“Who is the Lord, That I Should Obey His Voice?”

Our lives reveal our answer to this question:

“Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice…?” (Exodus 5.2, ESV)

This question was asked by Pharaoh when Moses and Aaron said, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel…” And what did God want Pharaoh to do? To let his people go.

The Israelites. Hundreds of thousands of people who were the slave labor force of Egypt. Let them all go, simply because the LORD said so.

And Pharaoh responded by saying, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice…? And yet, while this question was first voiced by a king who did not believe in the true God, I am convinced that this question is still spoken by everyone on earth today, including Christians.

John, in his gospel account of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry, says these words:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made” (John 1.1-3, ESV).

Paul wrote this description to Timothy:

“…he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion” (1 Timothy 6.15-16, ESV).

In a different letter to Christians in Colossae, he said this when speaking of Jesus:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers and authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” Colossians 1.15-19, ESV).

That in everything, Jesus might be preeminent. No one above or beside him. No one and nothing like or compared to him. Worthy of all praise and adoration. Deserving our passionate worship and unquestioned obedience. King of kings. Lord of lords. Savior. Lord. And so much more.

And so we come back to the question we started with:

“Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice…?”

Followers of Jesus: do our lives reveal the correct answer to this question? Does our obedience show that we believe him to be sovereign and ruler of all? The Scriptures reveal to us who God is. Our lives reveal whether or not we really do believe that God is who he says he is.