Lydia
u 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 baptised, 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.
ALTHOUGH Lydia attended to her business she did not allow it to occupy her whole heart, and absorb all her time. She took advantage of the Sabbath to rest awhile from labour; and her time of rest she filled with the worship of God, and the society of the good. He who lays out one talent well, will get it redoubled soon. A shed for shelter in a sequestered spot, and a few Jewish women for fellow-worshippers, and probably a parchment containing some of the Scriptures as Sabbath lessons — these constituted the extent of her privileges. She used her little well, and more was given to her.
Paul and Silas went to the place on that Sabbath-day, It was a place for prayer. Perhaps there had never been any preaching in it. The women had often met, and prayed, and parted, with none to speak to them. They would read the Scriptures, and, like the Ethiopian prince, would bend, and sigh, and weep over “the Lamb led to the slaughter;” but there was no one near who could answer their question, “Of whom speaketh the prophet this?” They could not understand, and there was none to guide them. But they persevered. At last a distinguished preacher appeared — the greatest of all preachers, led to the spot by the same Divine Spirit who conducted Philip from a city of Samaria to the desert of Gaza. At last a sermon was preached in the praying place, and it took effect.
One design of this history is to show believers in all lands and all ages, that the Redeemer is near his people still, and orders all things for their sakes. The meeting between Paul and Lydia was arranged in heaven. When the missionaries desired to prolong their stay in Asia, and to evangelise another province there, the Spirit suffered them not; for the same reason that at a former time the Spirit had not suffered Philip to remain in Samaria, but sent him into the desert. Paul was not permitted to remain in Asia, but forwarded hastily across to Europe; for a group of women, convened in a shed near the town of Philippi, gave the Lord in heaven no rest until he should send them a messenger to open the way of salvation. The Hearer of prayer could not bear that cry another week without an answer; and so the missionaries must leave all other work behind, and hasten to the spot. There some inquiring souls were thirsting like dry land for the living water; and Paul was the vessel chosen to contain it and bear it to the spot.
The Lord opened Lydia’s heart so that she attended to the things that were spoken by Paul. Although no report of the sermon has been preserved, we know well what its burden would be. The missionary, not knowing whether he
Lydia. should have another opportunity, would preach Christ crucified. He would make plain the way of pardon through the blood of the Lamb. Now it is intimated that Lydia’s heart needed opening ere she could attend to the doctrines of grace. Probably the opening was a process that had been going on for a long time. From day to day her heart longed more for God; from day to day her prayer rose more eagerly to the throne. This was the opening: she was growing ready for receiving the gospel.
I think Lydia’s heart was opened in some such way as the gates of a canal-lock are opened. It is by water coming in secretly below, and gradually swelling up within, that at length the folding-doors allow themselves to be opened. As long as the water presses from above and from without, the pressure tends to shut the gates more firmly, rather than to open them. The lock keeps itself empty, and resists the offer of the water to come in. But when by secret channels the interior is nearly filled, then the resistance ceases, and the gates are thrown wide. Ah, many an empty heart resists the offer of mercy from God; the offer of that mercy rather shuts the gates more firmly! But when secretly some grace finds its way in, and more follows, and the empty space gradually fills, then the enmity disappears, and the whole soul opens out to Christ.
It was by receiving some grace within her heart, that Lydia was opened to receive more. She was made willing in the day of the Lord’s power.
But the Lord has other keys at hand by which he sometimes opens closed hearts. There are diversities of operations. The resistance is sometimes gently overcome by droppings silent as the dew; and sometimes the bolts that barred an unbelieving heart are broken by terrible things in righteousness. Some sorrow may have crushed this industrious widow, and so prepared her for taking in the healing balm of the gospel. Was her son disobedient, or her foreman unfaithful; or was the current of trade changing its channel, and threatening to leave her business to break in pieces like a stranded ship? By any of these operations, or by others different from all these, the Lord may have conducted the process of opening, so that when the word of the kingdom came, it found ready entrance.
It is good to wait on the Lord, both for our own refreshing and for the quickening of those whom we love. Watch and pray. We do not know when the Bridegroom may pass. Let us and ours be ever ready to follow him in to the marriage-supper. The Bridegroom passed the place of prayer that day on the outskirts of Philippi, and Lydia, with her lamp well trimmed, was on the alert to hear his approaching footsteps, and follow him to the feast.
Even the preaching of Paul did not save unless an opened heart attended to it and took it in. In this example of primitive preaching, it is made clear that more depends on the preparation of the hearer than on the preachers skill. The Master, in the parable of the Sower, has clearly shown the necessity of two conspiring things — the good seed sown, and the ground broken soft to receive it. Alas! how much precious seed falls on the beaten wayside, and bears no fruit, when hearers’ hearts are trodden hard and smooth by a week of cares and pleasures, and the preaching on the Sabbath takes no effect! We have in our day, through God’s good hand upon us, much good seed; oh for broken ground! The preparation of the heart is from the Lord.
Lydia and her house were admitted into the Church by baptism. Glad and grateful, she offered hospitality to the strangers, and pressed them to accept it. From them, or at least through them, she had received an immeasurable
The Pythoness. spiritual good; and it is the instinct of her new nature to take pleasure in imparting temporal things to the servants of her Lord. Here, in Lydia’s opened heart, rises the spring which the Master has provided to supply the temporal wants of his ministers, in all lands and all times.