‘And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family’ (Judges 8:27).

Alexander the Great was an amazing tactician who constantly surprised his enemies by winning victories against almost impossible odds. But his life didn’t finish well. Wanting to be worshipped like a god and wanting to complete the conquest of India, his men refused to follow him anymore and he was forced to abandon the campaign! In the end he died at the age of 32, his body ravaged by fever. His legacy faded as his great empire fell apart. Gideon’s story is, in some ways, similar. After uncertain start, he’d won an incredible victory. But how will he fare now in his remaining years?

When asked by the people to rule over them like a king and establish a dynasty, Gideon is at his best as he answers: ‘I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the LORD will rule over you.’ He’s spotted a weakness in Israel’s thinking as they have attributed the victory to him (v22). But he knew it was the Lord who had gone before them and fought for them as promised in Deuteronomy 20:4. So he shows good leadership and corrects the people in their thinking!

Yet, in verses 24-27, We get an indication of spiritual decline. Gideons requests the gold plundered during the battle to make an ephod. This was properly intended to unify the people in worship. But, when we read: ‘all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family’ (v27) we realised Gideon has made several mistakes. The phrase: ‘Israel whored after it’ tells us that the people had broken their covenant with God and were using this ephod like an idol, breaking the second commandment (Exodus 20:4-6). Secondly, Gideon had placed this in his hometown, and worship was only to be carried out at: ‘the place the LORD your God will choose’ (Deuteronomy 12:4) the place where the ark of the Lord resided. Lastly, it became: ‘a snare to Gideon and his family’ (v27). As an ephod was connected with priestly duties, this suggests Gideon and his sons took on that role, which they was not qualified to do! But these mistakes were symptomatic of a bigger one, Gideon didn’t pay attention to what the Lord commanded in his Word! There’s a lesson for us as individuals and churches here, as soon as we compromise what scripture teaches, we’re on a slippery slope!

The phrase ‘to have won the battle, but lose the war.’ could easily sum up the legacy that was left after Gideon’s last years. In verse 28 we are informed that: ‘the land had rest for 40 years in the days of Gideon.’ Yet the spiritual decline of verses 24-27 continues and then accelerates after Gideon’s death! Gideon may have turned down the role of king, but he’d acted like one! Why? Because he was not living by God’s law. Israel was entitled to have a king and the Lord had given very clear instructions about kingship which we find in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. There we read that the king was not to have many wives. Yet we read in verses 29-31 that: ‘Gideon had seventy sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives. And his concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he called him Abimelech.’ So he’s living like an Ancient Near Eastern potentate, and one of his sons has a name which means ‘my father the king.’ Rather interestingly, we read in Deuteronomy 17:18-20 that the king was to write out a copy of the Law. Whether this was a summary like the Ten Commandments or the whole of the book of Deuteronomy, we don’t know. But what we do know is he was to read it each day. Yet, everything seems to indicate Gideon’s daily Bible study was severely lacking! In the end, we would love to skip from verse 23, where Gideon refuses kingship, to verse 28 where we told that in Gideon’s day the land enjoyed 40 years of peace. That way we’d miss out these final disappointing years!

Verses 32-35 record Gideon’s death, and it’s sad aftermath with Israel so quickly turning back to the worship of: ‘the Baals’ and forgetting everything that Lord had done in delivering them. Despite Gideon’s poor spiritual example, we can’t help feeling disappointed when we read that Israel: ‘did not show steadfast love to the family of Jerubbaal (that is Gideon) in return for all the good that he had done to Israel’ (v35).

The danger with this is we shake our head solemnly and say that wouldn’t happen here. But the number of times I’ve heard people say to me “that used to be a really good Gospel preaching church twenty years ago” is mounting with every year. It’s always said in the spirit of ‘what happened?’ The answer is simple, it wasn’t something that could be easily noticed, like a bunch of heretics suddenly seizing the leadership and the teaching of the church. It’s more likely that a sermon was preached where something important was left out from the passage. Slowly, but with increasing regularity, scripture was compromised, until very little was left!

The character of Gideon should teach us that ultimately, all human leadership fails in some way. What we actually need is God’s king the Lord Jesus Christ who was humble in his earthly ministry. ‘Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross’ (Philippians 2:6-8).