A Sermon: “And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.”—ACTS XVI. 14, 15

BY THE REV. JAMES S. SINCLAIR, JOHN KNOX’S, GLASGOW.

THE Lord Jesus Christ, in the farewell words which He spoke to His Apostles before He was carried up into heaven, gave them commission to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” The time of the ingathering of the Gentiles had come, and it was the happy privilege of these servants of Christ to go forth, attended by the “all power” which was given to their Lord and Master, to “teach (or make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” The world at large was the field He then set before the apostles and all other truly sent messengers of the gospel to the end of time. It is equally manifest, however, that the Lord still reserved in His own hand the right to prescribe the exact order of time and place in which the gospel message would be proclaimed throughout the nations. This we learn in a very marked way from the section of the chapter which precedes our text. Paul, who was on his second missionary journey, and his fellow-labourer Silas, “had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia,” confirming the churches in the faith, but “were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia,” that is, in what was known as the Roman province of Asia, for they were already in Asia Minor. Then again: “After they were come to Mysia, they essayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not.” Now, this did not imply that the Lord had no intention of ever sending the Gospel to these parts of the world, for we learn from other sources that there were many Christians in these places afterwards, but that He had designed in His all-wise providence to send the Gospel to another continent first. These restraints, though they may appear at first sight discouraging signs, were not so; they taught Paul and Silas in a very clear and distinct way that the Lord was watching all their steps and controlling all their movements in His service, and that they might rely upon Him to guide them in all that they attempted to accomplish in His name. He did not, however, leave them with something “forbidden” only; He gave them a positive call to move in a certain direction. While they tarried for a little at Troas, on the sea-coast, “a vision appeared to Paul in the night: There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us.” This vision led them to conclude assuredly that the Lord had called them to preach the Gospel unto the people of Macedonia, and immediately they loosed from Troas, and sailing across the Egean Sea, which separates Asia from Europe at this point, they came by the island of Samothracia to the town of Neapolis on the Macedonian coast. Thence they proceeded ten miles inland to the city of Philippi. The vivid call that the Lord had given no doubt greatly encouraged Paul and his fellow-labourers (for Luke, the writer of the Acts, was now evidently with Paul and Silas—”we” in the tenth verse) to expect that the divine blessing would abundantly attend their labours in this quarter, and their expectation was not disappointed.

Philippi was the first place in which the Gospel of Christ was preached on the continent of Europe—that continent to which Great Britain and Ireland, as islands of the sea, belong. That circumstance should make the incidents of this chapter of special interest to us. It is to be sincerely hoped that the good work begun among the Philippians will continue without break on this great continent and its adjoining islands to the end of time. “Wherefore, glorify ye the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea” (Isaiah xxiv. 15).

This chapter gives us the record of two outstanding conversions that took place under the ministry of Paul and Silas in Philippi on this memorable occasion—the conversion of Lydia and the conversion of the jailor. The Lord is sovereign undoubtedly in what He pleases to put on record, and in what He chooses to leave out. But there are many things in these distinct cases of conversion that seem to point to the reason for their record—things that are fitted to instruct and edify sinners in all subsequent ages. We can only notice a particular or two. Lydia was a religious woman, a worshipper of the God of Israel; the jailor was, to all appearance, an ungodly heathen. Both needed the new birth, and both got it. Lydia was dealt with in a comparatively gentle way; the jailor was awakened with terrible things in righteousness. Both came to the same spot—the feet of Christ—and both believed on His name. Both confessed Him before men, and both brought forth the same fruits of repentance, faith and love. Thus, while in some particulars they differed from one another, they experienced the same thorough, saving change in heart and life, and were monuments to the praise of God’s glorious grace. Such points of difference and similarity are common in the history of God’s people in all generations.

It is our present purpose, in dependence on the Spirit of truth, to consider the case of Lydia, and in doing so let us observe:

I.—The account that is given of Lydia before her conversion;

II.—The message she heard on this important occasion in her history—”things that were spoken of Paul”;

III.—The blessing which accompanied the message; and

IV.—The proofs which Lydia gave of the genuineness of her conversion.

