Who Is The Lord?

1 And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. 2 And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. (Exodus 5:1-2)

Moses and Aaron are before Pharaoh seeking permission for the Israelites to leave Egypt where they have been enslaved for hundreds of years. Pharaoh makes two mistakes. One mistake is he asked who the Lord is that He should be obeyed and the other is he asked loud enough for God to hear him. To answer, God sends him a 10 lesson plague correspondence course.

Many ask the same questions today.

“Who is this God that we should obey His voice, and why?”

From cover to cover the Bible convincingly tells us of a God who has created and controls all that is. The evidence is overwhelming.

The early chapters of Genesis tell us God created man in His own image and placed man in a garden containing everything man could possibly need to exist in pure sinless fellowship with Him forever.

In order to be in the image of God man had to have the power of choice. God placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden and told them in the day they choose to touch it they will surely die. Satan comes into the Garden and with a few choice words Eve not only eats of the tree she also serves it to her husband and sin enters the whole world.

Death is merely a separation from one state to another to God. Being in the image of God who never ceases to exist, man will always exist somewhere.

Since God cannot be in the presence of sin He has to put those who sin someplace separate from Him. Jesus describes that place away from God as a place where the fire is not quenched three times in Mark 9 Sin is any action against God. Since man is God’s creation any action against ourselves or others is also an action against God.

Failing to obey one simple rule has caused man to be separated from God by sin and expelled from the Garden to seek fellowship with God on his own rather than obedience. Everything after that man tries on his own to bring about fellowship with God falls short.

Sin grows until nothing man can do brings about fellowship with God and God steps in and sends Jesus to pay our sin penalty. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)

Jesus’ death on the cross fulfilled and ended the Law of Moses and His resurrection ushered in the Christian gospel era.

The last recorded words of Jesus on earth before He ascended back into Heaven are found in Mark 16:15-16...

15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:15-16)

The first time we find those words in action is in the first gospel sermon preached by Peter in Acts 2.

Peter tells the multitude that Jesus was the Messiah they and their ancestors had prayed for for generations. Peter told them they had murdered Jesus and but God had raised Him from the dead.

We read their convicted response and Peter’s reply...

37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” 38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:37-38)

Then Peter pleads with them to save themselves by obeying his urging and the Lord adds to the church those who were being saved, Acts 2:47, as laid out by Jesus in Mark 16:15-16...

In I Corinthians 15:1-4 Paul says the preached saving, preserving gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus “according to the scriptures.” The “according to the scriptures” is so important Paul repeats it. Paul also writes that when Jesus comes again He will take vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

7 and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. (II Thessalonians 1:7-8)

How does one literally obey the death, burial and resurrection of Christ “according to the scriptures?” One can die on the cross and be buried but one will not rise from the dead three days later. Let’s go to the scriptures to see if we can find gospel obedience...

3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. (Romans 6:3-7)

See the death of the gospel in the passage? See the burial of the gospel? See the resurrection? Do you see the “born again” of John 3:3, 3:5?

Every example of salvation from Acts to Revelation follows Mark 16:15-16

15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:15-16)

Gospel obedience is the ONLY way to escape the II Thessalonians 1:7-8 flaming fire vengeance of Christ’s return, no inviting Jesus into one’s heart with the“sinner’s prayer,” not by “faith only,” James 2:24.

If one has not been baptized for the remission of sins in obedience to the preached death, burial, and resurrection gospel of Christ one has NOT OBEYED the Lord Jesus Christ and WILL NOT be saved and will suffer the vengeance of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:1 says there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. I often ask, “Are you in Christ?” The usual answer is a yes. I ask, “How did you get there?” The reply is often “When I asked Jesus to come into my heart.” I remind them that is how Jesus got into them, I want to know how they got into Jesus. The answer is found in Romans 6:3, “baptized into Christ Jesus.” If there is no gospel obedience to Mark 16:15-16, there no remission of sins, there is no getting into Christ Jesus.

Romans 1:18-32 gives us a list of sins that separate us from God and doom us to unending torment in the “lake” of fire, Luke 16:23, Matthew 25:41, and others.

Friends, your eternal existence depends on carefully studying the Bible for yourself to see if what you have been told about your salvation for so long is actually what the Bible says.