Prophecy Twelve: He Will Make the Blind to See and the Deaf to Hear

Prophecy #12 

“When he comes he will open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf.”    

Isaiah 35:5

But we know there is more to what the Messiah will do than just these two things.

¹ He will bring justice to the nations.

³ He will bring justice to all who have been wronged.

⁶ And you will be a light to guide the nations.

⁷ You will open the eyes of the blind.

You will free the captives from prison,

releasing those who sit in dark dungeons.

Isaiah 42:1,3,6,7

The short list for the signs of Messiah were:

1. Healing the blind
2. Healing the deaf
3. Setting the demon possessed free
4. Bringing justice and righteousness for all.

If I were to treat the prophecy in Isaiah 35 as Messianic and include all the signs of Messiah ministry then we would be back in the realm of only One in all Israel’s history fulfilling this prophecy. But I want to focus on this prophetic statement from the point of view of a healer. We will only look at this statement from the point of view of a healer and not include even the ability to set to the captives free from demon possession. So we will divide the healers from the exorcists and focus only on Jesus as a healer.

Throughout the Bible the record points to there being others who operated in spiritual gifts. It is clear that back in the time of Moses in Egypt, there were those who performed miraculous signs: magicians, wise men and sooth sayers. The same was true in the time of Jesus. There were many charlatan healers and those who healed others. Yet not all were done by the gift of healing from God. The sign of a true healing from God was that the healing was genuine and not a trick and that the person stayed healed. That reduces the pool of the ones healed considerably. I have heard it said that healers at the time of Jesus were “a dime a dozen“. Or in Jesus’ day there were healers “on every street corner”. Many claimed miraculous powers to heal. Much like today. Let’s investigate further.

I think the odds are higher than that. You don’t find one true healer out of every ten who claim to be able to heal without some kind of trick involved. Neither do I think it is as high as one in every thousand. So I am suggesting we opt for one in a hundred as a ball park figure. I am also aware I am using a couple of Americanisms. From my experience I think the true balance of genuine healers from all those who claim to be healers lies somewhere between 1:10 and 1:100. At least that has been my experience even within Christian circles. The proof of the matter is always found in whether it was a true healing and one which lasts. I am also aware that healings can take place after the moment the healing was “spoken out” on stage and that healing can occur in many different ways. You can read one of my own personal healing experiences through the ministry of Graeme Coad in Gem 433. Through that experience I am very aware that healing might not always take place either in the way the healer expected it, nor in the way the healed interpreted the word spoken. But bottom line there has to be the reality of true healing having taken place and for it to be ongoing.

So allow me to opt for one out of a hundred healings claimed or spoken out to be genuine. I will add to this statement, a caveat or proviso related to how we know true healing has taken place. Such a proviso would need to be applied to both the charlatans and those who either genuinely have the gift of healing or those Christians who claim to have seen healing or been healed. Also the healings we ought to include are the ones which can be verified medically. The healings which are easier to verify. Blindness, deafness and healings from medically substantiated illnesses or impairments. I have often thought that the healing claims should be investigated to see what proportion are genuine and did indeed happen as claimed and in fact ended up with the sick or impaired person being healed. But in the absence of such a study having been carried out, I am going to propose an estimate of the likelihood of genuine healing compared with claims being somewhere in the proportion of one in a hundred. You may strongly disagree with me either thinking that estimate is an overly inflated ratio or grossly underestimated. I don’t mind either way. I think the truth lies somewhere between 1:10 and 1:1,000. But in the final analysis after we have covered 16 prophecies, it won’t matter much.

So therefore let’s allow a probability of 1:100.

Representing one chance in one hundred that this prophecy would come true.