The WOFOYO Podcast
The WOFOYO Podcast
Finding God Beyond Religion's Protective Filter
We explore the tension between organized religion as a protective filter and as a potential barrier to direct divine encounter.
• Examining Carl Jung's quote that "formalized religion protects people against a direct experience of God"
• Unpacking Moses' request to see God's glory in Exodus 33
• Understanding that God shows Moses His back but not His face—protection from what humans cannot handle
• Becoming "nose blind" to the presence of God when we're immersed in it daily
• Recognizing our own flaws and limitations, just as Moses had anger issues that kept him from the promised land
• Sharing personal weekend challenges that revealed God's protection even amid frustration
• Noticing divine patterns that shift our perspective from complaints to gratitude
#wofoyo https://wofoyo.org/
This is Pastor Jim Daniels from the Antioch Baptist Church, reminding you to keep yourself sanctified and avoid the evils of smoking, drinking, dancing and gambling. They can rob you of your purpose, money and precious time. All brothers and sisters, listen to this preacher here. Listen to him. I'm telling you firsthand. I've seen relationships ruined and lives wasted in those bars, honky-tonks and casinos. But there's good news you can be free and we'd love to tell you all about it at our all-you-can-eat potluck and bingo night down at the Fellowship Hall. And the good news is, after an FBI investigation, we've been given a clean slate. So have no fear and come on down. Old Deacon Greenteeth calls the main card and there's only a $5 cover. Fear and come on down. Old Deacon Greenteeth calls it mean card and there's only a $5 cover.
Speaker 1:Again, this is Pastor Jim Daniels for Antioch Baptist, reminding you to tip your hat to the ladies as you walk in. Amen, hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of the Wofo Yo podcast. We're going to step in some tonight. I can see the look on Bone's face right now. He knows.
Speaker 2:I do Because you told me just a few minutes ago yeah.
Speaker 1:Finished reading the book, had this quote and 505 pages Not a bad book, Just written in a certain style that if you ain't used to reading it that's a long read Made some good points, so called we who Wrestle With God, Dr Jordan B Peterson. It definitely approaches some things from a different method but interestingly enough he comes up with a lot of the same conclusions that Bones and I talk about. Being two fellas from Southern Illinois, old Pulaski County, so maybe the Villa Ridge version ain't that off. But he quoted Carl Jung, who's a philosopher, and he says this and I'm going to show where he goes with this in a minute One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God, and he mentions a scripture in reference to this and there's a pro and a con to it. But in looking up that quote, here's another kind of counter statement too, to expound on the previous by Mr Young. The seed of faith, however, is not consciousness but spontaneous religious experience, which brings the individual's faith into immediate relation with God. Interesting word, we have been there. So here is, since this ain't get into young for yourself, it's getting the word for yourself.
Speaker 1:Here is the scripture verse, or verses passage that was referenced here and it is over in Exodus 33, starting at verse 12. Moses said to the Lord see, you say to me, bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said I know you by name and you have found grace in my sight. Now, therefore, I pray if I have found grace in your sight, show me now your way, that I may know you and that I may find grace in your sight and consider that this nation is your people. And he said my presence will go with you and I will give you rest. Then he said to him if your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here, For how then will it be known that your people and I have found grace in your sight? Verse 1. I will do this also that you have spoken for. You have found grace in my sight and I know you by name. You see kind of the negotiating aspect, the characteristic of his predecessor in Abraham here, though, If I can get this, how about this? Here we go, Verse 18.
Speaker 1:So, if I can get this, how about this? Here we go, Verse 18. And he said please show me your glory. And he said I will make my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious. To whom I will be gracious? And I will have compassion. On whom I will have compassion? But he said you cannot see my face, for no man shall see me and live. And the Lord said here is a place by me and you shall stand on the rock. So shall it be, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and will cover you with my hand while I pass by. Then I will take away my hand hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. So the point was made.
Speaker 1:Moses wants to deepen the relationship with God and it says you can't handle it. You're not at a point where you can handle it. Moses wants to see his glory. Really, all he comes away with is the law. He gets to see the people get the law. That's what they get. They get tabernacle worship there. They get tabernacle worship. There's value in tabernacle worship. But the way it was described kind of changed my way of thinking on some things. And then he brought up the quote by Young that institutional religion is a formalized religion. One of the functions is to protect people against a direct experience of God, and so what was kind of implied is people can't handle it.
