Things That Distract Us And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went thither a whoring after it: which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house. Judges 8:27 COMMENTS: This doesnt sound good at all, does it? Shame on them! Wed never do anything like that, would we? Heck no! We know better!! Lets back up a little to verses 22 and 23: Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy sons son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you. Gideons heart was in the right place. From the experiences he had (see last weeks Bible study if you missed it) he knew that God was ordering his steps and was the reason he had turned into such a good leader. So, very wisely, he proclaimed what he had learned to all the people. After all, that was the way God intended it all along. He wanted to be their King and Ruler! Then Gideon proceeded to do something to honor God. He collected up a bunch of gold earrings that the people had collected off of their defeated enemy. (Right off the bat this sounds bad. It should have brought to someones mind the story of the golden calf that the people had made while waiting for Moses at Mount Sinai. That should have hinted that caution was necessary.) Anyway, what started out as an honor to God turned into idol worship. Instead of dedicating the ephod to God and worshipping God, their focus turned to the ephod, itself. First of all, did God need another ephod? The high priest already had one. An ephod is part of what the high priest wore. It makes me wonder where Gideon got the idea. Perhaps he was doing as Moses did in Numbers 31:54. However, there was a big difference. Moses had the gold they offered up to God put into the tabernacle. Gideon put the ephod in the city in which he lived. It really wasnt given to God, but was made to admire. The ephod was probably beautiful and probably very expensive. People wanted to see it. Perhaps some people wanted to have it for themselves, or imagined what it would be like to have it for themselves. Anyway, the ephods original purpose was to turn peoples eyes to God. They would see the ephod made of jewelry taken from their defeated enemy and praise God for helping them to arise out of the condition of being captives in their own land to being the conquerors. Instead, they focused only on the ephod, itself. Can you think of any examples today of things that should bring us to the throne of God but only serve to distract us from focusing in God? Church buildings sometimes become way more important than they should. Ive seen where people fight with each other over what color of paint to use, what type of CARPET TO put in, and whether to use rooms for storage or classrooms. I was in a Palm Sunday service at a church that, instead of any teaching or evangelizing, they did a presentation on the progress of the construction of their new building. What about the miraculous sightings of Mary or images of Jesus face seen in skyscraper WINDOWS or on a potato? What is worshipped there, God or the miracle? What about people planning church services and neglecting to let God choose what is done there? What about the line drawn between clergy and laity? What about what clothes people are told to wear at church? What about a magnificent pipe organ? Need I go on? All things that we do for God, give to God, or are about God should be secondary. If we dont see God first and foremost then perhaps the ephod should be removed or destroyed.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 05:08:51 +0000
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