Who Is the Lord?

When Abinadi first preached to the people of King Noah, and warned them of the bondage they would be under if they did not repent, King Noah said this in response to Abinadi’s denunciations, “Who is Abinadi, that I and my people should be judged of him, or who is the Lord, that shall bring upon my people such great affliction?” (Mosiah 11:27) Instead of addressing the accusations themselves, he resorted to simply questioning the legitimacy of Abinadi and the Lord Himself. When Alma taught to the people of Ammonihah, they responded in similar manner, “Who is God, that sendeth no more authority than one man among this people, to declare unto them the truth of such great and marvelous things?” (Alma 9:6) They were questioning both the right of God to send someone to preach against them and Alma for being, they supposed, the only witness of the things he said. But again, they failed to address the actual accusations of wickedness against them. When Moses asked Pharoah to let the children of Israel go from Egypt, he responded with these words: “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 5:2). Again, instead of looking more closely at the terrible situation of the Israelites and his inhumane treatment towards them, he simply tried to attack the legitimacy of the Lord. His attitude was like that of Cain’s: “Who is the Lord that I should know him?” Instead of looking inward at his own sins, he justified himself by questioning the existence or right of God to be involved in his life.

               We see this same kind of attitude in the response of many of the Jewish leaders towards Jesus. Since of course they couldn’t respond adequately to His true accusations against them, they resorted to attacking His legitimacy and right to preach against them. They said to Him, “Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true.” When He referred to His Father in Heaven, they responded, “Where is thy Father?” They likely were alluding to the fact that they believed Him an illegitimate son, for they also said, “We be not born of fornication.” Since they couldn’t respond to the message, they attacked the messenger. When He told them, “Ye shall die in your sins,” they didn’t answer with any honest evaluation about those sins, but simply responded by turning the focus to His right to say it to them, “Who art thou?” When He continued to accuse them, telling them that they would not hear God’s words because they were “not of God,” they again tried to turn the focus to Him: “Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” After trying in vain to make Him look back by comparing Him to Abraham, ultimately they gave up the conversation entirely and just tried to kill Him: “Then took they up stones to cast at him”(John 8:13,19,25,41,47-48,59). All of these scriptures show us a pattern of how the wicked often receive the words of one called by God—they try to re-focus the attention on the prophet or missionary and attack him directly instead of considering the merits of their words. These stories serve as warnings to ourselves that we need to learn to evaluate and respond to correction for what it is and not justify ourselves by questioning the right of some person to give us instruction. Truman G. Madsen related this counsel the Prophet Joseph Smith gave to a fellow Saint: “When I have heard of a story about me, I sit down and think about it and pray about it, and I ask myself the question, ‘Did I say something or was there something about my manner to give some basis for that story to start?’ And, Sister, often if I think about it long enough I realize I have done something to give that basis. And there wells up in me a forgiveness of the person who has told that story, and a resolve that I will never do that thing again.” That is the kind of humble attitude we should have when correction or criticism comes our way.