Who is this Lord?

Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: 'Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.' " And Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go." – Exodus 5.1-2

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh with God’s authority – ‘thus says the Lord God of Israel.’ Pharaoh’s response might seem shocking, but when you think about it from his perspective it is hardly a surprise. ‘Who is the Lord that I should obey him?’

That’s not really surprising at all. We know God. We know His word. We have seen Him work. SO to us He is our authority. So we at when He speaks.

But what about the vast majority of the world who don’t know Him? How can we expect them to obey a God they don’t know?

A world who doesn’t know God is going to look and act like a world who doesn’t know God. We can’t get them to conform, and why would they? It seems like the goal for a lot of Christians is to force people to listen to and obey a God who they don’t even know or respect.

That is why our most important task is to introduce our Saviour to those who don’t know Him.

We say ‘God says this.’ The world says ‘we don’t know your God so why should we obey?’ Because of that the world is doomed to destruction. We aren’t going to help by trying to force them to obey God – they need to know Him.