We shall take the subject in two parts —
I. The Vision II. The Appeal.
I.
The Vision.
" A vision appeared to Paul in the night ; There was a man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him."
1. A vision. The word (opa^a) is used by St. Luke eleven
1 W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 198.
ACTS xvi. 9 123
times in Acts (elsewhere in N.T. only in Matt. xvii. 9). It is expressive more naturally of a vision during wakefulness, whereas " dream " (omp) is the usual term for a vision during sleep.
2. The Meaning of tlie Vision.
(1) Whoever St. Paul's night visitant may have been it is impossible to overlook the fact that great importance attached to the occurrence. To St. Paul " the vision was the reflexion of waking thoughts, and the revelation of the will of God " (Eugene Bersier); it is easy to understand his eagerness to follow this vision after he had been twice hindered in his purpose, and although it may well be that neither he nor St. Luke regarded the journey from Troas to Philippi as a passage from one continent to another continent, yet, to St. Paul, the extension of Christ's kingdom was the one burning desire, and in the good Providence of Him who " sees with larger other eyes than ours," the vision was instrumental in pointing the way for the founding of St. Paul's first European Church. It is perhaps venturesome to say that the Gospel was now first preached on the continent of Europe, as the good tidings may have reached Eome through the Jews and proselytes who heard St. Peter on the Day of Pentecost.
(2) As our pioneer Apostle stood on this Asiatic frontier, among its stirring historic recollections, we must not suppose his thoughts rested long or chiefly upon them. His ardent desire to advance his Master's work, together with an ever-present sense of his responsibilities, urged him to unflagging activity. Besides, the remarkable providential guidance under which he had been led hither, must have induced him to expect still further direction. There were heights of heathenism, vast expanses of moral darkness lying beyond the western horizon. Does his Master design that he shall scale those heights, that he shall penetrate those wastes ? The vision leaves him no longer in doubt as to the field he shall enter.
(3) He receives no direct instructions, but the intimation and signs of a symbolic vision. He does not receive an explicit command, or demonstrative proof of the particular path on which God wishes him to walk, but implicit indications, inferential proof of both. In his peculiar circumstances, in his expectant state of mind, with his past experience of the ways in which God guides,
i24 COME OVER AND HELP US
he speedily and rightly understands the instructions God means to communicate to him. He speedily interprets the vision ; in it he hears the voice of God and the voices of his destitute fellow- men calling to him. Their spiritual distress and need comes as the cry of men perishing for lack of help, which he can give — the cry of those who have no vision, and are ready to perish in the misery of sin and ignorance of the Gospel. We read in the verse following the text, "After he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us to preach the Gospel unto them."
(4) What does the vision mean for us ? It is a repetition with renewed emphasis of the command, " Go ye into all the world." It is a call to interpret the symbol in the light of all our knowledge. Archbishop Temple has said : " The call to preach the Gospel to all nations, to every creature, has become more imperative, because it has become more clearly understood, and more completely within our reach. We know now what is meant by ' all nations.' We can count the nations ; we can sum up all their languages ; we can precisely define their limits. The habitable world has become, not a vast, vague, unlimited expanse, but a definite area, with bounds that can be traced upon a map. And so, too, now, all the nations have become accessible ; we not only know them, but we also know how to reach them." They wait our answer to their appeal. They wonder why we delay to come to them.
T| There is an old story that caught fire in my heart the first time it came to me, and burns anew at each memory of it. It told of a time in the southern part of our country when the sanitary regulations were not so good as of late. A city was being scourged by a disease that seemed quite beyond control. The city's carts were ever rolling over the cobble-stones, helping to carry away those whom the plague had slain.
Into one very poor home, a labouring man's home, the plague had come. And the father and children had been carried out until on the day of this story there remained but two, the mother and her baby boy of perhaps five years. The boy crept up into his mother's lap, put his arms about her neck, and with his baby eyes so close, said, " Mother, father's dead, and brothers and sister are dead; — if you die, what'll I do?" The poor mother had thought of it, of course. What could she say ? Quieting her voice as much as possible, she said, " If I die, Jesus will come for you." That was quite satisfactory to the boy. He had been