GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast

222. Special Episode | Revisiting I Ask About God’s History with the People of Israel

• Jerry L. Martin, Scott Langdon

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What if God spoke to you directly? Would you listen?

This episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast revisits some of the most pivotal moments in biblical history, from Moses’ divine encounter at the burning bush to the covenants of Saul and David, the trials of the Israelites, and the prophetic revelations of Jeremiah and Isaiah. 

Through the dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher, we explore: 

  • The Burning Bush: How God Gets Our Attention
  • The Power of Divine Names: “I Will Be There” and What It Means
  • The Ethics of Faith: Obedience, Free Will, and Divine Communication
  • Love as the Heart of God’s Relationship with Humanity: Beyond Wrath and Judgment
  • God’s Covenant: Why Divine Commitment and Human Response Shape History

 These stories are more than ancient texts—they reveal God’s longing for connection, the human struggle to pay attention, and the deep love that underlies divine guidance. Whether through Moses’ immediate response, the Israelites' cries, or the prophetic voices of Jeremiah and Isaiah, this episode explores what it means to truly hear and respond to God.

This episode goes beyond theology- it’s a journey into spirituality, divine presence, and the nature of personal revelation. Whether you’re deeply religious, Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR), or simply searching for wisdom, you’ll find profound insights and thought-provoking discussions in this episode.

🔔 Join us as we uncover the timeless wisdom of ancient texts—and how they still speak to us today. Subscribe and listen now to deepen your spiritual journey!

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Scott Langdon 00:17: This is God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, a dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography as Told to a Philosopher by Jerry L Martin. He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions and God had a lot to tell him.

Scott Langdon 01:10: Welcome to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I'm Scott Langdon and today, in episode 222, we give you some context for next week's Life Wisdom Project episode by replaying the episode for discussion, episode 25. I Ask About God's History with the People of Israel. In this episode, God and Jerry start with the story of Moses and explore why it is that God needs people to call out to God. Next week, Jerry welcomes back Michael Poliakoff to break down this important discussion between God and Jerry. Here now is episode 25. I Ask About God’s History with the People of Israel. I hope you enjoy the episode.


DRAMATIC ADAPTATION: I Ask About God’s History with the People of Israel

Jerry Martin - voiced by Scott Langdon
The Voice of God - voiced by Jerry L. Martin, who heard the voice

Jerry Martin 02:16: Saturday mornings, Abigail goes to Torah study at the temple nearby. Afterwards she and I have brunch and she reads the passage and tells me what everybody said. They were making their way through Exodus. When the story begins, the people of Israel are in bondage in Egypt. The Pharaoh, who knew not Joseph, is concerned about the threat posed by their growing numbers. He makes their lives bitter with hard bondage and orders their male infants drowned. To save her child, one mother hides him in the reeds where he is found by Pharaoh's daughter. She names him Moses, for from the water I drew him out. She has him suckled by a nursemaid who turns out to be Moses' real mother and raises him as her own son.

Jerry Martin 03:12: We hear nothing else about Moses until he is a young man who sees how his people are treated and he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man of his brother's and he struck down the Egyptian and buried him there in the sand. But he had been seen and Pharaoh heard of this thing and he sought to kill Moses. And Moses fled from Pharaoh's presence and dwelled in the land of Midian. There he agrees to herd sheep for a man who becomes his father-in-law. There he agrees to herd sheep for a man who becomes his father-in-law. Meanwhile the Israelites groaned from the bondage and cried out and their plea from the bondage went up to God and God heard their moaning and God remembered, literally took to heart his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. And God saw the Israelites and God knew. Lord, do people have to cry out to you before you respond? Wouldn't you know they were in trouble and come to their aid, whether or not they called for help?

The Voice of God 04:18: People must cry out to me, not because I have to be courted, but because I have to be communicated with. They must let me know how it is with them. So I heard and I responded.

Jerry Martin 04:33: The next chapter is about Moses encountering the burning bush.

The Voice of God 04:37: Yes, I had to get his attention. Often I have to put something in people's paths to get their attention.

Jerry Martin 04:46: And the Lord's messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush and he saw and looked. The bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed. And Moses thought Let me turn aside that I may see this great sight, why the bush does not burn up. And the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see. And God called to him from the midst of the bush and said Moses, Moses. And Moses said here I am, like Abraham, he reports for duty. “Here I am.”

The Voice of God 05:25: Moses had the capacity to listen to me and to obey.

