Exo 5:1 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.
Exo 5:2 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.

The world asks us, "Who is the Lord that I should obey Him?" "Who is Jesus Christ, that I should listen to Him say that I am a sinner in need of repentance?" "Who is God that I should believe in His Son?" "Who are you to tell me right from wrong?" "By whose authority do you speak on the behalf of God?"

Now we have His written word so that we as believers can judge what is right or wrong but sinners would ask us how we would know whether the bible is the word of God? Pharaoh is asking this so Moses and Aaron will have to show forth signs and wonders to prove that what they speak is from God.

The world will know us by our fruits. Do we preach against adultery and practice it ourselves? Do we preach against sin and sin ourselves? We must live and walk in the spirit that we claim to have or we are wasting our time trying to teach someone else?

Yet we must seek God and receive the power to witness and tell the good news of Jesus Christ. If we give up because we fail, many may be lost and die in their sins without being saved from sin.

Exo 5:3 And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.

Sometimes believers will have to obey God rather than the law of the land. The bible teaches us to obey kings and those in authority over us but when we have to choose between the law of the land and the law of the Lord, we have to choose the Lord.

Pharaoh was law. What he said was the law at that time. He was wrong to have slavery and abuse those who were slaves but he still was king and should have been obeyed in most things. However, God has the higher authority than any earthly king. God has the higher authority against any prophet, priest, pastor, bishop who gets out of the will of God. We can follow the leaders of our particular church affiliation as long as they wholly follow the Lord. If they get into sin, false doctrine or things that are seriously wrong, we must keep following the Lord and not the church leader.

An example of when not to follow a leader is when they command us to kill in the name of Christ.

An example of when not to follow the government is when they forbid us to worship God openly.

An example of when to overlook the pastor's error is when he just has a personal opinion on the scripture that we may believe is wrong but not serious enough to separate from him. For example he may believe the rapture is going to take place in the middle of the tribulation rather than at the beginning. This would not warrant us to gang up against him and try to cast him out as pastor.

An example of when to obey our government even if they are wrong is in the cases of high taxation. They are wrong to impose too high of taxes but we have to obey that kind of law. We can use our voting privilege to vote out those who impose the high taxes, at least in the United States we can still do that, but we cannot just stop paying taxes because we think we are right.

In the case of Moses, Pharaoh was wrong and they had to obey God.

Exo 5:4 And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works? get you unto your burdens.
Exo 5:5 And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens.
Exo 5:6 And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying,

Here came the first trial of faith for the children of Israel. Naturally we would hope that Pharaoh would hear the word from God and listen but just as many do today, he did not listen. Here we see the first of many incidents when the children of Israel lose faith and give into fear.

Exo 5:7 Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves.
Exo 5:8 And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish aught thereof: for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God.
Exo 5:9 Let there more work be laid upon the men, that they may labor therein; and let them not regard vain words.
Exo 5:10 And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying, Thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give you straw.
Exo 5:11 Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet not aught of your work shall be diminished.
Exo 5:12 So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw.
Exo 5:13 And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfill your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw.
Exo 5:14 And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today, as heretofore?
Exo 5:15 Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants?
Exo 5:16 There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick: and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people.
Exo 5:17 But he said, Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the LORD.

Some people accept the gospel as soon as it is preached but in many cases, the gospel is rejected at first. This is when we are tried to see if we can still have faith in God and continue for the Lord even though we seemingly are not doing so well.

Martin Luther at one time wanted to preach the gospel to the Jewish people. He loved the Jews at this point. They rejected the gospel and poor Luther could not handle that rejection very well so he ended up hating them and writing things about them that helped justify the holocaust in later times.

Adolph Hitler also used the verses that teach us to obey them that have rule over us to justify the holocaust. However, we are never justified to obey any law that is morally wrong when God's law says different. Jesus Christ never gives any Christians the right to kill in His name.

Exo 5:18 Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks.
Exo 5:19 And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish aught from your bricks of your daily task.
Exo 5:20 And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh:
Exo 5:21 And they said unto them, The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.
Exo 5:22 And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me?
Exo 5:23 For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all.

Moses also had a weakness here and cried out to the Lord with questions as we ourselves would do.

If the Lord commanded us to go to a certain city and built a church yet the city council would pass resolutions to forbid building any church, we would also go through a point where we would wonder if the word we heard was from God.

Barriers do come. Hindrances are put up all the time. Yet we must keep going back to the drawing board as they say and seek the face of God for more direction. Surely if God has commanded something, the way will be made for us to fulfill it but we must be determined not be become discouraged and quit.  Souls are at stake.  In the case of Israel they had to return to the land God had promised them from the time of Abraham.  Israel exists for the purposes of God and no one has a right to change that.  God had to bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt and into their own land so that the word of God would come to pass and a place would be provided for God's own Son to become human flesh and dwell among us for a season.  In order for this to come about, Israel had to be in the land of Canaan.  

Exodus 6