I.—Let us notice the account that is given of Lydia before her conversion.

1. She was a Gentile by birth. Her own name, common among the Greeks and Romans, and the name of the city, Thyatira, in Asia Minor, to which she originally belonged, prove this. She was born and brought up among the dark Gentiles, who were “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant of promise.” But the day of deliverance for the Gentiles had begun to dawn; God had a chosen people among them. Lydia was evidently led by various steps to the place where she first received “the good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.” This teaches us that when the Lord has a purpose of saving mercy, He can bring the sinner to the Gospel, or send the Gospel to the sinner, no matter in what part of the earth he or she is found. But though Lydia was a dark Gentile to begin with, she became a bright epistle of Christ before the Lord was done with her. “There is nothing too hard” for Him. “Ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord.”

2. She was “a seller of purple” by occupation. She seems to have been a business woman of some standing and means. Purple dye was much in use in connection with the clothing of the rich. You remember that it is said of the rich man in the parable that he “was clothed in purple and fine linen.” The people of Thyatira were famous for their work and commerce in the business of dyeing. Lydia was in all probability a much-occupied and well-situated woman in respect of outward circumstances. Here we observe the grace and power of God in the Gospel. The Lord is able to make all ranks and classes of people willing in the day of His power, willing to count all things but loss and dung that they may win Christ and be found in Him. When the time came, Lydia allowed no consideration of worldly business or gain to stand between her and becoming a devoted follower of the despised Jesus of Nazareth. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John v. 5).

3. She was a Jewish proselyte by religion. She “worshipped God.”

(1) Lydia is here found on the Sabbath in the company of some women, the greater number of whom were probably Jews, worshipping the God of Israel in a quiet spot by the side of a river outside the city. Here “prayer was wont to be made.” It is likely that these devout Jews were either too few to build a synagogue, or were not allowed to do so within the city owing to the opposition of the Gentile rulers. We are not informed how it came to pass that Lydia had renounced the idolatrous religion of her childhood, but renounced it she very definitely had, or she would never have been found in this humble company. It was not altogether an unknown thing for Gentiles of high intelligence and morality to turn away from the foolish practices and grossly immoral rites that were associated with their own religion. Their natural understanding and natural conscience rose in rebellion against the degrading superstitions that were so much believed and practised. Some of them also did not fail to discern that the Jewish religion and worship were of a purer and nobler cast than that with which they were accustomed. To this class Lydia manifestly belonged. But I think, friends, there is more to be observed in her case than mere intellectual discernment. She had been led not only to see the folly of Gentile worship and the excellency of the Jewish, but to identify herself with the Jews in very humble and uninviting circumstances—a few women meeting for prayer by the river-side, outside a city where the Jews were apparently far from well liked. She had been willing to run the risk of some reproach and loss already for her new-found attachment to the faith of Israel. This would seem to prove that a supernatural power was at work—that God had been blessing the testimony of the Jews among the Gentiles, and that He was leading this blind Gentile in a way she knew not, opening her eyes gradually to see the truth of the revelation He had given of Himself in the Scriptures.

(2) Lydia was a conscientious believer in Jehovah as the one living and true God, and in the Old Testament as a divine revelation, at this time in her history, but she was not a truly regenerate person or possessor of saving faith until she heard the Gospel from the lips of Paul, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Whatever faculty of her soul had been hitherto “opened,” her “heart” was not; for this, we are told, was now opened by the Lord Himself. In all likelihood Lydia was, consciously or unconsciously, resting upon her own righteousness as the chief foundation of her hope for eternity. This was the common, practical error of the Jews in her day, and this is the common, practical error of unconverted sinners in every age. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God”; he cannot rise higher than himself; and so, in one way or another, he is building chiefly upon his own character, ability, and attainments as the ground of his acceptance in the sight of God. A half look he has towards the divine mercy, but his main dependence is in his own righteousness. We may be worshippers of God from common conviction, but what will that avail us if our hearts are unrenewed by divine grace and we are not trusting in Christ alone for salvation? “If ye believe not that I am he (saith Jesus), ye shall die in your sins.” “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John iii. 3).

