They knew it was the Lord. They didn't dare ask for confirmation, because that would be offensive to him.
It is like a service of worship? Doesn't our traditional service of worship follow that very pattern? We come, and we commune with the Lord. We come in time for the first hymn, the opening prayer. We want all of it. We want to sing objectively the praise of Almighty God. We want to extol him and his majesty and his glory and his attributes in hymn number one. We want every prayer, worshipful prayer, every song of repentance and praise, every song every hymn which affirms great doctrines of salvation. We want to commune with God in worship and adoration and submission, and then have the spiritual lesson from God, the preaching, when our hearts are ready, when we’ve worshipped and adored. It is like a service. Come and dine, and then at the end of that, the great testing of the soul, the searching question, and the great pastoral version of the commission. The very structure of it is wonderful.