Why do You show me iniquity, and
cause me to see trouble? (Habakkuk 1:3)
The word "burden" here
just does mean a load or weight, as much as a man can
carry. Thus the Prophets felt what the Lord had shown
them to be something that weighed heavily upon them and
often overwhelmed them.
The prophetic function
is brought into operation at a time when things are not
well with the people and work of God, when declension has
set in; when things have lost their distinctive Divine
character; when there is a falling short or an accretion
of features which were never intended by God. The Prophet
in principle is one who represents – in himself and his
vision – God's reaction to either a dangerous tendency or
a positive deviation. He stands on God's full ground and
the trend breaks on him. That which constitutes this
prophetic function is spiritual perception, discernment,
and insight. The Prophet sees, and he sees what
others are not seeing. It is vision, and this
vision is not just of an enterprise, a "work," a
venture; it is a state, a condition. It is not for the
work as such that he is concerned, but for the spiritual
state that dishonors and grieves the Lord.
This faculty of
spiritual discernment makes the Prophet a very lonely
man, and brings upon him all the charges of being
singular, extreme, idealistic, unbalanced, spiritually
proud, and even schismatic. He makes many enemies for
himself. Sometimes he is not vindicated until after he
has left the earthly scene of his testimony.
Nevertheless, the Prophet is the instrument of keeping
the Lord's full thought alive, and of maintaining vision
without which the people are doomed to disintegration.... The Lord needs that
which really does represent His fullest possible thought,
and not those who are just doing a good work. But it
costs; and this is the "burden of the valley of
vision."