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Gideon's gold ephod becomes idol

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[Judges 8:27]

Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town.
All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there,and it became a snare to
Gideon and his family.

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God made Gideon the judge of Israel.
What God entrusted to Gideon was to rescuethe Israelites from Midian's hands.

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Gideon, who had little faith, offered two special prayers to God.
One was a prayer that the dew would be wet only on the fleece, and the other would

be dry, and the other was a prayer for drying the fleece and the dew on the surrounding ground. God answered Gideon's prayer.

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Gideon, who gained great faith through prayer, led 300 soldiers and fought against the Midian army. Gideon's 300 with God defeated the Midianites.
God allowed Gideon to rescue Israel from Midian's hand.

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However, the Israelites thought that Gideon had saved them.

"You saved us from the hands of Midian. So rule us now.

You and your descendants rule us."

The Israelites asked Gideon to be king.

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However, Gideon refused their request.

"Jehovah will rule over you. Me and my son will not rule over you."

Gideon told them that the king to rule over Israel was God.
He gave the right answer.

8

However, Gideon made a request to the people that he wished he would not have done.
"I would like to ask you one thing.

Give me only one gold earring from your war."

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Upon hearing Gideon's request, the people said,
 "I'm willing to do it," and put a coat of clothes off the ground. People threw one earring over the coat. The gold collected in this way was 1,700 shekels, which is about 11.4g in today's units.
The weight of the earring Gideon received was enormous, about 19kg.
(This is the current value in 2020 of approximately 1,324,200,00 Korean won, equivalent to $1.2 million in US dollars.)

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In addition to this, the people gave out ornaments, jewelry,

and purple clothes worn by Midian kings and necklaces around the camel's neck.
The people exalted Gideon as if they were the gods who saved them,

and gave freely to them.

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This was wrong. It was God who defeated Midian with Gideon and 300 soldiers.
Gideon only fought war according to what God said.
Nevertheless, the people thought that Gideon had great powers to save them and raised Gideon. This is what God hates most.

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Gideon made clothes called ‘Ephod’ from the received gold.
The ephod is a long vest-shaped garment worn by the high priest.
It was a holy, special garment worn by the high priest when seeking the will of God.
Gideon made the garment out of gold and hung it at his home in the castle of Ophrah.

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It was wrong for Gideon to make clothes called ‘Ephod’ in gold.
Because the ephod was a special garment that God only allowed the chief priest.
Gideon's act of doing this was a bad thing to use God's holy garments at will.

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After hanging the ephod, what God hates most has happened.
People began to serve Gideon's gold ephod like an idol.
The people fell into the idolatrous sin of serving an ephod made of gold like God.

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It was because of Gideon's greed that the Israelites fell into the idol of the gold ephod.
God saved Israel through Gideon in order to abandon the idols of Baal and Asherah

so that they could serve only God.
However, because of Gideon's greed, Israel fell into another sin of idolatry.

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Gideon rejected the request of those who wanted to be kings, but after that,

he lived like a king. He had many wives, and his son was 70.

Gideon took advantage of the grace God gave him and sat down in a place where

he was exalted. Gideon ruled Israel for 40 years as a judge.

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God saved Israel from the suffering caused by Midian so that only God could serve.
He hoped for this and showed his love and ability through Gideon.
However, rather than serving God, the Israelites fell into the great sin of raising

Gideon and serving Gideon's gold ephod.

The reason Jesus saved us by dying on the cross is to make us serve only God.
The children of God who are saved by faith in Jesus must not fall into the sin of exalting man or worshiping idols above God.
I hope that you will be people of faith who have the right faith and serve God

faithfully in your life.

(This is the sample conclusion provided by CTM. Please feel free to change the conclusion to best suit the listeners of your sermon.)