II.—Our second head is the message which Lydia heard on this important occasion—”things which were spoken of Paul.”

Now, we are not told expressly the things which Paul spake at the river side on this Sabbath day, but the silence of the inspired writer does not imply that they were uncommon things that he uttered, but quite the opposite. It suggests that they were just the things Paul was accustomed to speak, which are recorded elsewhere in the Acts and his Epistles. Let us notice very briefly some of these things under three general heads.

1. Things concerning sin.—As we see in the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle was most earnest in pressing home upon the Jews the truth concerning the Fall and its consequences. This was a small Jewish gathering he was now addressing, and it may be justly concluded that he did not omit to bring home the solemn truth of universal depravity—that all, both Jews and Gentiles, had “sinned and come short of the glory of God,” that there was “none righteous, no, not one,” and that all had gone out of the way, and were aliens and “enemies in their minds by wicked works.” (Romans iii. and Col. i.) Still further, the Apostle was wont to declare the dread punishment of sin in such terms as these: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Romans i. 18); “the wages of sin is death” (vi. 23); and those that “know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (1 Thess. i. 8, 9). These truths were required then, and they are as much needed to-day as ever. It is perfectly plain that the modern pulpit has largely forgotten them. Sin and its punishment are hardly ever mentioned. People are allowed to grow up with the idea that they are, on the whole, very good, and are sure of heaven at last, without any special inquiry as to whether they have obtained the forgiveness of sins or the new birth. What ruin this delusion brings at death!

2. Things concerning Christ.—The Lord Jesus was the great and central theme of the Apostle’s preaching. To the Corinthians he said, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.” He preached Jesus Christ as the true Messiah promised unto the fathers; the root of Jesse who should rise to reign over the Gentiles, and in whom the spiritual seed of Abraham everywhere should trust. He proclaimed Him in language of exalted thought and holy fervour, as in His person the eternal Son of God, co-equal with the Father and the Holy Ghost in the undivided Godhead, one “who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (Phil. ii. 6); the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person; God’s dear Son, by whom were “all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth”; the Creator and Upholder of the universe. He also dwelt on the co-related truth that He was “God manifest in the flesh,” God the Son, who assumed into union with Himself a real yet pure humanity—“the likeness of sinful flesh,”—yet “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” Still further, the Apostle preached Christ as the only Redeemer of God’s elect, who “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. ii. 8), and who redeemed a multitude out of every kindred and tongue—“the Church”—by His own blood. “We preach Christ crucified,” says he again, “unto the Jews a stumbling-block and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

3. Things concerning salvation—the provision that is in Christ and the way to attain an interest in it. Christ, by His obedience and sufferings unto death, had provided a righteousness, on the ground of which sinners can be justified in the sight of a holy God. He is “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.” Similarly, as He was made unto His people righteousness, He was also made unto them sanctification. He came to save His people from their sins, and to wash them from all their defilement, so that at last they shall be without “spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Ephes. v. 27). The Apostle was also wont to proclaim that these and other blessings of the new covenant were obtained, not by works, but “by faith in Jesus Christ.” Justification, sanctification, adoption—the complete salvation that is in Christ—was only obtainable by a faith in which the sinner acknowledged himself dead in sins, and a child of wrath, according to the testimony of the word, and yet willing to be saved by grace and grace alone. This saving faith, the Apostle declared, was the gift and the operation of God (Ephes. ii. and Col. ii.), so that, while the word of salvation was freely “preached to every creature which is under heaven” (Col. i. 23), those who received it in truth were debtors to the grace and power of the Holy Ghost for their obedience of faith to the Gospel call. And lastly, the salvation of Christ was eternal in duration. “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. i. 6), the day of His second advent, and of the final glorification of His redeemed.