Speaker 2:On the contrary. What a way to go Right. If we're looking at this verse, look at this passage in Scripture, I can agree with that. I think it's interesting that, like you said, moses is speaking to God very much in the same nature that Abraham did. So what that tells me is that this relationship, what I see, there is a certain familiarity. He's a friend. He's a friend. This is not which we've said this before a lot of times when this, you know, fire and brimstone, whack-a-mole, ready-to-judge-you kind of God, and there is that in some places. But right here, what I see is a familiar friend, yes, a friend that Moses knows well enough that he can have a conversation with and ask more of. So I find that very interesting, very interesting, which just goes right back to the point we brought out before, where Jesus says if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. So I love that. I love that we see Moses sharing that same intimate relationship as Abraham did. It's interesting too.
Speaker 2:Moses wants to see his glory, and I don't really know what glory means sometimes. What glory is? I mean, we've got some ways that we can define or say what glory might look like. But as Moses asked to see his glory, god starts talking about his face. God doesn't necessarily the Father doesn't necessarily say you can't see my glory. He says I'm not going to show you my face. God doesn't necessarily the Father doesn't necessarily say you can't see my glory, he says I'm not going to show you my face. So I don't know if the two are inseparable or whatnot, but I found it very interesting that, as Moses is asking to see his glory, god is saying I'm not going to show you my face. Maybe that's what Moses is implying or his heart is actually calling for when he's asking to see his glory, because a lot of times when we think of glory, we think of attributes, power and the things that God does, not necessarily his person.
Speaker 2:So I thought that was very interesting, the protection that formalized religion offers Very interesting. To be honest, the children of Israel needed it. Yeah, they needed it because the first thing they did when they went to Mount Sinai to meet the Lord and Moses went up there to kind of handle things and get the final instructions, first thing they did was make a golden calf and start worshiping it, because they thought it was taking too long. So yeah, in some ways the people need that protection. Yes, but I think we've taken it a little bit too far. I think formalized religion has went so far, the pendulum has swung back the other way, and that the protection is not so much from God's wrath as it is from we can speak for him. You don't even have to worry about it, you can just relax and take it easy.
Speaker 1:It's become laziness. Well, it's a double-edged sword, the whole thing is. When it was described as a filter, I go ah, I like that as a filter that serves a purpose. If you stared at the sun and didn't wear sunglasses even like during the eclipse, when they have the eclipse glasses and if there wasn't that filter, you go blind, there could be harmful effects. But I never thought of it like that.
Speaker 1:And it calls to mind something you know talking about. Glory is Moses is already in the glory of God, he's surrounded by the glory of God and he has to see more. And I remember I was over at Daryl Coulson's church before they moved to the new building. He was just starting this thing and had some things happening and I had the Lord tell me something and I'm like I was kind of thinking about times past, since we had all went to the church and Marian at one time, and how manifest the presence of God was, the presence of the Holy spirit, the anointing. There were times I'd walk in and see it like a haze, and I wasn't the only one, but I had Lord speak something to me while I was meditating on that. And you know, lord, you know, I know you're here, manifest your presence and praying. And he told me I know you're here, manifest your presence and praying. And he told me you've gone nose blind to my presence.
Speaker 1:Now, for those of you that don't know what that means is, you can be around something so much that you can't smell it. That's how people can work on a trash truck, you know. It's how people can work around dead bodies. You have the same thing when people work in food processing plants. We have one that I drive by every day on the way to work and sometimes when you drive by, they make all your cake batters, brownie batters. I think they might also do some cereals and stuff. You can smell when that stuff is cooking up and I bet you them people can't To a degree.
Speaker 1:When we were growing up, there was a plant called West Vaco Paper mill, stank. Yet people made good money working there. I remember Wardell Levy Sr telling my dad yeah, that smells like money, good dude, right there and anyway. So there's this thing. You can be around it so much that you become unaware of how strong it is. You mentioned something in our last episode about the guy coming up shaking your. Oh my, this is a Holy spirit all on you. We're just walking it out, though, and the thing is, when you're walking it out, you become unaware of how much in it you are, and I've had people come up and do that, and even recently. Oh man, the Spirit of God is so strong on you and all this stuff. I mean it's nice to hear, but at the same time to me, although it is appreciated, although it is appreciated To me, I have to be cautious to make sure that that doesn't become a source of pride and also not distract me from what I'm supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2:Right, right, I'd almost rather not hear it. You know, there's an old saying a fox can't smell his own hole. And that's exactly what nose blind is. You become so used to it that you don't even realize that whatever it is is going on around you and whatnot. And you can do that too, and we mentioned, sometimes folks will make that comment to us that, wow, the Holy Spirit is strong. We felt that same presence in the presence of other people. Yes, you know so it is nice to recognize that in folks. But yeah, sometimes I wonder, as we're talking about this, as you're nose blind, can that cause you to get to a place where you start to think, wow, am I in the Lord's presence? Is the Holy Spirit here? You know, because, although everyone else may notice it, you become nose blind and you kind of come to a place where Moses is at right now. You're calling for more when you're not ready for it.
