The Burden of the Valley of Vision

The Burden of the Valley of Vision

Describing the messages about the “valley of vision” (Isaiah 22), God’s light does not present the believer with inflamed “imaginary” pictures and fantasy of spiritual things, and does not keep believers living in an imaginary realm of spiritual delight, but rather enables them to see “things as they are” in the sight of God. One does, by the strength of this light, see with the inward eye spiritual realities as clearly as men see with the outward eye. The eyes of understanding, enlightened by God’s light, see through the snare of false impression, which Satan would lay down for the believer, to keep him in ignorance regarding the truth of his normal condition.

To see the world in any measure as God sees it will involve pain and suffering to those who have this vision. “The burden of the valley of vision” lay heavy upon those who had it. Read Isaiah 22:4. The vision in the sense of sight of “things as they are” in the sight of God means pain.

And those who have the “burden of the valley of vision” are the “watchmen” given of God to the world. They can be called “prophets,” “seers,” “watchmen,” or “witnesses,” as in the New Testament, but they have all the same marks upon them. (1) They have the burden of vision, (2) the pain of vision, and (3) the responsibility of vision.

In the days of Eli, it is said, “There was no open vision”; therefore, the “Word of the Lord was ‘rare’ in those days;” for Eli, the aged priest, placed his family interests before the righteousness of God, and God could not give to him “open vision” for His people. Alas for the people when the representatives of the Holy God lose “vision” through self-interest. For God must be first in all things if His servants are to be given “open vision,” to communicate with authority His will to the people. “I will raise Me up a faithful priest,” said the Lord to Eli, through the mouth of a “man of God.” (1 Sam. 2:27,35). For neither vision nor “voice“ could be granted to him directly whilst he was a partaker of sin, through not restraining the sin in his family. (Prov. 29:24-25). So, the “open vision” came to a little child who grew up to be the “faithful priest” whom God and Israel needed. (Samuel’s first prophesy was such a harsh word for him to relate, that even God Himself said of it: “Behold, I will do something in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.” And Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision. Eli’s great failure lay in the fact that he knew of their great iniquity, and that his sons had made themselves vile, but he did not restrain them. 1 Sam. 3:11,15.)

“Where there is no vision, the people perish” or “cast off restraint,” said the Preacher in Prov. 29:18, and “vision,” clear spiritual vision, is our great, great need today; power to see, even though it means “burden” and pain’’, and penalty of sight.

But let us note that: (1) The watchman becomes a watchman, not by choice, but by finding himself with the burden upon him.

“O Lord, You have enticed me, and I was enticed: You are stronger than I and have prevailed:” cried Jeremiah (Jer. 20:7,13). When the Lord revealed Himself one day to him, and putting forth His hand, touched his mouth, saying: “Whatsoever I command you, you shall speak,” Jeremiah did not know all that it would mean. He was “enticed” by the Lord, he said, or drawn on into a path from which he could not afterwards retreat, however much it cost him. God would make Jeremiah “a defenced city, and an iron pillar,” standing alone with God. Jeremiah was given the power of vision of the purpose of God, but the “burden” and the “pain” were sure to follow, as they truly did, until he often cried out that it was more than he could bear.

It is so today with God’s witnesses. They are “watchmen” with the burden and pain of vision for the Church of God and find no way of escape from it other than to flee from it. They are to be found in every section of the professing Church, men and women lifting their voices after secret agony and prayer, against the worldliness, the selfishness, and the unrighteousness, etc, which is found there.

2. The watchman has a responsible duty.

“Thus, has the Lord said unto me, ‘Go, set a watchman; let him declare what he sees.’” (Isa. 21:6) It is his responsibility to say what he sees, for he has the “burden of vision,” not what he wishes, or what he would desire to come to pass, but what he sees! “If the watchman sees the sword come, and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person . . . his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.” (Ezek. 33:6) “I have made you a watchman unto the house of Israel,” said the Lord to Ezekiel. “Warn the wicked . . . warn the righteous man that the righteous sin not . . .” And Ezekiel “warned” by telling what he saw. The “burden of vision” was upon him, with its responsibility, as well as its pain. The “watchman” must say what he sees, not what the people wish or desire. He is not responsible for the success of his message, nor for its reception. He has but to “deliver his Soul.”

3. The watchmen with the “burden of vision” are the ones who are impelled to pray.

I have set watchmen upon your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace, day nor night.” (Isa. 62:6). The “burden of vision” impels the believer Godward as well as manward. The “watchman,” with the “burden of vision,” can only keep his vision clear and “declare what he sees,” as he is in continual communication with the Lord of Hosts, in the place of vision, looking on from a place with God at the doings on earth, not holding peace day or night in the Spirit from crying out to God with the “burden of vision,” nor holding peace manward when God says, “declare what you see!”

4. The watchman can lose his vision and burden by the least entrance of self-interest. Read Isa. 56:10-11. Eli lost his power of vision by simply taking the negative attitude of no protest against sin; he “frowned not upon” what he knew to be wrong. That the sin of silence is reckoned partnership in sin is plainly shown in Lev. 5:1; and sifts us all in these days of blurred lines in the way of righteousness. The enemy of souls is having free course because men will not speak the truth to one another, and “deliver their souls” before God. Let the children of God who have had the “burden of vision” take heed. Personal interest must be put aside in every shape and form, for the very least trace of self-interest, fearing loss of reputation, or friends, or influence will blur the vision, and make the otherwise faithful watchman blind, and unable to speak in the hour of need.

5. The watchman must expect to suffer both in body and soul. Isaiah saw in the land what the people did not see, and so he must suffer. The “burden of vision” was given to Jeremiah, and he had to deliver his “burden” whether he would or not, even though it meant the stocks and prison, but this was little by the side of a broken heart. He cried: “Mine heart within me is broken . . . because of the Lord, and because of His holy words.” (Jer. 23:9). He saw the hands of evil doers strengthened, because the Word of the Lord was not declared faithfully. The men of “vision” are men with broken hearts. Was it not so even with the Lord Himself? “He saw the city and wept over it.” And Paul the apostle had the same “burden of vision,” saying to the elders at Ephesus, “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God . . . by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears . . . .” (Acts 20:27, 31) “Am I become your enemy because I deal truly with you?” he wrote to the Galatians. And “Who is stumbled, and I burn not?” he said to the Corinthians.

May God give an increasing number of such “watchmen” in these days of peril. Believers who will be “eyes” to the Body of Christ (the Church), with power to see clearly from their place, and “teach (God’s) people the difference between the holy and the common and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean,” so that the Church may pass safely amidst the perils of her course through the hosts of darkness to the throne.