All the time, strongly!

[AI translation] With this text, I am actually just summarizing the great, urgent warning that the story of the end of Gideon's life has for us. In fact, there are only two words that I want to emphasize from the whole Word: all the way, strongly! That is, hold fast to Christ all the while, strongly - all the while, strongly, persevere, hold fast in trust and faith in him! For one fall, one sin, one bad example of a believer in Christ can have unforeseeable consequences! And to that fall, that sin, the believer in Christ is quick to commit! Let us not forget that when Jesus said to his disciple Simon, "You are Peter", the old Simon nature did not disappear, it lived on in the form of Peter, that is, the old, corrupt, fall-prone human nature lives on in our new-born lives, and always resurfaces. In fact, the old Simon nature is capable of eclipsing the new Peter figure. At the end of his life, this man, once a believer, did something that is remembered in the report: 'this was the cause of the death of Gideon and his household'. That is what I want to talk about now.1) Actually, what Gideon did doesn't seem to be that big a deal. Because what happened? That when the people wanted to make him king over them as a reward for his merits, he refused the honour: he only asked his followers to give him the gold pendants they had taken from the enemy. The people gladly comply with the popular leader's request, and so a lot of gold is collected, from which Gideon makes himself a so-called ephod and deposits it in his own city, Ophrah. This ephod was a worship utensil used by the ancient Jews to make known the will of the Lord, and was to be used only in the holy tabernacle, the centre of worship, and only by the high priest. So there was a legal centre of worship for the people in a place called Shiloh, there was a high priest, there was an ephod, there was worship - so if Gideon had been all along and strongly adhering to the Lord's ordinances, he would have had to direct the people to Shiloh, then he would have had to send the people to the legal high priest using the legal ephod. But instead, he makes an ephod for himself and places it in his own city, Ophrah, thus giving the people the opportunity to go not to Shiloh to find out God's will, but to Ophrah, not to the legal high priest, but to him, Gideon. Thus, as it were, he alienates the people from the cultic centre, the legal sanctuary, arbitrarily ignoring what God has made the centre of the whole religious life. The high priest of the law in the sanctuary of Shiloh may not have been up to the mark; he may have been the subject of many complaints among the people; he may have been a lazy, clumsy, opportunistic man, but that does not give Gideon the right to break off his connection with the house of the Lord and establish a new centre of worship in his own house. How reprehensible this act of Gideon was from God's point of view is shown by this remark in the Bible: 'and there all Israel committed fornication'! In other words, the fact that the believers went to Gideon and his ephod instead of the legal high priest and ephod to seek God's will: God regards this as spiritual fornication, spiritual adultery, unfaithfulness.
And it is good to analyse this in detail, because suddenly we realise that this sin of Gideon is not so alien to us. - You will see this immediately when I say that Gideon did not deny the God of his fathers, he just did not hold fast to the traditions of his fathers, he broke the link, in today's language, with the church and the temple. And here I am confronted with the faces and voices of a whole host of people who behave in exactly this way... I am thinking, for example, of the detractors who are full of complaints about the Church and its leaders, saying that it is terrible that the Hungarian Reformed Church has given in.I believe in God, someone said, but I do not want a Church with bishops who have such and such sentiments. - I don't deny the faith of my Calvinist ancestors, said another, but that's why I don't go to church when there are peace ministers preaching there - or I think of those beautiful people who, when we invite them to a church service or Bible study, say with a straight face: 'Please, for me, music is worship! An oratorio, a symphony is a deeper religious experience for me than a sermon in church. Or: My church is nature. Or I think of those people who are always in a hurry, who sigh and say, "I would love to go, please, I would love to go, but I don't have the time, I don't have the time to sit there and listen to the Word like others. How common is the attitude of the Gideon, who does not deny the God of his fathers, but does not cling to the traditions of his fathers: he does not become an unbeliever, but does not go to church, he breaks his relationship with the church, with the temple.
Going even further, Gideon does not deny the God of his fathers, he just does not cling tightly to the legal centre of worship and worships God in his own individual way. Our religion also has a legitimate high priest: Jesus Christ, it has a centre of worship: the cross, it has a legitimate sanctuary: Calvary. Here you can meet the living God, through Jesus you can honour and worship God, experience the presence of God. Well, there are many Reformed people who have never come to the cross and therefore do not cling closely to Jesus, but practice their communion with God without Jesus, worshipping God in their own individual way. I have my own individual idea of God and in that idea there is no place for the cross of Jesus. I am religious, but not in the way the church teaches, but in my own way. He remained a believer, but in his own way! (Foot washing scene... Not the true ephod, but an imitation = not the true God, but an imitation, an individual idea).
