Who is the Lord?

When King Noah heard about Abinadi the prophet preaching repentance and faith on the Lord, he asked the question on everyone's lips: "Who is the Lord?" (Mosiah 11:27)  Your lord is the one you obey, or the one to whom you submit.  If you obey God, then He is your Lord, but if you obey anyone else then God is NOT your Lord.  Some don't want a lord at all, and become "a law unto themselves."  The bottom-line of good and evil is: either God is your Lord, or not.  If God is not your Lord, then it doesn't really matter if it's yourself, another man, or the Devil himself, because you end up in the same place.  Mormon explains in the greatest speech ever given: 

"For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.  But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him."  (Moroni 7:16-17)

In other words, good is anything that helps you become subject to Jesus Christ, and evil is everything else.  There is no neutral; whatever doesn't lead you to Christ is bad.  It's that simple.  To believe in Him and serve Him is to make Him our Lord by relinquishing control, and giving it to Him.  The question of, "who is the Lord," is the same as, "Who is in control?"

The war between good and evil

From the very beginning of the travels of Lehi and his family in the desert, the issue was control.  Even after all the miracles and signs Laman and Lemuel saw, they didn't want to have a lord.  Nephi refused to allow his brothers to worship him, but told them to worship the Lord.  In spite of this his older brothers "did murmur against me, saying: Our younger brother thinks to rule over us; and we have had much trial because of him; wherefore, now let us slay him, that we may not be afflicted more because of his words. For behold, we will not have him to be our ruler; for it belongs unto us, who are the elder brethren, to rule over this people." (2 Nephi 5:2-3)  In order to avoid serving the Lord, they had to get rid of the one who taught this.

The question of who is in charge is the most basic question of life.  For this family, there was clearly one who had the knowledge and gifts to lead them all to the "Promised Land," but since Nephi was younger, Laman and Lemuel thought they had the right to be kings.  Because of his gifts everyone would look to Nephi for leadership so the older brothers would need to get rid of him entirely.  The family split up over this issue, and for most of their thousand years of history continued to fight over it.  The majority of the Book of Mormon is about wars over who is going to be in control -- the Nephites, who lead people to Christ, or the Lamanites, who don't.

This is the crux of the problem of life.  Each one of us is on the Earth outside of the presence of God to determine who we will obey.  We are here to choose a Lord, as Joshua tells the Children of Israel: "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15)

Saul becomes Paul

Saul was a very orthodox man who wanted to cleanse the Jewish people of Christians.  One day as he was going to put down those who believed that Jesus was the Christ, Jesus appeared unto him.  Saul had only two questions: "Who art thou, Lord?" And then, "What shall I do, Lord?"  (Acts 22:8,10)  Saul immediately accepted Jesus as his Lord, and continued to serve Him for the rest of his life.  He told Timothy that Jesus "is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords." (1 Timothy 6:15) Then at the end of his life he writes again to Timothy, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day." (2 Timothy 4:7-8)  Jesus clearly was his Lord.

Atheism

The issue of the existence of God is central to our own.  If God exists, if He is our Creator, if He is the Lord of lords, then we must submit to Him and obey Him in all things.  This submission is what many people try to avoid.  Some of these describe themselves as "atheists."  They do not believe there is a God so they don't have to submit themselves to His will. 

Since most of my schooling is in the sciences, I have a lot of familiarity with those who do not choose God to be their Lord.  Moreover, I have read a great deal of atheist literature.  I have found that those who specifically state that there is no God are merely trying to avoid having Him to be their Lord.  They believe they are choosing "the null hypothesis," but don't realize that it's just ignorance.  It is the same war over good and evil, but they choose evil and want to justify themselves in ignorance.  When my son said he was atheist he said, "I'm not interested in knowing... ignorance is bliss."  Likewise, all atheists ignore the evidence for God and try to find other explanations for His works.  They form illogical conclusions such as all existence happened by random chance and call it "science."  They make ignorant statements such as "since Thor, Zeus, and Baal turned out not to be true gods then there is no true God."  One famous atheist even wrote that all of those who believe in God are delusional.

Ultimately, however, only ignorance can maintain such ideas, as Oliver Cowdery so eloquently explains:

"Man may deceive his fellow-men, deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may have power to seduce the foolish and untaught, till naught but fiction feeds the many, and the fruit of falsehood carries in its current the giddy to the grave; but one touch with the finger of his love, yes, one ray of glory from the upper world, or one word from the mouth of the Savior, from the bosom of eternity, strikes it all into insignificance, and blots it forever from the mind." (Joseph Smith-History, Oliver Cowdery's account)

The blind remain blind until they see.  And God makes sure they don't see until they are willing to submit, and call Him Lord.

Saints

The saints are those who follow Christ and make Him their Lord.  These are the true Christians who submit themselves to the will of God.  They do as Jesus did: "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." (John 6:38)  They are willing to give up the things of this world, as Jesus said, "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." (John 12:25)  This is hard.  It is not easy to become a saint.  It requires strength of character beyond any other feat of mankind.  No accomplishment is greater than the humble submission to the will of the Lord.

If we choose the one true God to be our Lord, then we fulfill our existence and find peace, joy and happiness.  It requires not just believing, but rather doing the will of our Lord.  "But learn that he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come." (D&C 59:23)  The effort is worth it -- and so much more.  For all these reasons, as Joshua stated: "we will serve the Lord," the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and all things that in them are.