Numbers 24:1-2

This next one is interesting. Please go to Numbers 24. I have used these scriptures before. They are right in the middle of the story of Balaam. I happen to like the story of Balaam. I am just going to pull out a few verses here, particularly the first five verses. This is another thing that the Holy Spirit does for us. It did it here for this pagan sorcerer.

Let us notice what the Spirit does to Balaam:

What happened when God sent His Spirit upon this pagan sorcerer? It opened his eyes! It made him see. This is one of the chief effects of the Holy Spirit. It reveals the truth to a person. Now I did not say that the person accepted the truth, in this case with this man, he certainly did not over the long haul. But the Holy Spirit came in power and opened his eyes so that he could see what God saw. God saw Israel defeating all his enemies, being blessed, and having all these good things happen. Later on, in verse 17, he even gives a prophesy of the Savior coming from Israel, the Redeemer of mankind!

So, the Holy Spirit, when it comes upon a person, makes a person see what is real, makes him see reality, makes him see what is actually going on. Like I said, as God sees things. As it says there in I Corinthians 2, we have the mind of Christ; that is what happens when it comes upon us. We can then look at situations, doctrines, or whatever, and have an understanding of what God is trying to make us see. It opens our eyes to what is true, and what is real.

To use another metaphor, it takes the blinders off that Satan's deceptions have clamped on the whole world. When a horse has blinders on, it can only see straight ahead. It cannot see the whole picture. But when you take the blinders off, he can see everything around him and all the influences of what is happening. The same thing happens with us. We may have an understanding, a very narrow understanding, of the Bible before we are ever called. But when the Holy Spirit comes everything is opened wide. We see things in a way that we never saw them before because it is the way that God looks at things.

Now, obviously when we are first called, we do not have that perfect vision. As a matter of fact, it grows over the course of our conversion. But it is the Holy Spirit working in us throughout this period of time that gives us this wider vision, this godly vision of what is. God's truth is reality and it is the Holy Spirit that reveals it to us.