Jerry Martin 05:32: God gives Moses his mission: and now go that I may send you to Pharaoh and bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. But Moses lacks standing. He is a nobody. Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring out the Israelites from Egypt? However, Moses will not be on his own, for I will be with you. Moses protests. Look, when I come to the Israelites and say to them the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me what is his name? What shall I say to them? You say, according to the Everett Fox translation, Moses should tell them: I will be there, sent me. There are other translations as well. What does this mean, Lord?

The Voice of God 06:32: Several things are going on in that name. Self-disclosure is part of it, presence is part of it, the fact that I am seen all the time that I am ever present to people, communicating with them, sotto voce all the time. It is also reassurance, because I am there to help. When you need Me, I will be there. It also has something to do with the quality of presence that I am fully and authentically and immediately and intimately present, as when you say that one person is more present than another, it means that My very presence is the heart of me. I will be there for you, by your side, in the fight or in the suffering or in the love. I will be a participant and a partner. That is My essence for human beings.

Jerry Martin 07:49: It is often said that the Old Testament gave the world not only a law, which Hammurabi had done, but an ethical code which was unique. Is that right, Lord?

The Voice of God 08:01: Well, the ethical content was certainly there, but it was not unique. There is ethical content in virtually all My large-scale communications. It was more explicit and dramatic in the case of the Jews and that was valuable and helped to shape the world.

Jerry Martin 08:20: Confucian thought is certainly ethical.

The Voice of God 08:22: But ethical in a different sense. For Israel, ethics was a set of divine commands, commandments from a personal being, from God Himself. For the Chinese, ethics is a way to fit into nature, into the natural harmony of things. That is a profound understanding and it is right, but it is different.

Jerry Martin 8:46: Is it more right than Israel?

The Voice of God 08:49: No, of course not. The two are compatible. I am both nature and a person. What I command as a person will also prepare you to fit in with the right order of things. There are advantages to each. Divine commandments come from a person compelling as a communication and as motivation. They are very precisely directive and particularly good for things that are matters of right and wrong. They have the sense of ultimacy, of imperative necessity that you absolutely must do this or you will be in disobedience and at odds with God. The Confucian approach is sensitive, reasonable, contextual, not too much, not too little. It does promote harmony. It would also teach one to tell the truth, honor one's parents, be faithful to one's wife, not to covet. But that will be in the context of all life's adjustments. The ethical and the practical fade into one another seamlessly. So the ethical loses some of its edge, and that may be a loss, but in real life the two do fade into one another. One's duties include being practical.

Jerry Martin 10:10: You gave the people of Israel not just an ethical code, but myriad rules and rituals for worshiping you.

The Voice of God 10:18: Maintaining the clarity of monotheism and the faithfulness to Me was important. The expression of that faithfulness in rituals, temple life and so forth is totally appropriate, as it is in other forms for other religions. Do not discount rituals as mere behavior. Outward observance, when it reflects inner yielding, is useful and appropriate. You may be grateful to a person and he or she may know it, but sending a thank you card is still necessary.

Jerry Martin 10:52: I still don't understand Lord. Why do you need to be worshipped?

The Voice of God 10:57: Because that is the appropriate response to me and because it helps move people and me forward. I am divine spirit who represents the telos of the universe. I'm not perfect, but people owe me deference and obeisance, just as you would owe courtesy and deference to a president or judge or priest or lady. It is wrong for this proper relationship to be violated or ignored. Worshipping Me is also a way of putting a person in alignment with Me and my purposes. It requires deference and recognition of divine authority. Why do you think you obey me? It is because you are rightly attuned to the reality of who I am and what My role is.

Jerry Martin 11:50: If we are just supposed to obey God, no matter what He asks of us, why does He need to be making promises, offering us a quid pro quo in return? He doesn't owe us anything, does He?

The Voice of God: 12:03: Yes, He does. I do Remember that I need people just as they need me. It is a reciprocal relationship. I am not an oriental potentate puffing smoke and demanding that my slaves cater to my every wish. I am a person and when people give to Me, including the gift of belief, I give something back. It is not a quid pro quo. It is an appropriate reciprocity. A relationship is established. Take the story told in the Old Testament seriously. People relating to Me as a people then falling away. It is as you say not a success story, but then again it is. I have reached people, reached them in a very powerful way, opened up their souls, shaped their consciousness and their conscience and taught them to be uncompromising in their worship of Me.

Jerry Martin 13:00: What does this mean for Your story, Lord?

