This is the Laodicean condition. Christ is outside the Laodicean desiring to come in. The Laodicean thinks he is fully clothed, he has all that he needs, but he's naked, blind, and miserable, and poor. And Gideon is using the ephod and the breastplate to describe a priest that needs to develop patience and that lacks genuine consecration and that is symbolizing a legal religion. Signs of the times, July 28, 1881. The ephod and the breastplate were regarded with pride because of their costly, and this is Gideon's ephod, because of their costly material and exquisite workmanship. And after a time, they were looked upon with superstitious reverence. Brothers and sisters, for me, superstitious, in my understanding, meant something magical. But in the Webster's Dictionary of Sister White's day and age, superstition doesn't necessarily encompass the magical thought that was in my mind with that word. Let me read what Webster says about it. This is the 1828 Webster's Dictionary. Superstition. Excessive exactness or rigor in religious opinions or practice, extreme and unnecessary scruples in the observance of religious rights not commanded or of points of minor importance, excessive or extravagance in religion, the doing of things not required by God, or abstaining from things not forbidden, or the belief of what is absurd or belief without evidence. Two, false religion, false worship. Three, right or practice proceeding from excess of scruples in religion. In this sense, it admits of a plural. When Sister White here in Signs of the Time, July 28, 1881, says that after a while they regard this press plate of Gideon with superstitious reverence, it means they developed a legal religion connected with it, the religion that is a form of godliness that hides the power thereof, a religion of externals. Spirit of Prophecy, page 388, 384. A religion of externals is attractive to the unrenewed heart. The pomp and ceremony of the Catholic worship have a seductive, bewitching power by which many are deceived, and they come to look upon the Roman church as the very gate of heaven. None are proof against her influence, but those who have planted their feet firmly upon the foundation of truth and whose hearts are renewed by the Spirit of God. Thousands who have not an experimental knowledge of Christ will be swept into this deception. A form of godliness without the power is just what they desire. The Romanist feels at liberty to sin because the church claims the right to sin.