Such is a very imperfect survey of some of the great things which Paul was accustomed to preach to Jew and Gentile, and which in all likelihood Lydia heard not a little of on this all-important day in her spiritual history.

III.—The blessing which accompanied this message to the heart of Lydia: “whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken.”

1. Let us notice that the “heart” is the main thing that must be affected with a view to receive the Gospel. The word “heart” is generally used in the Scriptures to describe the whole soul of man in all its faculties, understanding, conscience, will and affections, but with a special emphasis upon the will and affections. The Apostle speaks of sinners in their natural estate as having “the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” On the other hand, he teaches that “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” and that by “the love of the truth” men are saved. The faith that is saving in its nature is “with all the heart” (Acts viii. 37). The Scriptures also bring before us a temporary faith which appears to be only an assent of the natural understanding or conscience, or superficial movement of the natural emotions. Many believed in the days of Christ’s personal ministry who afterwards went back and walked no more with Him. Some such believers also associated with the Apostles for a time. But when the whole soul, including the will and affections, is gained to the truth as it is in Jesus, there is evidence of “the renewing of the Holy Ghost”—an heart truly opened by the Lord, that shall never close finally against Him.

2. Let it be observed that the words imply that Lydia’s heart was shut until now. The figure seems to be that of a house, or room, with a door—a not uncommon one in the Bible. “Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me.” Thus spake Christ to Laodicea. Well, we do not open a door that is already opened. It appears to me, therefore, as I have already hinted, that whatever enlightenment Lydia possessed before this as to Jehovah, God of Israel, her heart was unrenewed, and that she had never savingly received the whole counsel of God concerning sin and salvation, even as that is taught in the Old Testament, for the truth is essentially one under both dispensations, and if she had so received it, her “heart” would have been “opened” before this time. She was indeed, like many in our own day, who may receive the truth to a certain extent in their judgments, but are still under the dominion of sin in their affections. They believe, intellectually at any rate, in the existence of God and the truth of the Bible, but they are still dead in sins and uncircumcised in heart. It should be matter of serious enquiry with each one of us how we stand in this respect.

3. The third thing here to be noticed is that the Lord opened her heart. This clearly implies that none but He could open it. For if powerful eloquence, gracious argument, and burning zeal for the salvation of sinners, could have done so, they were all present in the person of the wonderful preacher Paul. But not a word does the inspired writer say of the graces and gifts of the speaker: he only mentions “the things which were spoken,” and attributes the whole work of the opening of the heart to the Lord Himself. How different this is from the ordinary manner of men in writing (and to a certain extent lawfully) about their fellows! The instrument is there; but “Christ is all and in all.” What an indirect but powerful testimony also to the truth which runs through the whole Bible that salvation is of the Lord alone! Let this be deeply considered by each one of us, but not with the fatalistic conclusion that we are to fold our arms in ease and indifference. That is the devil’s logic. Let us remember that if we cannot open our own hearts, there is One who can, and He says, “I will be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them”; “Ask and it shall be given you”; “My son, give me thine heart.”

4. The last thing we shall here observe is that as the result of the Lord’s work, Lydia gave a heart attention to the truth that was spoken of Paul. Every faculty of her soul was wide open for the reception of the truth. How great a work the Lord can accomplish in a short time! The things spoken, accompanied by divine power, found a ready entrance. Her trust in her own righteousness was consumed; she was laid low as a poor, guilty, helpless sinner before God; and she was speedily raised and enabled to believe upon the Son of God as all her salvation and all her desire. By the door of this heart attention it is not too much to say that Christ entered powerfully and savingly into her soul, and she embraced Him in the arms of faith and love. All that is recorded as taking place on her side is attention—an attention divinely wrought, no doubt, but still only an attention. She could add nothing to the Gospel; but it was her blessed privilege to attend and to receive into every chamber of her heart the whole counsel of God for salvation, and pre-eminently the Christ of that counsel. The language of the forty-fifth Psalm, and of the Song of songs, will well set forth her thoughts and feelings, if not her very words; “Thou art fairer than the children of men; grace is poured into thy lips. Thou art the chiefest among ten thousand, the altogether lovely.”

