of the Bible, we read of God's wrath being revealed from heaven in the form of a worldwide planet-killing flood. Without a knowledge of Noah and his ark, and I mean a truly informed knowledge, not the nonsense that ends up in the typical Bible summer Bible camp agenda, without a true, accurate, and complete knowledge of what happened in Noah's day, you'd come to verse 18 of Romans 1 and say, Wrath? God can be wrathful, God gets upset at ungodliness and unrighteousness since when. Not knowing about what truly happened in Noah's day, the fact that God's wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and righteousness, would sound so foreign that you'd be tempted to think Paul's just being dramatic. This is why it's important to study the whole Bible. Likewise, if you've never studied the book of Isaiah, then you would know that God said this, chapter 10, verse 5. Oh Assyrian, the rod of mine anger and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge to take the spoil and to take the prey and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. God is saying that he used the Assyrians as an instrument of his wrath against a hypocritical nation. And you know what hypocritical nation God is talking about? None other than his own chosen people, Israel. God used the Assyrians to bring his wrath down to his ungodly and unrighteous chosen people. God called on the Assyrian nation to be a vehicle of his wrath on his unfaithful and disobedient and wicked people. If God's chosen people aren't spared his wrath, what chance does anyone of us have? Come on, John. I mean, that's the Old Testament. The whole thing is lousy with God's wrath and plagues and all that. We're in the New Testament now. Well, let me ask you, when did God change? I mean, that's what you're saying, isn't it? God's different now. What happened that made God a big old softie in his old age? Do you think we earned it? Have we become so well behaved? He doesn't have to be so harsh anymore. Or maybe he's better now. He's more mature, more able to handle that fiery temper of his. In the Old Testament, God said, Malachi 3, 6, For I am the Lord, I change not. And by the way, we shouldn't want God to change because it was way back in the Old Testament that he established those covenants that were meant to redeem us, to save us. God promised to be merciful to us back there, and we really don't want him to change, do we? We see right here in Romans that he hasn't changed and that he fully intends to stand by his covenants, and we know how he's going to do that. But we've also seen that he hasn't changed his attitude towards sin. How does he feel about sin? He's angry with it. He has wrath toward it. He was angry with sin back with the Israelites, he's angry with the church. When the church sins, when the church is unobedient, when the church is not obedient, when the church is unrighteous, his wrath is revealed. And it's revealed to us as individuals. That's the point of this part of Paul's letter. We as individuals, not just the church, not just the nation, this is an individual judgment that God is going to give us. This wrath is coming for us. He has wrath toward our disobedience, and he's been revealing that wrath from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness.

The Serpent’s Lie And Denying Judgment

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One of these days you might be talking to somebody you know about this Bible study, and you mentioned to them that I was talking about the wrath of God coming against sin. Well, I'm almost sure that the person's going to say, really? Wrath? Come on, what is this 2024 BC? God's not mad at us anymore. Okay, he doesn't like sin, but no one does. But that doesn't mean he's going to punish you. He understands us. Sure, he wants us to change, but if we don't, it's all right. He's not going to rain down hellfire or anything on us. Friends, isn't this how we got in trouble in the first place? Hasn't this been the rhetoric from the other side since literally the beginning? You remember this, don't you? I bring it up all the time because this is the beginning of all of our problems, all of them. Genesis 3:1. Now the serpent was more subtle 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. That's your friend. The one you're talking to about Bible study. He's the one trying to trick you. He's trying to trap you. And this is you. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit. This is what I mean is this is your response. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And what's your friend's response going to be? And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. If someone you know tells you that God is not a God of wrath anymore, then they're no better than that slimy devil in the form of a serpent liar. And like that nasty reptile, you can believe that the devil is right behind your friend, goading him on to get you to drop all that God is mad business. To believe God is not going to come against sin is a complete and total denial of the scriptures. And the only way to come up with such nonsense is to believe the devil, or to make it up yourself. Either way, it's of the devil. And that in itself is going to invoke God's wrath. Paul says that here too, same verse. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. That last part is a terrible translation. The wrath of God is against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold back the truth, who hold down the truth, who restrain the truth, who hinder the spread of the truth. If someone withholds from you, holds back, holds down from you the truth of the gospel to include why the gospel is revealed, to include the wrath of God, well, the wrath of God is directly coming against that person. And rightfully so. If you're going around telling everyone that there's no such thing as the wrath of God, then you are spreading a lie that says Jesus didn't need to die on that cross. I've told you before, if it came down to you or his son, he'd choose his son every time. God will not allow anyone to dishonor what Jesus has done. It was too costly, it was too painful for the both of them. Say that the death of Jesus was unnecessary, or even just infer it. Well, you're going to have an angry God to deal with. And that's what you're doing when you say that God doesn't care about our sins, or worse, that there's no such thing as God. Verse 18 for the wrath of God is revealed against heaven, against ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold back the truth in unrighteousness. And no wonder they want to hold back the truth, restrain the truth, hold down the truth. Because they like their sins. Of course, they're going to tell you ye shall not surely die, because they want to go on doing whatever they're doing without someone nagging them about God's wrath. They hold down the truth, they deny the truth just because they don't like to hear it. And don't make the mistake of thinking this is some response out of an ignorance of truth. The tenor of this section is that they are aware of the truth, but they're working against it purposely. And besides, it's not like they can't figure it out. God's made sure of that. Verse 19.