Speaker 1:Yep. And when, especially if you're in a point of leadership like Moses was, like you mentioned previously, the people had proved that they weren't ready for it. And eventually you see that Moses wasn't ready for it. He doesn't get to enter the promised land. He falls back on the anger issue, using force when he's not supposed to. A little bit of ego.
Speaker 1:And the same guy that and this is not my revelation, this was in that book. The same guy whose flaw was he was prone to use of force improperly, like he did with the Egyptian, which caused him to go out and do the original 40 years in the wilderness of his own. Rather than speak to the rock, he hits it not once but twice, out of anger. So we all have our thing, let's face it. We all have our thing. That's keeping us from experiencing that fullness.
Speaker 1:But it's interesting that in all this, I just thought it was awesome that it was pointed out that Moses requests fullness. Yet we have to settle for this filter, this system and as Christians, like you said, we mentioned this before in another episode Hebrews 1, verse 3, talking about the Son who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power. When he, by himself, purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high and, like you mentioned well, jesus allows us to see the fullness of the father, the fullness of the Father. So, therefore, we wouldn't have to have a system to keep us from experiencing the fullness of Jesus, would we?
Speaker 2:Because my question becomes am I experiencing the fullness of Jesus Christ? Well, I go out and say this what we're calling a system, we're referring to organized church, the little c church here. However, I do see that there is a system in place that God put in place right here between him and Moses, and it's called discipline. So God didn't necessarily put a little C church between him and Moses, but he did put some parameters and said, okay, we need to establish some boundaries. Okay, cause you're not ready to move on just yet. So that's that's organization, that's that's that brings with it some discipline, set some boundaries, and in that there's nothing wrong with it. Moses still has his freedom, he still has his liberty, all those things that us Christians like. Nothing wrong with it. Moses still has his freedom, he still has his liberty, all those things that us Christians like to tout and those buzzwords we like to throw about. But still, in this case, it's the Lord himself, it's the Father himself setting those parameters and that guidance for us, and that's all right.
Speaker 1:And I'd also like to point out that, in addition to these things, moses also has to balance out that freedom. He has, that responsibility to lead, and that's that's no light task.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So he does have this freedom. He does has it, has his privilege, right, but he also has responsibility. That goes with it. But the system is more between the Lord and the people, because people aren't ready for it.
Speaker 1:And I go, you know, my first thought is we know that this is actually a copy of things in heaven. It's a type in shadow. It's not the fullness Cause if we saw the fullness of the things in heaven, you look at what happened to every prophet that ever saw even a smidgen of it John falls down. You know Ezekiel sees parts of this. You knowiel sees parts of this. You know Isaiah sees parts of this, and love Isaiah's word. Woe to me. I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the glory of the Lord, a host Right, and there's been some times where the presence of the Lord as it shows up stronger. What it reveals is your shortcomings, and the reason it's revealing your shortcomings is because you think you're focused on God and it reveals that maybe you're still focusing on yourself a little bit too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll tell a the word religious, but this organization to Christianity, this organization to Christianity, because when we read those seven letters to the churches of Asia Minor, we see that there is constantly as an organization, as a church, we are constantly doing things that we shouldn't be doing. And keep in mind, the church is made up of individual people, so we shouldn't stop at church level, we should break it on down at the individual level. Um, so we are, as a, as a body of christ, filled, full of people who are flawed and still walking out their uh, their holiness and and and and, sanctification and everything as the Lord lets us. So, yeah, we've got to have those boundaries and whatnot, or else we would operate in licentiousness, is what we would do. The Bible talks about that too. I'll tell you a little story. I had a horrible weekend this weekend. I had a horrible weekend this weekend because I wonder sometimes, as Moses is going through some of these things and whatnot, I wonder if he can't help but go. Man, you know I'm leading these people, I'm doing all these things, but you know, I've still got anger issues, I've still got confrontational issues. I've still got confrontational issues. I've still got all these things. You'd think by now I would have worked through this. Yeah, man, this weekend was horrible.
