There’s another side to being a leader. Yes, if God raises you up to lead, He will send others to follow. But there’s another side. There will be opposition. There will be those who refuse to follow, even though God is truly the one leading.

Gideon approaches two Israelite towns and asks for bread for his men. They both refuse. Gideon comes back and teaches them a lesson. Some are whipped with thorns. Some are killed.

We don’t always get to see the “reward of the wicked,” as David would say in the Psalms. Again, I don’t know that we would want to or should want to. If but for the grace of God, that’s us in our arrogance not recognizing God moving and joining in.

Where does Gideon get off pronouncing their punishment? He’s clothed with the Spirit. I assume his authority to do so came from God. It’s like Paul announcing to Elymas, as recorded in Acts 13, that he would not see for a time. And it happened. It’s like Elisha calling down a curse on the boys who teased him and bears come and maul them.

I don’t like to think of God acting through people in this way, but He has. When I think of the Two Witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11, I think they will move in the Spirit in this way. They will be submitted to God, clothed in the Spirit, and with the authority of God be able to call down plagues and all such troubles on the enemies of God, who is every man apart from Christ.

You can see why this isn’t a common gift to the Body of Christ. It’s hard to imagine that Elisha wasn’t acting some in the flesh and calling a curse on those boys.

One would have to be dead to self, unselfish to the core, loving with the love of God, to be able to rightly wield such power in the tongue.

If you have any fantasy about calling down a curse on an enemy, then you aren’t that person. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who hate us. Paul speaks blindness on someone, but remember, Paul’s blindness turned into the greatest blessing of his life.