God Made Truth Plain To Everyone

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Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them. Now, this is one of those statements that should send chills down your spine if you're one of those who is ungodly or unrighteous, holding down, restraining, suppressing the truth. Not just any truth, by the way, the truth. God doesn't care if you deny the truth that tomatoes are actually fruit and not vegetables. He's not interested in your lies about the nature of the celestial body, Pluto. But if you hide or disparage or sully the truth about the gospel, you're going to be in trouble, frightening trouble. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown them. It unto them because you have to lie to accomplish this holding down. This says you can't plead ignorance. Oh, sorry, I didn't know. God says you do know. God says you know the truth. And so the only way you can suppress God's truth is to lie. You don't like to hear that, do you? But listen, the truth is obvious. The truth is manifest in us because God has shown it to us. You have to take obvious facts, facts that God has shown you from the Bible and your own common sense, and twist them for your purposes. This sort of thing takes effort because though some people try and convince you otherwise, God has manifest, God has told us about Himself, He has shown us His truth. Now the word manifest is a little old-timey for most of us. I like what the New English translation has here. Quote, because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. There's no excuse. You are without excuse. The truth is obvious, and the world wants to convince you to look the other way. They want to hold the truth down.

Bees, Evolution, And Suppressing Creation

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And by the way, let me tell you, there's no better example of this than Darwinism. Now, I'm not going to go into some long rant here, but come on, over and over and over again, science uncovers another stumbling block to the notion that life on this planet is nothing but a series of accidental, yet incredibly fortuitous, nonetheless, random chemical reactions. Listen to me. Every day there's another fact uncovered by science that should put the silliness of evolution to bed forever. My family and I are bee fans. I'm sure there's a better fancier name for that, but I think you get the point. We even own a beehive and a bee suit and one of those smoky puffy things. We don't use it, but baby steps. It all looks pretty on my porch, waiting for the grand opening, nonetheless. And actually, why we own that stuff is partly because over the years, Catherine and I have become more and more impressed with these little powerhouses with wings and stingers. If you've ever got a chance to read a book written by a bee expert, again, there's got to be a better name. If you've ever got a chance to read a book about these little creatures, be prepared to be blown away. But let me warn you that by the end of that book, you're going to find it difficult to hang on to your ideas about the feasibility of evolution. Of course, you're not going to say anything outwardly. You won't express your doubts outwardly because that would be social suicide, but you know what I mean. For example, a curious behavior that bees exhibit that has scientists scratching their head is known as the waggle dance. You've heard of this, right? The waggle dance. It's precisely what the name implies. Certain honey bees will waggle around in the hive for a very specific reason. The one thing that experts have discovered is that it's a type of communication. Apparently, the dance is used to inform other members of the hive as to the location of food sources and maybe even potential new hive sites. Now I want you to think about that for a second. In this dance, data is being transmitted, namely distance and direction. But the big question is, and has always been, how? How do they relay this information? How do those on the receiving end translate the movements of this dance into the necessary parameters, which becomes even more mysterious when you realize that the conditions under which all of this is going on seem to be rather less than ideal to us. For instance, beehives are normally oriented vertically, and the information communicated relates to a horizontal plane. Distance and direction are always in relation to the ground. Secondly, the beehive is packed, and I mean packed with hundreds of bees. And so, how in the world can the right information get through to the right recipient? And how does which bee know which