The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Epic of God by Louis McCall

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

The Epic of God by Louis McCall https://www.amazon.com/Epic-God-Louis-McCall/dp/B0DVJ5G6W2 Louismccallinternational.com Jesus used parables that were fictional to make practical and spiritual points, provoke thought, and enlighten. The Epic of God is a speculative fictional account of the epic story of our heroic God, lover, and savior from eternity past to eternity future. Though fictional, this story is based on Biblical history, hints, and prophecy taken from scripture, brought to life and woven together by the narrative of a watcher angel.About the author Louis McCall was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended Northwestern University where he received a Ph.D. Later, he also attended the National War College of the National Defense University. Louis was an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University prior to a 36-year career in the U.S. Department of State, first as a Foreign Service officer and then as a foreign affairs Civil Service employee where he served as Consul General in Florence, Italy, Chargé d’Affaires in Brunei, U.S. Representative to the Republic of San Marino, and Assistant Inspector General. He lived in or worked in, at least temporarily, 60 countries on six continents. Whether in academia or as a diplomat, Louis found opportunities to live his faith, including part-time ministry of the good news in word and in song, including co-laboring with missionaries, national church leaders, and the underground church. When ministering early in his diplomatic career from the pulpit of a great church in Calcutta, India, Louis said to those in attendance that he had determined not to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That has been a commitment he has endeavored to keep over the years. In his final two years at the Department of State he organized and led the National Day of Prayer observances in the Department. Now, in his new career as an author, he has the pleasure of greater freedom in sharing what God has placed in his heart. Louis is active simultaneously in two churches in Washington, D.C. One is a multi-site non-denominational church, where he is an elder, and the other a Catholic church where he is a regular cantor, though not a Catholic himself. He has managed this with the blessing and full knowledge of pastors and priests. This has been an outgrowth of his early association with a mixed protestant-Catholic charismatic house-based worship group, his association with the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta, his Catholic charismatic wife, and guest ministry in churches and bible schools of various denominations while living in or working in other countries.

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their audience and maximize their book's success. We have a returning guests on the show. He's been on, I believe, twice before. His book is called The Epic of God out January 22nd, 2025 by Louis McCall. We're going to get into with him and find out more about his insights, his experience, some of the things that have changed and shaped him. Lewis McCall was born in Chicago, Illinois, and attended Northwestern University where he received a PhD. He'd later, attend the National War College and the National Defense University. He's an assistant professor at the Ohio State University prior to a 36-year career in the U.S. Department of State,

first as a Foreign Service Officer, and then as a Foreign Affairs Civil Service employee, where he served as Consul General in Florence, Italy. He's done a myriad of things through church and government and ministry, et cetera. Welcome to show, Lewis. How are you? I'm fine, Chris. How are you? I am excellent.

I am excellent, except for I guess a dry voice. So give us your dot-coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interweb, sir? They can find me at Lewis McCall International.com. Mm-hmm. And so give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside this book, The Epic of God? This book gives you a picture of God, a complete picture, not a little slice,

from the past eternally to the future eternally. And all of the segments of human beings in between where they do come, their lives are short. He's eternal. And so there is a thing that works through this. And that is that God, he's a creator, he's holy, he's good,

and he wants to, make mankind his buddies. But mankind manages to mess things up a lot. You've seen us, huh? Because God is omniscient and knows the end from the beginning, he knew this is going to happen. So before he ever created the earth or made man, he devised a plan to get that mankind back to himself. And that is why the Bible says that Jesus was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. They had to make that decision. This is how we're going to do it.

And there's a big battle. There's a battle between good and evil. But this is not the battle between good and evil that some Eastern religions have, where they're basically equals in a battle. But God didn't create anything evil. Lucifer. What about snakes and tarantula, or, uh, Black Widow spiders, eh?

Okay. Everything that he created was good, okay? Okay. Until it bites you. Lucifer was good, too, but he corrupted himself. He not only corrupted himself, he tried to corrupt the creation, and he definitely tried to corrupt mankind. And so things that are bad are not because God.

God is bad. It's because of the activity of Satan. That's why we have disease. That's why we have death and wars and so on. And critters that attack you. Critters that attack you. Damn, that's Satan, man. He ruins snakes and lions and tigers and bears. You get into it with a book and talk about the epic of God. Is there any, is it pretty much a book about God himself? I know a couple of other books cited, I think there was a Joshua book and cited other different, I think, prophets and stuff. This one focuses on God? God is the focus. He is the protagonist.

He's the hero. And so you have this big battle that goes on through our history. And the book shows how it ends. And he ends finally victorious. And Satan and his angels. and demons are quarantined in hell. And then there are people that still are alive on the earth. Very few of them because of all of the things that happened in the last days.

