It is ever a moment of deepest interest when a prepared soul is brought in contact with the full Gospel of the grace of God. It may be that that soul has been under deep and painful exercise for many a long day. seeking rest but finding none. The Lord has been working by His Spirit, and preparing the ground for the good seed. He has been making deep the furrows so that the precious seed of His word may take permanent root, and bring forth fruit to His praise. The Holy Ghost is never in haste. His work is deep, sure, and solid. His plants are not like Jonah’s gourd, springing up in a night and perishing in a night. All that He does will stand, blessed be His name. “I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever.” When He convicts, converts, and liberates a soul, the stamp of His own eternal hand is upon the work, hi all its stages.
Now, it must have been a moment of intense interest when one in Lydia’s state of soul was brought in contact with that most glorious gospel which Paul carried. (Acts 16:1414And 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. (Acts 16:14).) She was thoroughly prepared for his message; and surely his message was thoroughly prepared for her. He carried with him truth which she had never heard and never thought of. As we have already remarked, she had been living up to her light; she was a worshipper of God; but we are bold to assert that she had no idea of the glorious truth which was lodged in the heart of that stranger who sat beside her at the prayer meeting. She had come thither—devout and earnest woman as she was—to pray and to worship, to get some little refreshment for her spirit, after the toils of the week. How little did she imagine that at that meeting she should hear the greatest preacher that ever lived, save One; and that she should hear the very highest order of truth that had ever fallen upon mortal ears.
Yet thus it was. And, oh, how important it was for Lydia to have been at that memorable prayer meeting! How well it was she had not acted as so many, now-a-days, act who after a week of toil in the shop, the warehouse, the factory, or the field, take the opportunity of lying in bed on Sunday é How many there are whom you will see at their post from Monday morning till Saturday night, working away with all diligence at their calling, but for whom you may look in vain at the meeting on the Lord’s day. How is this? They will tell you, perhaps, that they are so worn out on Saturday night, that they have no energy to rise on Sunday, and therefore they spend this latter day in sloth, lounging, and self-indulgence. They have no care for their souls, no care for eternity, no care for Christ. They care for themselves, for their families, for the world, for money-making; and hence you will find them up with the dawn of Monday and off to their work.
Lydia did not belong to this class at all. No doubt, she attended to her business, as every right-minded person will. We dare say—indeed, we are sure—she kept very excellent purple, and was a fair, honest trader, in every sense of the word. But she did not spend her Sabbath in bed, or lounging about her house, or nursing herself up, and making a great fuss about all she had to do during the week. Neither do we believe that Lydia was one of those self-occupied folk whom a shower of rain is sufficient to keep away from a meeting. No; Lydia was of a different stamp altogether. She was an earnest woman, who felt she had a soul to save, and an eternity before her, and a living God to serve and worship.
Would to God we had more Lydias in this our day! It would give a charm, and an interest, and a freshness to the work of an evangelist, for which many of the Lord’s workmen have to sigh in vain. We seem to live in a day of terrible unreality as to divine and eternal things. Men, women, and children are real enough at their money-making, their pursuits, and their pleasures; but oh! when the things of God, the things of the soul, the things of eternity, are in question, the aspect of people is that of a yawning indifference. But the moment is rapidly approaching—every beat of the pulse, every tick of the watch, brings us nearer to it—when the yawning indifference shall be exchanged for “ weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” If this were more deeply felt, we should have many more Lydias, many more of those prepared to lend an attentive ear to Paul’s gospel.
What force and beauty in those words, “Whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things that were spoken of Paul.” Lydia was not one of those who go to meetings to think of anything and everything but the things that are spoken by the Lord’s messengers. She was not thinking of her purple, or of the prices, or the probable gains or losses. How many of those who fill our preaching rooms and lecture halls follow the example of Lydia? Alas! we fear but very few indeed. The business, the state of the markets, the state of the funds, money, pleasure, dress, folly—a thousand and one things are thought of, and dwelt upon, and attended to, so that the poor vagrant, volatile heart is at the ends of the earth instead of “attending” to the things that are spoken.
All this is very solemn, and very awful. It really ought to be looked into and thought of. People seem to forget the responsibility involved hi hearing the gospel preached. They do not seem to be hi the smallest degree impressed with the weighty fact that the Gospel never leaves any unconverted person where it finds him. He is either saved by receiving, or rendered more guilty by rejecting it. Hence it becomes a serious matter to hear the Gospel. People may attend gospel meetings as a matter of custom, as a religious service, or because they have nothing else to do, and the tune would hang heavy upon their hands; or they may go because they think that the mere act of going has a sort of merit attached to it. Thus thousands attend preachings at which Christ’s servants, though not Paul’s in gift, power, or intelligence, unfold the precious grace of God in sending His only begotten Son into the world to save us from everlasting torment and misery. The virtue and efficacy of the atoning death of the divine Savior—the Lamb of God—the dread realities of eternity—the awful horrors of hell, and the unspeakable joys of heaven—all these weighty matters are handled, according to the measure of grace bestowed upon the Lord’s messengers, and yet how little impression is produced! They “reason of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,” and yet how few are made even to “tremble!”
