ree. What we mean by a vision, therefore, is an
appreciation of God's purposes and plans and a hearty yielding to him
for service in the accomplishment of the same.

Joseph Cook when he was making a plea for China's millions said one
day, "Put your ear down to the ground and listen and you will hear the
tramp, tramp, tramp of four hundred millions of weary feet." I have to
say this morning, Lift up your eyes and look, open your ears and listen
and you will both see and hear that God has a great plan for us which
he will reveal to all if only we will permit him to do so. In
proportion as a people loses its faith in a revelation from God it
falls into decay. The student of history recalls vividly the story of
the French Revolution, which is a proof of this statement.

God has always spoken concerning his plans and it has been to living
men and women that he has granted visions. He came to Abraham and he
saw Christ's day and was glad: he visited Moses and he endured as
seeing him who is invisible: he was lifted up before Isaiah and he
first confessed his sin and shame, then cried, "Here am I, send me."
He granted Saul of Tarsus a vision of himself as he approached Damascus
until he cried, "Who art thou?" and then began to walk in fellowship
with him until like the hero that he was he mounted from the Eternal
City to that City which has foundations whose Builder and Maker is God.
He stood before John as in apocalyptic vision he saw him with his head
and his hair, white like wool, as white as snow and his eyes as a flame
of fire.

But if you should say, "Oh, yes, but this is in Bible times and we are
living in a different age," then hear me when I say that he has come to
living men and women in our own day with a revelation of his will. He
spoke to Zinzendorf and we have a mighty work among the Moravians. He
revealed himself to the Wesleys and we have the mighty movement of
Methodism. He talked with Edwards and we have the great Revival of New
England. He revealed himself to Finney and we have the great
manifestation of power in the state of New York. He walked and talked
with Moody and we have the greatest evangelistic work of his day and
generation with Moody as his instrument. These were all men with
visions. He has come to great missionaries like Paton who saw the New
Hebrides Islands evangelized while yet they sat in darkness, because he
saw God. He has spoken to our own Fulton in China, who writes that t