The conversion of Cornelius is a fascinating historical story of how God drew a Gentile man to Himself. We saw the sovereignty of God in teaching Peter, in sending men from Cornelius to Peter, and then in the Gospel that Peter taught. The glory of God shone forth and shines as the Spirit fell upon Cornelius and those with him as he listened to the Gospel as preached by a Jewish man (Peter) to Gentiles. The wall of separation had been torn down and now all were hearing the glory of Christ Jesus who died to save both Jew and Gentile. This week we move to consider the glory of God in the conversion of Lydia. While the concern of the book of Acts is to give an account in terms of history, there is certainly enough theology to look at as well. But we should always remember that the primary author of Scripture is the Holy Spirit and the primary focus should be on the living God as He shines in the text.
“And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled. 14 A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. 15 And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, some into my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us (Acts 16:13-15).
This is the first actual conversion that is given to us after the text tells us that Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia (Acts 16:6). It was also after the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them to go into Bithynia (Acts 16:7). It was only when Paul had a vision that he concluded that he should go into Macedonia to preach the Gospel (Acts 16:9-10) that Paul set out to sea and went to a leading city of Macedonia which was Philippi (Acts 16:11-12). After arriving there Paul and those with him went out to the riverside on the Sabbath because they assumed that they would find a place of prayer. The found a group of women who had assembled there.
This passage of Scripture is rich with meaning. Lydia was a Gentile woman who had evidently learned about the true God somewhere, possibly in her hometown of Thyatira. Paul’s practice was to find a synagogue when he went to a new place and on the Sabbath day he would go there to preach the Gospel. But evidently there was no synagogue in Philippi and those who were seeking the true God sought Him by prayer by the river. Paul, the former Pharisee who persecuted believers, was now sent by a sovereign God to this place. It is true that the Church was commanded to preach the Gospel to all people groups, but the Spirit had forbidden Paul to preach in at least two places and then sent him to this gathering where this Gentile woman was. Once again, as we saw with Cornelius, God sent men to those who feared Him and who were given to prayer.
This is something that is largely ignored in the modern day. We try to get people to make a commitment or to say a prayer, but with both Cornelius and now Lydia God sent men with the Gospel to people who prayed. Cornelius was given to prayer and God taught Peter and sent him to Cornelius with the Gospel. Lydia was a woman of prayer and God forbade Paul to go to Asia and then to go into Bithynia, but instead Paul was sent to Philippi in Macedonia where he finds Lydia. This is the sovereignty of God on display. Indeed the Great Commission stands, but we also have to deal with the Scriptures as we have them. God specifically directed Peter to Cornelius and God specifically directed Paul away from certain areas and then to Lydia. We must take into account the fact that both of these people prayed to God. It is not that their prayers made them worthy or that they had any merit in them at all, but the Scriptures are very clear in these instances that these Gentiles prayed and in some manner sought God. Cornelius gave alms to the Jews and Lydia went to pray on the Sabbath.
One thing we need to learn is to leave people instructions to seek the Lord if they don’t believe. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17). When we are evangelizing we must make it clear to people that they need to put themselves under the biblical teaching of Scripture. A person that does not have faith cannot expect to have faith apart from the means that God uses to bring faith. While Cornelius and Lydia were apparently brought to faith the first time they heard the Gospel, not all have the background of teaching that it appears that they had. People need to know the Scripture, they need to know the character of God, and they need to know the Person and offices of Christ and of His Spirit who gives life and faith. God sent Peter and then Paul to preach the word and the Gospel to these people. People must come to know the word in order to hear the Gospel.
Another thing that this text teaches us (along with the conversion of Cornelius) is that God must open a person’s heart in order for that person to come to faith. Here we see rather plainly that it was the Lord who opened the heart of Lydia in order that she could respond to the teachings of Paul. Lydia responded and those looking on possibly saw an outer response, but Scripture tells us what happened to her before she responded. This is utterly vital to understand. The modern “Church” is in spiritual darkness due to some degree top the fact that it does not recognize that God must open the hearts of people before they can respond. Listen to a quote from Arthur Pink on this.