IV.—The proofs which Lydia gave of the genuineness of her conversion—self-sacrificing faith towards the Lord Jesus, and love to the brethren.

1. “She was baptised.” This may seem a comparatively simple matter to many of us in our time. But it was far from simple at that period in the history of the Church. It implies that Lydia had made a public confession of her faith in Christ, a step that then involved the greatest possible risk to her person, family, and possessions. Hers was no weak sentimental belief that might have said, “I will cherish this faith in my heart, but I will not make it known yet, as it may involve much trouble and loss; I must proceed cautiously.” Oh, no; hers was a heavenly flame that consumed every carnal and worldly-wise objection before it. She was determined to count all things but loss and dung, that she might win Christ and be found in Him, and was prepared to sacrifice her life itself, if necessary, for the Lord Jesus. All this the early Christians had to lay in the balance. Lydia had much to lose, house and business and means, but she was ready, by the grace of God, to surrender all for the sake of Christ and the Gospel.

2. She besought Paul and his fellow-labourers to come into her house and abide. She showed warm love to the brethren. Hers was not that lofty and fanciful affection for Christ that has no living attachment to His children. If she now loved “him that begat,” she loved them also that were “begotten of him” (1 John v. 1). If she loved “the great Shepherd of the sheep,” she also loved the under-shepherds who had been instrumentally useful to her soul. She desired a token of spiritual confirmation from the Apostle and his friends: “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord (or a true believer), come into my house and abide there.” And it is added: “and she constrained us.” It would look as if they hesitated to go with her. Perhaps their hesitation thus spake: “You don’t realise, Lydia, the danger to which you are exposing yourself by asking us to your house: yours will become a marked house for persecution in Philippi. Are you prepared to take the consequences”? She persevered in her request; her faithfulness to the Lord triumphed, and received the desired confirmation. “And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. xiii. 13). Love constrained her to throw open her heart and her house to the followers of Christ. Freely she had received, freely she gave. Lydia was “an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”

Now, in conclusion, let each one of us examine himself and herself, whether our hearts have been opened by the Lord to receive the things spoken by the prophets, apostles, and Christ himself. These are the things which have been in our ears and before our eyes since childhood, and we shall have to give a very solemn account, at death and the judgment seat, of our responsibilities if we have never received them into our hearts. They shall rise up to condemn us to “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and of the glory of His power.” Our hearts are shut by a guilty unbelief: all our excuses and palliations will appear as subtle forms of sin and self in the light of eternity. May the Lord lead many of us now to His feet with our stubborn, rebellious, unbelieving hearts, that He may work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure!

And you, whose hearts were opened in a day of mercy, have reason to praise the Lord that He did so of His free grace. You may often feel that iniquities prevail against you through the presence of an old corrupt heart that would shut out Christ, and the Bible, and the Gospel, altogether. But when the Lord has once opened, no power in earth or hell can finally shut. You must come continually to “the throne of grace,” that you may “obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Let us finally observe, from the experience of Lydia, the blessing that may be found, by divine grace, in small meetings gathered in accordance with the Word of God. Many people undervalue prayer-meetings and gatherings where the numbers are small, and they prefer to go with the multitude to places where neither doctrine nor worship is sound and wholesome, than with the few to places where both are pure and scriptural. This happy incident is a rebuke to such. Lydia was with a very small company at the river side when she heard the words of eternal life, to her soul’s eternal good. It is an encouragement to others who may be found in the society of a few who desire to worship the Most High according to His truth. The Lord Jesus gives such the greatest encouragement. He saith: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

May the Lord bless to us His own word!