But what God then does is once they've made up their minds that they're following God, he rewires them so that they are incapable of sin anymore. And then he has his heavens and his living beings, which populate the heaven and the cosmos. And he's happy. He sings over them. He dances over them. So it's a speculative fictional account of the epic story. So you create an ending.

Is there any timeline on an ending? There are some people that want to know of what this takes place. Well, I add, definitely, I took some artistic license, but there's a lot that is, there is a lot said in the Bible about what happened before the earth was created. There's a lot said about what comes after the Battle of Armageddon, but most people aren't aware of that. So ignorance is right and misinterpretation. Yeah, I mean, everyone's got their own opinion, right? I guess when it comes down to some of these things. we've had a lot of authors in the show that have talked about variations, but yours is one that

is kind of maybe historical fiction a little bit. Is that what you may, might call it? That is what it is, but, you know, I'm informed by my own experience. I have seen and spoken with angels. I have had to deal with demons. I have heard the audible. You were married once? No, I'm teasing.

I have heard the audible voice of God. And I'm able to ask him questions and hear from him, not audibly, but in a different way. And it's a system that Joshua used. Because when he encountered the theophani of God, he got down on the ground, took off his shoes, and he said, what does my Lord have to say to me? and that is a question that I will ask. I'll say, what does my God have to say to me today? And then I listen.

Oh, wow. And tell us about your journey through life. You've written how many books so far, too, as well? I've written six, and I'll be releasing a seventh later this year. And they're all focused on, how would you say they're all focused on in the books in the series? Well, they're all Christian books. The first one is what's called a devotional, which is a little bit of a story of my own journey and life and instruction on how to pray. The rest of them are sort of biblical, historical fiction.

They're based on the Bible, but I fill in a lot of the space. between the lines. Uh-huh. There you go. So what was your journey through life? I know we've talked about this before on another podcast, but there's always new people that are listening to our podcast, and so we want to lay that foundation and remind people.

Tell us about your journey through life. When did you first discover religion? Did you grow up in it? When did you kind of have experiences where maybe God started talking to you? I grew up in a rough neighborhood, but as a young child, I fell in love with God, and I would read the word. As an adult, I've read through the Bible several times in English, Spanish, and Italian, and different translations. I've also traveled to countries like Egypt and India and Asia and Italy, and what I've learned from that is that there were many,

depictions of God or multiple gods. In a couple of weeks, I'm taking a group of pilgrims to Italy, and one of the sites we'll see is the Pantheon. It's called out because there were many gods that were presented there. I went to Syria and went to a place in the center of the country called Palmyra to a temple of bail, who was considered to be the king of the gods, and who was one of the bad guys. in the Bible. So I saw all of these different depictions of God, what they thought were God. And then people who claimed to be God, the Caesar's claimed to be God. They minted coins that said Caesar is Lord. Very much in contradiction to Jesus' Lord. You had the pharaohs who claimed to be God.

you had others that even in our own day i don't know if you recall the moonies but you have people today that claim to be god uh countries do they do that in the moonies say that again do they do that in the moonies it's been a long time since i remember in the 70s they were around yes yes yes boy we're old aren't uh yes they had very strange very strange beliefs But my encounters with God is that there is only one true God. I have been to temples in India by the Krishna, the Hari Krishna, people, huge temples. You wouldn't believe it. And so these are people that are, and even the Buddhists, they're looking for elevating themselves basically to Godhood, to enlightenment.

So you have all of these different things. but there's only one true way, and that's what I present in this book, by presenting the whole story. The whole story. That's right. The good and the bad and the ugly, because people are not all good, and they're not all good all the time. Yeah, I've been on Twitter. I've seen some things. I've been on social media.

So, is this, now I notice this book nine or something it says here on Amazon, is this, is this whole thing? a series, does one need to start at one end of your books and go to the other? Not at all. You can drop in at any place. But this is a panoramic view of God. God is the central character here. But people like Joshua or David or whatever, Mary, they come into play. But they're not the center

of the story. They're just part of a continuing story and the battle for mankind. The battle for mankind. I'm not sure anyone want to save us, but I guess it's good there's somebody who gives a shit. I've seen us lately.

We're not on our best behavior sometimes at this point. And so some of us need to have our mom smack us over the head a couple times with the wooden spoon. That's how I learn stuff. Run us through some of your other books. I know we've had you

the show for Joshua and I have to pull it up again the other way. Tell us about some of your other books and what has compelled you to write about them. Two other books that we haven't discussed are World Upside Down, which is about the life of Paul and how he turned the world of his day upside down. That was in one of the cities that he went to in Asia Minor. They said the people who have turned the world upside down have now come here too. And so their whole system of, of religion and worship were thrown out the window by Paul as he declared the gospel of Jesus Christ, whom he had been working against until he had

an encounter with him. Why was he doing that? Why was he working against it? Because he thought everybody else was wrong and he was right. Oh, wow. I guess God. showed him, huh? Yes, he did. And it wasn't easy for him once he got turned around because people were afraid of him. They thought, this is the man that was dragging us off to prisons and some of us being killed. So it took someone to kind of put their arm around him and introduce him to others and say, look, he's really changed. He's putting it out there. And he ultimately gave his life. Was he beheaded?

