Season Two - Episode Twenty Four
GOD: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY - THE PODCAST
JLM - Narrator (Jerry L. Martin) - voiced by Scott Langdon
Jerry - Jerry Martin - voiced by Scott Langdon
GOD - The Voice of God - voiced by Jerry L. Martin, who heard the voice
GOD
I found that most people had turned from God. I have always communicated with people, whispered in their ears, you might say, given them signs. But most do not listen. They pay no attention--because they do not want to. They are enjoying the pleasures I have given them, or using the pains as an excuse for self-pity. But Abraham was a remarkable man. When I whispered to him, he responded immediately, like a soldier reporting for duty, "Here I am."
JLM
In Genesis 12, the Lord speaks to Abram (Abraham's original name) out of the blue.
"And the Lord said to Abram, 'Go forth from your land and your birthplace and your father's house to the land I will show you.' . . . And Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him"--no questions asked.
The most famous story occurs years later. The Lord gave the aged couple a son.
And it happened after these things that God tested Abraham. And He said to him, "Abraham!" and he said, "Here I am." And He said, "Take, pray, your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah and offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall say to you." And Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took his two lads with him, and Isaac his son, and he split wood for the offering, and rose and went to the place that God had said to him. . . . [They arrive at the place and set up the altar and Isaac is placed on it.] And Abraham reached out his hand and took the cleaver to slaughter his son.
JLM
We don't breathe until we reach the ending.
And the Lord's messenger called out to him from the heavens and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" and he said, "Here I am." And he said to him, "Do not reach out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God and you have not held back your son, your only one, from Me."
JLM
I always want to know what really happened and couldn't resist asking again,
JERRY
Was there a real Abraham and did these things really happen to him?
GOD
The story is true to My experience with mankind, and there was, in a sense, a first man (person) who heard My voice in this particular way.
JERRY
What particular way?
GOD
The absolute authority I hold. He heard it, did not question it, and acted on it--promptly.
JERRY
The lesson is obedience to God?
GOD
Yes, that is the obvious lesson and it is the correct lesson.
JERRY
It must have been an important step in humankind's relation to You. Was it also an important step for You?
GOD
Let's pause for a moment over the first part of that.
JERRY
Why it was an important step for people?
GOD
Yes, exactly. Every human response to Me had understood that My voice had special standing, hence the early division into the sacred and the profane. The Near Eastern empires had articulated this explicitly as the capstone of an imperial order. But My commands are more than sacred and more than those of a king. They are absolute, one almost wants to say absolutely absolute, not absolute in this or that context or up to a certain point, the way you have to follow a court order unless it is overturned by a higher court. Even Supreme Court decisions and kings' orders can be questioned and criticized. That is within human competence to do. Not with My commands. They are beyond human understanding, not because they are in principle ineffable or bizarre, as if I had some really bizarre reasons, but because the structure of the world and of the spiritual development of the world requires absolute obedience, total yielding.
You see, it is a matter of principle. Anything held back, even for the best of reasons, is a sacrilege, a defiant act, a claiming to possess things or a right to things or an authority over oneself that one does not have, hence an illegitimate act. You are not only, in a respect, Me; you are Mine. And that is not because I am some petty, or vast, tyrant, but because yielding what is Mine is essential to the spiritual development of the universe, and of you and Me.
JERRY
But kill my son? If You told me to do that, I would not believe it was Your voice.
GOD
Don't get hung up on the details. Of course, I would not command such a thing. But only the extreme example is sufficient to drive home the point of obedience and of divine dominion being total. That does not mean you should believe every voice you hear or do whatever some would-be prophet tells you to do.
JERRY
But You gave Abraham an extraordinary command, and he obeyed immediately.
GOD
That is right, and that is the correct standard of obedience.
JLM
The Abraham who, without a murmur, takes his son to the mountain to be slain reacts very differently when, in Genesis 18, God is determined to destroy the wicked city of Sodom. Over his own son, he does not argue, but over strangers in Sodom, he will not be silent.
Will You really wipe out the innocent with the guilty? Perhaps there may be fifty innocent within the city. Will You really wipe out the place and not spare it for the sake of the fifty innocent within it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to put to death the innocent with the guilty, making innocent and guilty the same. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do justice?
JLM
Abraham accuses God of not living up to His job description, and God gives in! "Should I find in Sodom fifty innocent within the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake." Abraham argues Him down to ten, and God concedes, "I will not destroy for the sake of the ten."
God actually seemed to be learning how to be a better divine judge.
JERRY
Lord, Job also argues with You, prophets object to their assignments, and Lamentations laments. Do they teach God?
GOD
Not "teach" exactly. But I learn from the interaction.
JLM
This kind of talk was making me very edgy. At stake is whether God is really God, the God we have placed on a pedestal, or is He something less than that, perhaps much less?
JERRY
Lord, it sounds as if You were unfinished, imperfect, and perhaps inconsistent.
GOD
Yes.
JERRY
So You are developing, discovering Yourself, and becoming fuller?
GOD
Yes.
JLM
I suppose all this was already implicit in the idea of a developing God, but something that you can accept in the abstract is much harder when you get down to cases. Was God turning out to be profoundly disappointing, or was I missing something?