When Watchmen Sleep!

Part 1 of 2: The Burden of the Desert - "Watchman, What of the Night?"

"Both Morning and Night; Ask Now—Or Later; Go, Or Maybe Come Back"

Confused? You should be. That's the answer a desperate people received when they cried out "Watchman, what of the night?" It's unclear. Maybe evasive! It doesn't help anyone prepare for anything. And it's exactly what millions are getting from ministry today.

You can find a sermon on almost anything these days. A quick search will give you twelve different perspectives on the same Bible verse, each claiming to be biblical, each confident they're right. Podcasts, YouTube channels, Instagram theologians, well-known pastors: everyone has something to say. The noise can be overwhelming.

Think about this for a moment: Noise isn't the same as truth!

People are walking away from Christianity in record numbers. Only 62% of Americans now identify as Christian. Only 20% attend church weekly. Some studies of actual church attendance estimate the real number of engaged believers at roughly 5%. We are watching a mass exodus, not primarily because people reject Jesus, but because they can't find solid ground. They're drowning in religious content but starving for truth.

This isn't a new problem. The prophet Isaiah saw it coming.

In Isaiah 21, we encounter two prophetic burdens, weighty messages that demand attention. One is the burden of the desert, where Babylon falls but something equally wicked rises to take its place. The other is the burden of Dumah, where desperate people call out for direction but receive only silence and ambiguity. These ancient burdens mirror our modern crisis with unsettling precision.

Both point to the same danger: God's people left without clear guidance, watchmen who have fallen asleep, and a generation vulnerable to captivity they don't recognize until it's too late.

In this first post, we'll examine the burden of the desert and what it reveals about the spiritual danger facing believers today.

The Burden of the Desert: Escaping One Captivity, Entering Another

Isaiah 21 opens with a disturbing vision. The prophet sees Babylon, the great empire that had held God's people in exile, finally falling. The Medes and Persians are coming like whirlwinds from the desert, sweeping through to overthrow the city. This should be good news. Babylon represented oppression and bondage. Its fall should mean freedom.

But Isaiah isn't celebrating. He's troubled. Listen to his words:

A grievous vision is declared unto me... Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travails: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it. My heart panted, fearfulness frightened me¹² (Isaiah 21:2-4).

Why is Isaiah so disturbed by Babylon's fall? Because while he's watching the literal Medes and Persians take over, he realizes the deeper implication of what's unfolding as he looks into the future of God's chosen people. Yes, literal Babylon is falling. But spiritual Babylon, a system of confusion, compromise, and bondage, is rising to take its place.

Part of his pain was seeing that before Babylon would fall, God's people would enter into exile.

Here's the critical distinction: literal Babylonian captivity meant physical restrictions. But spiritual Babylon operates through confusion. It restricts you by making truth unclear, by blending the holy with the profane, by making you think you're free when you're actually bound.

This is the greater danger. You can escape physical exile and then walk right into bondage of the soul without realizing it. You can leave one form of oppression and embrace another simply because you weren't watchful enough to recognize the trap.

The Danger of Spiritual Sleep

The burden of the desert carries another warning: watchmen who fall asleep at their posts. In ancient cities, watchmen stood on walls and towers, scanning the horizon for approaching threats. When darkness came, the watchman's vigilance became critical: if he slept, if he grew complacent, the city was vulnerable.

The Bible speaks often about spiritual sleep, and it's never a compliment. Proverbs warns: "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep", and poverty will ambush you like a thief, your need will assault you like an armed robber²⁷ (Proverbs 6:10-11).

Spiritual complacency, that lazy drowsiness where you stop paying attention to real threats, opens the door to poverty of soul and attack from the enemy.

Jesus warned His own disciples about this very danger:

What, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation⁸⁶ (Matthew 26:40-41).

Even the closest followers of the Christ struggled to stay spiritually alert when it mattered most.

This is what Isaiah feared. While Babylon was falling, who was watching for the next threat? If the watchmen were asleep, if the people were complacent, they would simply trade one form of bondage for another.

Modern Spiritual Babylon

Many live in an age of spiritual Babylon. Not the literal empire, but the system it represents, a religious landscape so full of confusion that people can't tell the difference between truth and error, between what honors God and what grieves Him.

We see this everywhere today: congregations that blend biblical Christianity with foreign religions and pagan practices, ministries that preach prosperity over holiness, teachers who claim God accepts any sincere belief, movements that reshape biblical morality to match culture, leaders who elevate feelings above Scripture.

These systems look religious. They use biblical language. They may even produce emotional experiences that feel spiritual. But they lead to bondage, not freedom. The enemy doesn't need to drag you into obvious evil. He just needs to slyly lead you into confusion, make you unclear about what God actually requires.

This is why you need watchmen who stay alert when darkness falls, who can see threats approaching from the darkness, who refuse to let the people of God drift into compromise.

But what happens when the watchmen themselves can't, or won't, give clear answers?

Coming Next (Watchman)

The burden of the desert warns us about spiritual Babylon and sleeping watchmen. But Isaiah 21 contains another burden, one even more haunting: the burden of Dumah. It's only two verses long, but it captures the crisis we're living through right now.

People crying out for direction. Watchmen giving unclear answers. A generation left vulnerable because no one will give them certain truth.

In Part 2, we'll examine what happens when spiritual leaders fail to give clear direction, and what the biblical solution actually looks like.

The question isn't just whether Babylon is falling. The question is: who's watching what rises in its place?

Footnotes:

^¹² Isaiah 21:2-4; ^²⁷ Proverbs 6:10-11; ^⁸⁶ Matthew 26:40-41