Also known in Hebrew as Pokeach Ivrim which translates to the opener of blind eyes.
The very first thing for any of us to come to the Lord, is the opening of our blind eyes so that we can see and understand spiritual things and our need for salvation.
There are many references to blindness in scripture, both physical and spiritual, in fact so many that it is difficult to choose between them, so I will try to cover only a selected few here.
Jesus met both physical and spiritual needs and is the fulfilment of all the prophecies about this aspect.
We all need our eyes opened to the reality of God and to be rescued from spiritual blindness.
The key scripture which covers our theme is Psalm 146.8, which tells us that;
The Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
The Lord raises those who are bowed down;
The Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord Yehovah (Messiah Pre-Incarnate) opens the eyes of the blind.
Jesus fulfils Isaiah 42.6-8 in what is commonly called, the Jesus Manifesto;
“I, the Lord Yehovah (Messiah Pre-Incarnate), have called You in righteousness,
And will hold Your hand;
I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people,
As a light to the Gentiles,
7 To open blind eyes,
To bring out prisoners from the prison,
Those who sit in darkness from the prison house.
8 I am the Lord Yehovah (Messiah Pre-Incarnate), that is My name;
And My glory I will not give to another,
Nor My praise to carved images.”
This is also referenced in Luke 4.18;
“The Spirit of the Lord Yehovah Kurios is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
Jesus does not ignore, but helps unconditionally.
He does not blame the person for the problem, but helps them out of it.
If we recognize the problem, He helps.
Sickness is not a punishment.
He is the Creator, nothing is impossible for Him.
The Lord Restores Our Spiritual Sight
But spiritual blindness also proves to be a double-edged sword to those who think they have it sorted on their own.
In John 9.39 Jesus has a face-off with the pharisees, who are not happy with his exposure of their views;
39 And Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.”
40 Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?”
41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.
Jesus is the giver of spiritual sight, without vision, we can go nowhere and are spiritually lost.
The only one able to open the eyes of a lost person is Jesus, it is a work of the Holy Spirit.
I remember meeting several people over the years who we desperately wanted to believe and receive salvation as we had, but if God does not open their eyes it was impossible.
You can as they say, lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
I sometimes describe sharing Jesus as being like wanting to share something good, like chocolate, when you find something good, you want to share it with others, but they don’t always see the goodness that you see.
Also, timing plays a big part, breakthrough can only happen at the right time and you can’t force it, we have to trust God’s timing.
David once told me, that the only person in a hurry is the devil, because God has eternity and has all the time in the world.
Nothing is impossible for Him, because He holds the power of life and death.
Joel 2.28 says that God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh and that His sons and daughters will prophesy, dream dreams and see visions.
Spiritual sight is a gift from God to direct our lives, we do not live in a vacuum, in fact one scripture tells us that without vision, the people perish, we need spiritual sight from God.
Scripture also cautions us to test the spirit, and to check where they come from, God or Satan. (1 John 4), we are not supposed to listen to ‘wonky wisdom’, but be subject to the balance of the brethren, not to stifle spiritual sight, but to bring it into a correct, biblical focus.
In Genesis 41.28 God warned Pharoah of the coming famine and he was able to learn how to deal with it through Joseph’s interpretation.
Sometimes God shows us in advance what He is about to do and what we need to do in response to that, certainly always respond in prayer.
Satan tries to manipulate and blind our understanding and we need to pray for discernment so that we will not become disappointed and stopped from acting on the things which are from God.
We are not to walk by physical sight, but by faith in what God has shown us in the Spirit and allow Him to interpret our dreams and visions in the light of His word. We may not always understand what to do, but the Holy Spirit will lead the way.