Monotheism Made Our World

Call to Worship

96 Oh sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth!
2 Sing to the LORD, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
4 For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the LORD made the heavens.
6 Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
7 Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength!
8 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts!
9 Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth!
10 Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.”

Text: Exodus 4:29-31
Title: Monotheism Made Our World

Last week we covered Moses’ calling. Though initially unwilling and argumentative, Moses ultimately obeys.

He obeys as a result of God’s assurance that he will not do this alone. God himself will be with him. And Aaron, Moses’ older brother will join him on his mission.

That gets us to the end of chapter 4 where we see Moses and Aaron going to the elders of the Israelites and disclosing God’s plan. And we will look at that text in a moment.

29 Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. 30 Aaron spoke all the words that the LORD had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. 31 And the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped. (Exodus 4:29–31)

My aim for today is to show you why we’re about to spend 9 chapters watching God contend against Pharaoh. I have identified at least 2 very big reasons, one theological and the other political.

I’ll discuss the theological reason today and the political reason in a podcast later this week.

Look back at that text and focus on that phrase, “visited the people of Israel.”

This is the same word God uses in the previous chapter when he tells Moses – “Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3:16-17)

The Development of Monotheism

This reminds us that at the time, the theology of the Hebrews was not as developed as it would eventually be. They still had a lot to learn about God. At this time, ancient people thought of gods in a regional way. Certain gods occupied certain places.

The concept of monotheism is still a long way off from being fully revealed.

At this time, I suspect the majority of the Hebrews were henotheistic. Henotheism is the belief in many different gods for many different people – with no clear sense of superiority between one god and another.

The Hebrews knew they were to worship Yahweh. But probably assumed that the Egyptians were free to worship their own gods. And they probably also assumed that the Egyptian gods were really in charge of Egypt.

God is speaking to them in their flawed theology category. He says “he visited them.” And maybe he did visit them in a physical way like he did with Sodom. But he didn’t need to “visit” them to see them.

From henotheism, the Hebrews will progress into monolatry. What is monolatry? This is the belief in many gods connected to the conviction that one god is superior to all others.

This theological category was hard for the average hebrew to shake. I don’t think you see complete progress in this area until much much later in the history of the Jews. Probably not until after the babylonian exile. So about a thousand years after the Exodus.

Then we arrive at the theological position we now assume – monotheism. Not merely the preference for one god over another. Or the superiority of one god over another. But the conviction that there is but one God. And that he reigns over the whole earth.

Now it is widely accepted that monotheism is a very important milestone in cultural development and stability. The idea is simply that with monotheism comes a belief that the whole cosmos is created and governed by a single entity. Though Christians believe in spiritual warfare, we do not believe the war is a match between equals.

Monotheism, Science, and Human Flourishing

Monotheism is in many sense the mother of science. As CS Lewis says,

“Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator.”

John Hedley Brooke, who is a historian of science, says the same thing. “The quest after the laws of nature can also be seen as a quest to uncover the divine legislation that lies behind nature’s regularities.”

In this way, monotheism has become an absolute boon to human flourishing.

And this is one of the purposes of God’s judgment on Pharaoh. Something God himself explicitly states in chapter 9.

“But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” – Exodus 9:16

And when it is all said and done. When Egypt lies in ruins. God says to his people,

‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; (Exodus 19:4-5)

So again, we’re about to walk through 9 chapters of God’s judgment against Pharoah. Why? What’s the end game?

Well on the one hand, we would say the purpose is very personal. He is redeeming a certain people. But why the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart? Why the prolonged back and forth?

God is revealing himself to the world. He is picking on the strongest so-called gods of the time. He is working in a territory in which the popular theology of the day believed he had no dominance.

In the next 7 chapters, God contends with Pharaoh. This culminates in the seven plagues. Now the thing to remember about the plagues is that they were not arbitrary. Each plague that God brought to Egypt amounted to a targeted strike on a particular Egyptian deity.

When he turns the Nile into blood, he is targeting three particular deities closely associated with the Nile.

When he fills the land with frogs, he is targeting the Egyptian frog-deity known as… wait for it… Hopi. Yes, the Egyptians worshiped a frog named hoppy.

With the lice is he attacking Seb.
With the flies he is attacking Uatchit
When he afflicts the cattle, he is targeting four Egyptian gods associated with cattle
When he brings boils upon the people, he is confronting Imhotep and Serapis (gods of healing)
With the hail comes an attack on four other Egyptian deities including Isis and Seth
Then he brings the locusts. The Egyptians worshipped the god Serapia specifically to prevent plagues of locusts.
With the darkness plague, Yahweh is targeting some of the most important gods — the sun gods.
And with the plague on the firstborn God is targeting the entire Pharaonic system.

All of this led Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law to conclude, “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” — Exodus 18:11

And this revelation is, in due time, going to be an absolute boon to human flourishing. I wrote this part of the sermon at Revo Cup in the Lenexa City Center area. What a beautiful place. And so close to my house! I sat there with jazz playing on the overhead speakers, electricity, beautiful buildings, fountains, law and order — all of that is downstream from the wide acceptance of monotheism.

You don’t get there without these chapters.

So that’s a little something about the theological purpose of God’s opposition to Pharoah. In this story, God began sowing seeds of monotheism into the world. And today we live in kind of unparalleled bounty that in some very real way, came from this contest.

The Incarnation & The Global Spread of Monotheism

Now before we move on, I do want to stipulate that the Exodus story was not enough to move the world into monotheism. It was a huge leap forward, but there was still one more massive development needed.

And here I am thinking about the incarnation of God. Look back our text. Chapter 4:31

31 And the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped. (Exodus 4:29–31)

Remember what Paul tells us about the covenants. The Old Covenant had some glory. The New Covenant has much more glory. When you read that from the perspective of the New Covenant, you think – well yes, that is glorious but we know about a better visitation.

John 1:14

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:16

16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

See this is a better visitation. God took on flesh. He dwelt among us. And he who knew no sin became sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles

And this is really the moment monotheism takes hold. Up till this time, it was only a Jewish thing. But after this, it starts to become a global thing.

Nations everywhere walk away from their polytheism and all the chaos created by that system. And begin to worship Christ – the one true God.

And again, this development has fundamentally changed the world.

Dr Mark Worthing, author of Unlikely Allies: Monotheism and the Rise of Science puts it this way:

If a single divine being was responsible for the whole of the created, natural order, then all knowledge about the natural world must be fundamentally interconnected. Monotheistic thinkers not only tended to ask after natural causes and explanations (without rejecting God as the ultimate cause of all things), but also to view these causes as fundamentally linked – having a common ground in the one creator God.

Application:

Now before we move on from this topic, let’s take a moment to make a personal and spiritual application.

Is your heart a peaceful place? Is it an ordered place?

I know you are – at least intellectually – all monotheists. But we’re always creeping back toward Henotheism. God is the best god, but there are also a few idols out there that seem worthy of our trust.

Well, in the same way that monotheism brought intellectual stability to the world and with it science and with science human flourishing, I want to encourage you today to ask the Lord to clear your head, your heart – of all the other lesser gods that seem to clutter up the sanctuary of our hearts.

What the Lord says of Israel in Jeremiah 2 can also become true of us.

Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

“Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” – Joshua 24:14-15

This choice leads to human flourishing.

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. – Isaiah 26:3