The Test of Correction before Promotion

Psalm 75: 4-7 AMPC

⁴ I said to the arrogant and boastful, Deal not arrogantly [do not boast]; and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn [of personal aggrandizement].

⁵ Lift not up your [aggressive] horn on high, speak not with a stiff neck and insolent arrogance.

⁶ For not from the east nor from the west nor from the south come promotion and lifting up.

⁷ But God is the Judge! He puts down one and lifts up another.

This Scripture describes how God disguises the possibility of promotion for His children with a test of correction. This means that He will send someone that many times we would not want to receive correction from, be it a boss, spiritual leader, a father, mother or parental figure, siblings, friends, or even people that are younger than us. He will even send complete strangers to make observations that will bring correction to us. But if we show the wrong attitude to that correction whether outwardly or in our hearts, we could forfeit our next promotion. That is because God will test our willingness to submit to one another in love and our spiritual maturity before we can be entrusted with more from Him. 

In the next passage, we see an example of the magnitude and great lengths God goes to help us turn from the wrong way and return to Him and His ways. But He also tests to see if we are seeking promotion in our own way and timing and apart from His leading and guidance by His Spirit. So when He brings correction, it may be that He is also preventing us from a detrimental outcome which could also save our lives. The account in Numbers 22:16-17, 20-33 shows us this principle.

¹⁶ They came to Balaam, and said to him, “Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, ‘I beg you, let nothing hinder you from coming to me. ¹⁷ For I will give you a very great honor and I will do whatever you tell me; so please come, curse these people [of Israel] for me.’” 

²⁰ God came to Balaam at night and said to him, “If the men have come to call you, get up and go with them, but you shall still do only what I tell you.”

²¹ So Balaam got up in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the leaders of Moab.

²² But God’s anger was kindled because he was going, and the Angel of the Lord took His stand in the way as an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. ²³ When the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way and His drawn sword in His hand, the donkey turned off the path and went into the field; but Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back toward the path. ²⁴ But the Angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path of the vineyards, with a [stone] wall on this side and a [stone] wall on that side. ²⁵ When the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, she pressed herself against the wall and crushed Balaam’s foot against it, and he struck her again. ²⁶ The Angel of the Lord went further, and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. ²⁷ When the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam, so Balaam was angry and he struck the donkey [a third time] with his staff. ²⁸ And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?”  

²⁹ Then Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have made a mockery of me! If there had been a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now!” ³⁰ The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life until this day? Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you?” And he said, “No.”

³¹ Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand; and he bowed his head and lay himself face down. ³² The Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to stand against you, because your behavior was obstinate and contrary to Me. ³³ The donkey saw Me and turned away from Me these three times. If she had not turned away from Me, I would have certainly killed you now, and let her live.” AMP

We see in verses 16-17 that Balaam had received an invitation to do something that is contrary to the ways of God and that He mandates us to do: that is to walk in love with one another and bless and not curse. Balaam was asked to curse God`s people whom He had blessed because an enemy that was jealous of the Israelites wanted to use Balaam; someone who did not know his identity in God and was being tempted to seek self-promotion by becoming a stumbling block to God`s people which would have granted him ill-gotten gain and promotion away from the ways of God and His timing during a season of his process. We also see in verse 20 that God used this opportunity to test Balaam and see if he would take the bait of the enemy to promote himself and use what God had put in Him to damage others for his own gain. Balaam did get up to go the way of the enemy of His people, but God sent His Angel to stop him. 

Now the donkey Balaam was riding is a representation of the prophetic gift which includes the office of the Prophet in the Church which God sends to not only give words of encouragement and exultation but also to give words of correction and reveal the wrong ways in which people are going so they can return to the right path. But when the response is of rebellion and wrong attitudes, the correction that could save their lives and preserve them in the path to their destiny, then causes them to forfeit their next promotion. The end-result is that the people will have to go around their mountain again because what God is seeking is a humble attitude that recognizes with repentance when they have gone the wrong way. There is another example of this found in Isaiah 9:8-16, 

 

⁸
The Lord sends a word (message) against Jacob,
And it falls on Israel [the ten northern tribes, the kingdom of Ephraim].
⁹ 
And all the people know it,
That is, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria [its capital],
Who say in pride and arrogance of heart:
¹⁰ 
“The bricks have fallen down,
But we will rebuild [all the better] with ashlar (hewed stones);
The sycamores have been cut down,
But we will replace them with [expensive] cedars.”
¹¹ 
Therefore the Lord raises against Ephraim adversaries from Rezin [king of Aram]
And spurs their enemies on,
¹² 
The Arameans on the east and the Philistines on the west;
And they devour Israel with gaping jaws.
In spite of all this, God’s anger does not turn away
But His hand is still stretched out [in judgment].

¹³ 
Yet the people do not turn back [in repentance] to Him who struck them,
Nor do they seek the Lord of hosts [as their most essential need].
¹⁴ 
Therefore the Lord cuts off head and tail [the highest and the lowest] from Israel,
Both [the high] palm branch and [the low] bulrush in one day.
¹⁵ 
The elderly and honorable man, he is the head;
And the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.
¹⁶ 
For those who lead this people are causing them to go astray;
And those who are led [astray] by them are swallowed up. AMP

In this passage we see that God allowed some circumstances to test the response of His people but all He found was pride and arrogance as well as their willingness to seek to rise up from the ashes while continuing in their defiant ways, never acknowledging the fact that God was seeking humbleness in their hearts and a contrite spirit so they could be restored from their fallen state and back to Him. That is why Proverbs 16:18 says, 

¹⁸ Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall. NKJV

God is seeking true worshipers in this hour (John 4:24) identified as those of us who will allow Him to search our hearts and repent of what He finds in us. It is never God`s intention for His people to perish (John 3:16), but that we find and turn from our wicked ways and be healed and restored back to His original intent for us. It is up to us to choose life and blessing or death and cursing (Deuteronomy 30:19) as demonstrated in the admonishment He gives us in 2 Chronicles 7:14, which says,

¹⁴ If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. AMPC

We can see in this verse the two contingency clauses "if" and "then" which warn that we make a choice to whether or not humble ourselves and take the steps necessary to be restored back to God, then He will hear our pleas to be healed and restored. This is also seen in Galatians 6:7 which highlights, 

⁷ Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] For whatever a man sows, that and that only is what he will reap. AMPC

In addition, in this post I want to insert the link of a video to give you, reader, a visual in hopes to help you understand what God sees at times when He expects more from us, but instead sees the same wrong attitudes. He will go back over and over to check our level of maturity and see if He will find a humble and contrite heart instead of pride and arrogance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g9xn784vu0 Cheesy Commercial

To Him alone be all the glory. ■

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