Speaker 2:Got my daughter my youngest daughter moved back to Oklahoma and everything working for the summer as she gets ready to start classes again in the fall. And so in order to save some money and not have to spend $1,200 a month $1,500 a month in rent we took our camper down there. She's going to live in a camper, a nice little campground and everything. It'll be half the cost, good deal. So we got the camper all camper already took it down there. Um, we haven't moved our camper, used it in almost two years. So I've been sitting, sitting idle, just been sitting in the yard and anyone that knows anything about fifth wheel rvs or campers the longer you let them sit, the faster they deteriorate. So we had some maintenance issues. We had to get fixed and everything, and we did and that was all good.
Speaker 2:So I make the trip down to Oklahoma and about 20 minutes before we get there we had our grandson with us. He decides he's got to go to the bathroom. And when your six-year-old grandson said he's got to go to the bathroom, you don't tell him to wait, you say all right, especially when he says, well, I got to go poop, no. So I said, all right, buddy, all right, we'll pull over, we're pulling a bathroom, we're pulling a 14,000 pound bathroom, so we'll just do that. So we get pulled off side of the road.
Speaker 2:My wife gets him into the camper using the bathroom, and anytime I pull over or stop, I always take a walk around the camper, make sure everything looks okay. And so I go to look at the tires and, man, my tires look horrible. The the edges of the tread are worn completely bald, and that's not how the trip started. I mean, they're hot and some smoke was coming off of them. So I'm wondering what is wrong with my tires, and the only thing I could figure out is that I had my tires overinflated and we were taking a strong broadside wind, and so my tires weren't flexing with the wind and I was catching everything from the broadside and it was causing one side of the tread to wear fast, really fast, and one side of the tread to wear fast, really fast. So, anyway, all I could do was hope that these tires got 15 or 20 minutes left in them. That's how bad they were. I was like man. So we'll get them to the campground. We're not going to leave Oklahoma in this camper at the end of the summer until we get new tires. And as I'm having this conversation in my head, all I could think about is these camper tires are about $400 a piece and I need four of them and I really don't want to. It wasn't an expense I'm expecting and I feel myself starting to get agitated and you know, sometimes you can feel yourself getting worked up, but you can't stop it, and so I feel all that stuff start coming on and I'm in a bad mood now.
Speaker 2:So we get the camper set up. We make it into the campground later than I wanted to, but we got there and no issues with the tires, they made it. We get set up and as we get everything leveled out and get the camper set up, the uh the water that we hook up to there is leaking, so the campground has to come and fix the water. That was. That was just one of those little things, um, so we get that taken care of. We stayed there the night, got up the next morning, everybody took showers and baths and it was all good. We get home Saturday night and I find out from my daughter that she doesn't have hot water. I'm like, are you serious? So we just took hot showers earlier in the day, yeah, burned out.
Speaker 2:I don't know why. It's got a 10-gallon hot water heater. It runs on electric and propane, but the electric side of it for some reason stopped working. So we flipped it over to LP and it's working. But all I can think of is man, it's just another something going wrong. All these things, it's all these, all these little foxes, you know, are spoiling the vine for me.
Speaker 2:And on our trip back, I think God was trying to speak to me and I cause to me and I remember, I remember telling him be quiet. I think he was trying to speak to me because on our trip back it was just me, polly and my grandson, and just the truck. There was no camper, and it's a six hour drive back and wasn't more than a couple hours into it and we see a fifth wheel camper on the side of the road, the flat tire, and I could hear that little voice and say your tires made it, you didn't have a blowout, you made it. Okay. Okay, I hear you, but still I got to buy new tires. You know, wasn't more than probably an hour. Hour and a half later we come, we see this car off off the side of the road. I mean off off the road, uh, in the wood line it had skidded off in the wood line. As we got up close, if we found, we could see where another camper, this time a travel trailer, another camper this camper had had a blowout and and when it blew out, the car beside it. It hit the car beside it and sent the car flying off the interstate. And so, the Lord, I could hear the little voice in the back of my head going your tires made it, you didn't have a blowout and you didn't hurt nobody. I said, all right, I hear you, but I'm still in the back of my head going. I still got to buy new tires.
Speaker 2:So I got home, first thing I wanted to do was find out how much new tires cost me. So I did and I looked them up and tires aren't $400 a piece anymore. They've come down quite a bit. They're about $400 a piece anymore. They've come down quite a bit to about 150 a piece. So it's a whole lot easier.