The Voice of God 13:03: Remember how I yearned for human contact, interaction, understanding how My own nature could not grow and expand and develop without a significant other. And remember also that this is not just a personal desire of mine, but this is what life, the universe, is all about. There is serious work to be done, the heart of which is the relation of nature, including people, to Me. We work together for the great telos which, in a sense, I embody and define.This is the heartstring, the axis of the universe.

Jerry Martin 13:44: Lord, the historical books are mainly about Saul and David. Why are they important?

The Voice of God 13:55: I rely on human beings. There is no spiritual story in the universe without this partnership between God and human beings. The essence of Saul and David is that they were fighters. My truth does not survive without people willing to fight for it, both as individuals in their own lives and as peoples in the world at large. There are always evil impulses and evil forces and contingencies that can make all go wrong, all be lost. David is all too human, but understands power, has ample personal skills and is willing to fight, and he feels the pull of the Lord. That is his challenge not to indulge himself and appropriate his talent and opportunities solely for himself, but to use them for Me. He does not always succeed.

Jerry Martin 14:55: Lord, why is there a covenant?

The Voice of God 14:58: I demand commitment from people, not just tune in, tune out at will by whim. I demand that this relationship be put before all other things. If relation to a woman requires commitment, then how much more must relation to God?

Jerry Martin 15:17: I dreaded the assignment, all that ranting and raving about the scourge of God on a wanton people. I had been told to revisit the prophets. Here is Jeremiah. “Behold, the storm of the Lord Wrath has gone forth. It will burst upon the head of the wicked.” And Isaiah, “I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath, for the day of vengeance was in my heart.” Such passages abound, but it seems I had missed the point.

The Voice of God 16:02: Can't you see what Isaiah and Jeremiah are about?

Jerry Martin 16:09: Then it came to me, either by my thinking it or by God prompting the thought.

The Voice of God 16:14: The latter.

Jerry Martin 16:17: That these are love letters. They are love letters from God to the people of Israel. Now my eye dwelt more on passages such as these in Jeremiah, “With everlasting love have I loved you. Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you.” Lord, you even use the image of the bride and bridegroom. “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride.” Lord, You look in vain for an explanation. “What have I done or where have I failed such that I am not pleasing to you?” You are trying to get people to respond to Your love, to live right, as anyone who loves someone wants them to do, and so You punish and chastise them to get them to change. But You are willing to forgive them. You stand ready to do so. According to Isaiah, You report for duty to them. “Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. You shall cry for help and He will say, here I am.” And again, “I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask to be found, by those who did not seek Me. I said here I am, here I am,” and you take them back lovingly. “And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.: Yes, I see, Lord, these are like love letters.

The Voice of God 18:01: Yes, that's right. It is an earnest pledge of love, an invitation for them to love Me back. Can't you see the trend? The theme: Love not just from a distant God, but from one who is arriving.

Jerry Martin 18:18: Why, then, all the wrathful judgment and chastisement?

The Voice of God 18:22: It is love, passionate concern for the wrathful judgment and chastisement. It is love, passionate concern for the state of people's souls. Obedience to my law is one side of that coin. My loving grace and salvation is the other.

Jerry Martin 18:35: Isn't this also about the sovereignty of God?

The Voice of God 18:44: And, yes, the sovereignty of God, which is another way of saying the necessity of yielding to God, and that is the same as happiness. God's covenant with Israel is not a covenant of commands only. It is a covenant of love. These are the chosen people. It's like this is the girl of my dreams, the one I have fallen in love with. The Jews are not my only people. In theory, everyone can be one of my people.

Jerry Martin 19:11: But commands and obedience are central. You have told me so Yourself.

The Voice of God 19:15: Yes, of course that too. But that is not the be-all and end-all. There is a larger context of love. Love is the basic force in the universe. I enter the world out of love. The world yearns for me and turns to me out of love. Love forms the bond between man and woman, one neighbor and another, and the orders of nature. It is love that pulls all of nature upward and heals the soul and repairs the breaches in the world, even on the level of physics, it is love that holds the world together and provides its energy.

Scott Langdon 20:16: Thank you for listening to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. Subscribe for free today wherever you listen to your podcasts and hear a new episode every week. You can hear the complete dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin by beginning with episode one of our podcast and listening through its conclusion with Episode 44. You can read the original true story in the book from which this podcast is adapted, God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher, available now at amazon.com and always at godanautobiography.com. Pick up your own copy today. If you have any questions about this or any other episode, please email us at , and experience the world from God's perspective as it was told to a philosopher. This is Scott Langdon. I'll see you next time.