Or again in other words, Gideon's sin today may be that someone, say you, is not an unbeliever but you don't hold tightly to the Bible. You still believe in Jesus, you just don't necessarily consider what Jesus teaches about purity of life, for example, about selfless service, about loving your enemies. You tolerate in yourself sins that, if you really want to follow Jesus, you should not tolerate any longer, you give in to desires that come from the depths of your old, corrupt heart. You do not count up in your life the disorder that God has long since judged in it, so you do as Gideon did: that is, you do not deny the God of your fathers, but neither do you make a great problem of obeying Him. You believe in God, you just don't let yourself be bothered by what God says in his Word, you are not consistent, there is a difference between your verbal faith in God and your practical life, one does not overlap the other - so you don't hold tightly to what Jesus says...
2) This sin of Gideon doesn't seem so great and damaging in itself, only when you look at the effect, the consequence. Behold, we read, "Let this be for the destruction of Gideon and of his household." So this individual religiosity of Gideon's, which he has developed, becomes pernicious in its consequence. On the next page, the account goes on to say, "And it came to pass, when Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned away from the Lord, and committed fornication with the Baals, and made Baal-berith their gods. And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies round about." So this seemingly insignificant deviation that Gideon committed by making himself an ephod instead of the lawful ephod: this was the gap through which pagan idolatry again poured into the lives of the people of Israel. Gideon himself had not yet become a Gentile, he remained godly, he did what he did with very pious intentions. But the people broke away from the sanctuary, neglected the sacrifices of the law, also began to go about their whole religious life in their own way - and what was the result? As long as Gideon was alive, there was still some loose, external relationship between God and the people, but as soon as Gideon died, the children of Israel turned away from the Lord. Then Gideon's ephod was no longer enough, they began to wash away the old, outdated forms of religion, new religion came into vogue, new gods began to be worshipped. "And it came to pass, when Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned away from the Lord, and committed fornication with the Baals, and made Baal-berith their gods. And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies round about." And the whole process of defilement began with Gideon making himself an ephod instead of the legal ephod. Thus Gideon's sin became the snaring of the whole house of Israel. This is the inevitable consequence of individualistic religiosity.
An incredibly modern story: the fathers are still religious, the sons are now irreligious! The old are still believers - in their own way - the young are now unbelievers. The old generation is still somewhat God-fearing, the new generation is atheist. It is a process that is a world phenomenon all over the world. And where does it start? There, that the fathers, the old people do not deny God, they just do not cling tightly to the church, the church, the cross of Jesus, the Bible - all that is missing is: "always and firmly"... Just a little loosening of your Christianity, and through this gap, unbelief, idolatry, will pour into families, and wash away those who come after us, washing out of them even the little Christianity we still have! As long as the Gideons are alive, they can still have some small influence on their people - but as soon as they die, die out, the second generation will have broken with religion, will have turned their backs on the church, they don't need God! It all starts with the fact that the Christianity of the Gideons is not a consistent Christianity, their life of faith is not a life of faith that is always and strongly attached to Christ, to the Scriptures, their whole religiousness is an individual religiousness that has been torn from the new ground. It is no wonder if the descendants do not want it! Our flat, hollow, half-way Christianity, our weakened faithfulness to the Church, will take its revenge in the sons. The unfaithfulness of the fathers leads the sons to unbelief, to the denial of all faith. If you do not hold fast and firmly to the trust which you have begun, do not be surprised if the old story is repeated with you, "And it came to pass, when Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned away from the Lord, and committed fornication with Baal, and made Baal-berith their gods. And the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God, who delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies round about."
The fall of Gideon had terrible consequences for his own family. In the next chapter, one of Gideon's sons, Abimelech, who now openly pretends to be king, ruthlessly and single-mindedly rises to power, has all his brothers killed, and his person becomes a veritable curse for the whole nation. His reign is one of the darkest pages in the whole history of Israel. But this sad story begins with the downfall of Gideon the father: the infidelity that Gideon committed at the end of his life became the 'dagger' of his entire household. Indeed: what a man sows, a man reaps! The unfaithfulness of believers has terrible consequences. The child of God cannot sin cheaply! His fall is avenged in his descendants! One wrong example can lead whole generations to go astray. We often forget this and show very little self-criticism in judging our children. We complain about today's youth, about today's morals, we make comparisons between then and now - but do we think that our children's sins could be our sins' children? Do we not recognise in the mistakes of our young people the consequences of our own character flaws?! You parents, who complain about your children, what if one day you heard them complaining about you? I do not want to defend anyone's sin, I only want to say that when we complain, let us ourselves stand by our children and confess our sins, our infidelities, of which we parents are guilty together with our children, and confess together that the only hope for all of us, parents and children, young and old, is the free grace of God through Jesus Christ!
And that grace is open to us, now, still! God keeps his word, keeps his covenant faithfulness, accepts those who come to him - he is willing to begin again with us! Let us therefore go out to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no city here to stay, but we seek the future. Wherefore let us always offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name."
Let's respond to this with verses 1 and 6 of canto 200:
O abide with thy mercy
With us, Jesus,
That the sinful world
We shall not fall into prison.
O abide in thy faithfulness
With us, holy God,
Give us the strength to stand
In faith to the end.
Amen!
Date: 6 March 1960.