Speaker 2:But I know that God was talking to me the whole way, trying to show me that what the very thing that you're blaming me for wasn't really me and I was actually protecting you from what could have happened. And what could have happened is you could have been the one on the side of the road with the blowout. You could have been the one that caused the accident and had somebody hurt on the side of the road, but you weren't because of me. I didn't cause your tire wear. I saved you from the other two things.
Speaker 2:And so, as I reflected on that last night and all day today at work because work sucked, because I was in a bad mood and I'm sitting here reading about Moses all I can think of is I'm sure that every time Moses loses his temper or strikes the rock twice or does something stupid, I can look at Moses and say you know what? God didn't give up on him. No, god didn't take away his leadership role. God didn't do anything. Still God's friend, still God's friend and still was gracious enough to show him his backside. So what I took away from all of this weekend was, just like the children of Israel and Moses, at times I was blaming God for the things that he was actually protecting me from. So we'll thank him for that.
Speaker 2:So, God works in our lives too. I mean, we can sit here and talk to death on a podcast and everything, but the truth is we do silly stuff too. Oh yeah, we get mad and angry and like to, to, you know, punch a wall and do all these sorts, these silly and stupid things. But the bottom line is god still works in our lives too, even though we, even though we don't deserve it.
Speaker 1:that's for sure I had a couple similar experiences this weekend. I was grateful to get them done but at the same time you're thinking, cost me. Had electrical storm, find out the washing machine wasn't working right. Found out parts going to cost $320. You know, with service and getting it installed, all of a sudden my AC stopped blowing cold, started freezing up. Could have been a lot worse. When you own a blue Heeler, every now and then them hairs somehow get past the filter and they will clog up your AC. So a couple hundred bucks to get the AC service. I know what I'm dealing with and found out my unit's so old that whenever it runs out I'm going to have to get me a new unit because they can't put the cooling in there.
Speaker 2:Well, it happened to me. It happened to us this last season. This is our first summer on this unit.
Speaker 1:Because of that, right there, we broke down and did it, yep so in the end I was thankful, but also, man, I have some projects coming up, still going to do the projects. I got people and, as far as the safety goes, there was the first time I've seen something like this. That is kind of surreal. A mile from the exit that I hit before I hit the town, where I get off the interstate and start heading the other way to work, I see lights, oncoming lane. So it's interstate. I go what in the world? Because there's three lights. I said uh-oh, well, look, and there's a truck with the door open and then there's a car that has eaten up all sorts of that, them cables. Oh yeah, they done ate them up.
Speaker 1:Now, I don't know how this dude got there, because the side he was on ain't no way that door opened. I don't know if he got thrown or whatever, but there's a dude out rolling in the grass. You can tell he's mobile enough, he ain't paralyzed, didn't look super bloody. But the emergency vehicles, as I got off the exit, were on their way and you know. But no, he's kind of going from side to side. You can tell he's in obvious pain and you know that thought goes through your head Could be you. Yeah, you know, and it reminds you of his faithfulness, and it reminds you of your favor, puts a lot of things in perspective.
Speaker 2:You know what's funny and I can chuckle at it now because I'm out of the situation, I think but that camper that had the blowout and had caused the wreck, all it had was a little fender damage, which usually on a camper that's what happens they blow the fenders out. But anyway it had a little fender damage and a little damage on the back corner where it pushed the car off the road, but it was back on the road pretty quick. Matter of fact, we passed that camper two more times on our trip, with us stopping for fuel and getting something to eat and stuff like that. We ended up passing that camper two more times and it was like, you know, like I said, I kept fixating on having to buy new tires. It was like the Lord just kept showing me.
Speaker 2:We talk about patterns a lot, you know. Yeah, when you start seeing patterns, it's like the Holy Spirit is trying to get your attention. So after about the third or fourth time of seeing that same camper, I finally gave in and said, okay, all right, I'm going to stop complaining about the money here and just let it go. So if y'all think that Oceta and Bones has got their stuff together. We ain't. We don't have it together, at least I don't. We don't have our stuff together for nothing, at least I didn't this weekend.
Speaker 1:Everybody. We are going to pick this conversation up next episode because it's getting ready to take a turn. You can always check us out at woefolioorg, subscribe on our podcast, spotify or audible, or check us out on youtube. Remember, folks, if you're going to grow, you got a woefojo. Get in the word for yourself.