Things are beginning to take a dark turn. In the last two episodes of the military campaign, Gideon has made it personal. It has become about him, not about God and His glory, and that poison seeps into his actions.

We see it first in his retaliation against Succoth and Peniel. These towns certainly deserve Gideon's anger, as their behaviour is reprehensible (Judges 8:6, 8). The problem is that Gideon responds in a way that is out of proportion to their offence (vv. 16-17). The deliverer is acting like an oppressor because he has made himself the issue. We see it again in Gideon's pursuit of the Midianite kings (vv. 12, 18-21). This is about a personal vendetta-revenge for the death of his brothers-rather than for a national or spiritual cause. Gideon has reduced his God-given victory to a personal feud.

Gideon has come a long way, but now he is drifting quickly away from a focus on God and His agenda for Israel. God wanted to remind Israel that they owed their deliverance to Him alone (Judges 7:2), but Gideon is making it about himself. He has sown the seeds of compromise, and his people will reap a bitter harvest. Sometimes, the most dangerous time is after the battle, not before.

How quickly, too, does human nature forget that the victory is God's and try to take the credit for itself! Jeremiah 17:5 warns us not to trust in man or depend on the flesh for our strength. Yet that is exactly what we see happening among God's people. Out of the Israelites' spiritually ungrateful hearts, there arises an ungodly idea: they give Gideon credit he does not deserve, and offer him a kingship (v. 22).

This request was outside their prerogative. Israel was not a democracy, but a theocracy, with God as the king and the kingmaker. It was His prerogative to give His people a king when and if He pleased (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). Israel did not need a king; they had a King. Likewise, it is God's will for His church to be a theocracy. The New Testament church had elders and deacons who served as shepherds and leaders, but it had only one Head: the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the oldest tendencies of our sinful hearts is to exalt others to the place that belongs only to God.

We must take care that, in our desire for truly biblical authority and dynamic growth in our churches, we do not implicitly reject the teaching of the Word of God about church life.