Yes, both he and Peter were killed by Emperor Nero. He was beheaded because he was a Roman citizen. And Peter was crucified on a cross, but upside down because he said he wasn't worthy of being crucified in the same way that his Lord was. Wow. that's uh now nero said that he wasn't worthy or no peter said that and so they crucified upside down wow yes nero nero tried to imitate the sun god and he built a huge golden statue of himself in in rome after he had kind of burnt it down and then blamed it on the christians it was

it was a colossal statue that statue is no longer there but the building that they built near where it was, was kind of named in honor of that, and that's why we have the Coliseum. Oh, the Coliseum. Everyone knows about the Coliseum there. That's right. Crazy stuff there. So did you, what was the second book you mentioned that we haven't taught on the show?

It's called, he chose the glory. It's the life and legacy of Obed Edom, who's a very obscure character in the Old Testament. but he was the one who wound up being in possession of the golden ark of the covenant, which is what God had instructed Moses to build, and which was brought over into the promised land when they finished their 40 years running around in the desert. And it was David, King David, that went to his house to get it. And there's a story behind that. But David was the first one to bring the ark to Jerusalem.

In fact, he brought it to his neighborhood in Jerusalem, which was called the city of David. Yeah. So what do you hope people come away from when they read books like The Epic of God and your other aversions? I hope they come away with a better understanding of the persons involved and of the times what these people went through. and their own journey and interaction with things of God. Yeah. So do you offer any services? Do you any coaching, consulting, any speaking that people should know about that can

hire you for off your website? I don't do that, but I'm willing to do that. I used to be a professor at the Ohio State University. The Ohio State. The Ohio State University. And I also represented the United States abroad. I lived in or worked in more than 60 countries. And so I was the U.S. representative, including the U.S. representative to the Republic of San Marino, which is sort of a micro state.

Oh, yeah? Yes. I was the, you would know it. the deputy ambassador I was the Charger de fere it's a French term I was in charge of the embassy okay because there was no ambassador and that was in the country of Brunei and I have you know been around other places how did that world view shape your view of God and religion as I said it confirmed that God is the real deal and that others have been just mistaken and led off by these other things. You know, once I went up to, up to Darjeeling

in India, which is, from there you have this wonderful view of Mount Everest and K2, these mountains that are considered to be the rooftop of the world, and you're up above the clouds. And as I entered that city, I stopped by a Buddhist monk because he was shade ball and he had on his saffron row. And fortunately, he spoke English. And I asked him if he knew the way to the hotel I was trying to seek, which was the Windermere. And he pointed the way, fine. Later that evening, as I'm having my English team and sitting by the fireplace, because it gets cold up there at that height, I hear a knock on the door. And it's this Buddhist monk. And he asked to come in, and he said, he wanted me to tell him about Jesus.

So I did not miss that opportunity. We sat down and we had a nice conversation. And I made it clear that you just couldn't add Jesus on to the other gods that you were dealing with. He was exclusive, you know. I don't know. I never had any contact with him after that. But that was one such experience. Wow.

Now, on your website, can people contact you? Can they reach out to you and find out how to work with you for maybe speaking or other things? Absolutely. It's right there on the website, Lewis McCall International.com. And you've got a media section gallery testimonials. What does the future hold for you? Is there any works that are currently in production? Well, as I said, I'm going to release the seventh book later this year.

I have a friend who's actually my current pastor who has written now 26 books. One of his books, The Circle Maker, has sold three million copies. Oh, wow. And he has had New York Times bestsellers. I take a lot of inspiration from what he has done. And I'm just doing what I feel led to do. Mm-hmm. Well, sharing the stories and sharing the inspiration. I mean, this is something we do in life and helps make the world a better place. You know, people find what they're looking for and all that good stuff. So as we go out, give people your final dot-coms. And anything else we want to throw in to promote on the show? Yes, again, my website is Lewis McCall International.com. And that's Lewis.

spelled the French way, L-O-U-I-S. I also have an online bookstore, which is books, all lowercase, books. by B-Y forward slash Lewis-Macall-Macall-D-Nternational.

Well, thank you very much, Lewis, for coming the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Chris. Thank you. And thanks to my audience for tuning in. Order up the book where refined books are sold.

It's called The Epic of God, out January 22nd, 2025. Thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortresschus Christchristch, Christfoss, LinkedIn.com, Fortess, Chrisfoss, 1, on the TikTokot, and all those crazy places on the Internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe.

We'll see you guys next time.