“The superficial work of many of the professional evangelists of the last fifty years is largely responsible for the erroneous views now current upon the bondage of the nature man, encouraged by the laziness of those in the pew in their failure to “prove all things” (I Thess. 5:21). The average evangelical pulpit conveys the impression that it lies wholly in the power of the sinner whether or not he shall be saved. It is said that “God has done His part, now man must do his.” Alas, what can lifeless man do, man by nature is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1)! If this were really believed, there would be more dependence upon the Holy Spirit to come in with his miracle-working power, and less confidence in our attempts to “win men for Christ” (Sovereignty of God).
In a more modern book, Decisional Regeneration vs. Divine Regeneration (2010), James E. Adams writes of the same danger. He regards the abandonment of the teaching of Scripture (and the practice of centuries past) on Divine regeneration as very dangerous.
“The huge theological difference between modern evangelism and biblical evangelism hinges on this basic issue of whether true religion is the work of God or of man. At best, the doctrine of Decisional Regeneration attributes the new birth partly to man and partly to God…Noted Swiss Reformation historian J.H. Merle d’Aubigne (1794-1872), who preached the gospel in Calvin’s cathedral in Geneva, declared that “to believe in the power of man in the work of regeneration is the great heresy of Rome, and from that error has come the ruin of the Church. Conversion proceeds from the grace of God alone, and the system which ascribes it partly to man and partly to God is worse than Pelagianism.”
James Adams goes on to quote Charles Hodge on this issue:
“No more soul-destroying doctrine could well be devised than the doctrine that sinners can regenerate themselves, and repent and believe just when the please… As it is a truth both of Scripture and of experience that the unrenewed man can do nothing of himself to secure his salvation, it is essential that he should be brought to a practical conviction of that truth. When thus convicted, and not before, he seeks help from the only source where it can be obtained.”
The Scripture is quite clear that regeneration is by the will of God and not the will of man (John 1:12-13). God must will to give human beings the ability to respond or there will be no positive response at all. If the human heart follows its own natural bent in its deadness in sin, it will be hardened to the truth. But God can change the heart so that it sees light instead of darkness and love the truth rather than hate it. There is a massive theology behind the simple words of Acts 16, but the theology is still there. God make Lydia alive by His grace and He saved her according to His good pleasure to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph 1:3-14). It was God who looked upon Lydia as dead in her trespasses and sins and nothing more than a child of wrath by nature. It was only by His mercy and grace alone He made her alive with Christ (Eph 2:4-6). Lydia was now and still is a trophy of Divine grace so that the glory of His grace would then and for eternity shine forth in her by grace (Eph 2:6-7).
The short and simple account of Lydia’s conversion by God’s grace and glory is hidden to those who focus on her response and not the Lord opening her heart first. But if we are going to take Scripture seriously and follow it rather than human wishes and traditions, we must take Scripture more seriously. We must learn to preach the Gospel as to dead sinners because they are dead. We must learn to preach the Gospel so that sinners would see their own utter helplessness and look to Divine grace to give them life rather than look to themselves to respond. Sinners that look to themselves to respond do not see their own deadness and are not looking to Christ alone to be saved by grace alone. The Reformers broke with Rome for a reason and it had to do with the Gospel by grace alone. We should bow to the God of grace so that the heart of that same false gospel does not overtake us while using different words in a different denomination. We must preach the Gospel looking to the Spirit to change hearts or we are not trusting the Spirit to change hearts but are trusting in our own wisdom to do it or perhaps the to the sinner himself to do so.
The profession of being Reformed does not make a person Reformed and the profession to be biblical does not make a person biblical. What matters is to be biblical from the heart. Scripture tells us that God opened Lydia’s heart to respond to the words of Paul. His work of opening her heart was before her response. His work in opening her heart enabled her to respond. We must direct sinners away from thinking it is up to them to change their own hearts and that if they could change it that would be a sinful change of heart. Instead they are to be taught to look to the grace of God to change their hearts. Hearts are changed and saved by grace alone, not by grace plus a human response. We believe that someone must change the heart, yet our methods of evangelism scream louder about out theology of the heart than our creed does. The Gospel is of God changing a heart and giving it the Spirit because of who He is and who He is alone, not because of a response. After all, that is grace alone.
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