other bee to pay attention to? These are all mysterious questions. Remember, in a beehive, work is highly specialized, and only certain bees would need this information to do their job. And then finally, and most mysteriously to me, inside where all of this occurs, it's generally dark. So merely thinking that the non-dancing bees, the ones receiving the important information, they're actually called followers, simply assuming that the followers just watch the dancing bee, jot a few things down, maybe their alignment, maybe the speed at which they're dancing, that cannot happen because how are they going to see all of that in the dark? Well, recent research now suggests that the followers actually interpret the data with their antennae or antennae, however you want to say that. Let me read this next part. It comes from an article out of a periodical entitled Evolution News and Science Today. I said I'd be brief, but come on, you know me by now. This is the explanation of how the followers track the dancing bees using their antennae. Quote, the followers do this by maintaining a constant angle between their antennae and the direction of the waggle dance line. Now, here is the part that will blow your mind, I think. Quote, knowing its own orientation relative to gravity, this allows the follower to deduce the dancer's orientation relative to gravity. The gravitational direction is a proxy for the direction of the sun. And the dance angle represents the communicated direction relative to the position of the sun. Does that not blow your mind? This is a bee we're talking about. So let me summarize before we move to the next accidental yet perfect for the job adaptation found in bees. There are dancing bees that have important directional and distance information to communicate, and there are followers who need that information to do their job for the hive. The dancing bees communicate that important information by dancing, of course. The followers use their antennae to receive that information, and the raw collection method is to orient themselves in such a way as to aid in the interpretation of that data. A major component used in the calculations is gravity. Did you hear that? Gravity. Earth's gravity is being used to determine the direction relative to the sun. The bees know the direction of gravity. Next big question: how the heck do they do that? Well, like most egghead articles, the answer is stated in simplistic terms as if this stuff is just ho hum. Listen to this. The author states, quote, Detecting the waggle dance direction and computing the nav computing the navigation guidance involves algorithms that apply several forms of mathematics, including geometry and coordinate transformation. And how do they do this? Well, apparently these B brains, quote, contain computational centers for integration of the polarized light sky compass, information about the animal's own position and movement, and landmark information, unquote. Think about that the next time you're on the boardwalk and one of these little buggers is annoyingly circling your ice cream cone. Kind of makes you want to share it with them, doesn't it? To try and schlep the idea that there was no God involved in all this majestic creation is nothing but holding down the truth, suppressing the truth because God is manifest. The original word means shining. God's magnificence is shining in us. That's all of us. God's not just talking about Christians, He's saying that we, everyone, all humans, have the magnificence of God shining in us. And listen to me, if we try and deny that fact, not only are we fools, but we're also candidates for something no one wants. And that's the wrath of God as it's revealed from heaven. Evolution is not only ridiculous, but it's dangerous. To go around telling people that God doesn't exist is risking a response from him that will from that point forward dispel any notion that he's a harmless fairy tale. Don't let that be you.

Resources, Giving, And Final Notes

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New content is being added all the time, so make sure you check back often. For more information on Chapel Ministries, including our YouTube channel and podcasts, please visit www.chapelontheweb.com. And if God has laid it upon your heart to share materially with us, we encourage you to follow the links to our secure giving page. Please note, Chapel Ministries is not an IRS registered nonprofit organization, and your donations to this program are not tax deductible. It's our hope that you do not rely on taxing authorities to decide for you who is worthy of your generosity.