And why? Will anyone presume to excuse himself for rejecting the gospel message on the ground of his inability to believe it? Will he appeal to the very case before us, and say, “The Lord opened her heart; and if He would only do the same for me, I, too, should attend; but until He does, I can do nothing.” We reply, and that with deep seriousness, Such an argument will not avail thee in the day of judgment. Indeed we are most thoroughly convinced that thou wilt not dare to use it then. Thou art making a false use of Lydia’s charming history. True it is, blessedly true, the Lord opened her heart; and He is ready to open thine also, if there were in thee but the hundredth part of Lydia’s earnestness.
And dost thou not know full well, reader, that there are two sides to this great question, as there are to every question? It is all very well, and sounds very forcibly, for thee to say, “I can do nothing.” But who told thee this? Where hast thou learned it? We solemnly challenge thee, in the presence of God, Canst thou look up to Him and say, “I can do nothing—I am not responsible?” Say, is the salvation of thy never-dying soul just the one thing in which thou canst do nothing? Thou canst do a lot of things in the service of the world, of self, and of Satan; but when it becomes a question of God, the soul, and eternity, you coolly say, “I can do nothing—I am not responsible.”
Ah! it will never do. All this style of argument is the fruit of a one-sided theology. It is the result of the most pernicious reasoning of the human mind upon certain truths in scripture which are turned the wrong way and sadly misapplied. But it will not stand. This is what we urge upon the reader. It is of no possible use arguing in this way. The sinner is responsible; and all the theology, and all the reasoning, and all the fallacious though plausible objections that can be scraped together, can never do away with this weighty and most serious fact.
Hence, therefore, we call upon the reader to be, like Lydia, in earnest about his soul’s salvation—to let every other question, every other point, every other subject, sink into utter insignificance in comparison with this one momentous question—the salvation of his precious soul. Then, he may depend upon it, the One who sent Philip to the eunuch, and sent Peter to the centurion, and sent Paul to Lydia, will send some messenger and some message to him, and will also open his heart to attend. Of this there cannot possibly be a doubt, inasmuch as scripture declares that “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” All who perish, after having heard the message of salvation—the sweet story of God’s free love, of a Savior’s death and resurrection—shall perish without a shadow of an excuse, shall descend into hell with their blood upon their own guilty heads. Their eyes shall then be open to see through all the flimsy arguments by which they have sought to prop themselves up in a false position, and lull themselves to sleep in sin and worldliness.
But let us dwell for a moment on “the things that were spoken of Paul.” The Spirit of God hath not thought proper to give us even a brief outline of Paul address at the prayer meeting. We are therefore left to other passages of holy scripture to form an idea of what Lydia heard from his lips on that interesting occasion. Let us take, for example, that famous passage in which he reminds the Corinthians of the gospel which he had preached to them. “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” 1 Cor. 15:1-41Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 3For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: (1 Corinthians 15:1‑4).
Now, we may safely conclude that the foregoing passage of scripture contains a compendium of the things that were spoken of Paul, at the prayer meeting at Philippi. The grand theme of Paul’s preaching was Christ—Christ for the sinner—Christ for the saint—Christ for the conscience—Christ for the heart—Christ all, and in all. He never allowed himself to wander from this great center, but made all his preachings and all his teachings circulate round it with admirable consistency. If he called on men, both Jews and Gentiles, to repent, the lever with which he worked was Christ. If he urged them to believe, the object which he held up for faith was Christ, on the authority of holy scripture. If he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, the One that gave cogency and moral power to his reasoning was Christ. In short, Christ was the very gist and marrow, the sum and substance, the foundation and top stone, of Paul’s preaching and teaching.
But, for our present purpose, there are three grand subjects, found m Paul’s preaching, to which we desire to call the reader’s attention. These are, first, the grace of God; secondly, the Person and work of Christ; and thirdly, the testimony of the Holy Ghost as given in the holy scriptures.
We do not attempt to go into these vast subjects here; we merely name them, and entreat the reader to ponder them, to muse over them, and seek to make them his own.
(1.) The grace of God—His free sovereign favor, is the source from whence salvation flows—salvation in all the length, breadth, height, and depth of that most precious word—salvation which stretches, like a golden chain, from the bosom of God, down to the very deepest depths of the sinner’s guilty and ruined condition, and back again to the throne of God—meets all the sinner’s necessities, overlaps the whole of the saint’s history, and glorifies God in the highest possible manner.
(2.) Then, in the second place, the Person of Christ and His finished work are the only channel through which salvation can possibly flow to the lost and guilty sinner. It is not the church and her sacraments, religion and its rites and ceremonies, man or Ins doings hi any shape or form. It is the death and resurrection of Christ. “He died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day.” This was the gospel which Paul preached, by which the Corinthians were saved, and the apostle declares, with solemn emphasis, “If any man preach any other gospel, let him be accursed.” Tremendous words for this our day!
(3.) But, thirdly, the authority on which we receive the salvation is the testimony of the Holy Ghost in scripture. It is “according to the scriptures.” This is a most solid and comforting truth. It is not a question of feelings or experiences or evidences; it is a simple question of faith in God’s word wrought in the heart by God’s Spirit.
(To be continued, if the Lord will.)