I love the last line of that
hymn. I'm rich till all the intents of bliss if thou, O God, art
mine. May he be pleased to open our
hearts this morning and confirm to us by his Spirit that's how
he does it. Spirit testifies to our spirit
that we are the children of God. That's what the scripture says
in Romans chapter eight. So our hope is that the Holy
Spirit will speak peace to our hearts and enable us to rest
and to rely on the Lord Jesus Christ for all our salvation,
all our righteousness. in all our justification. If
he does, he'll use his word to accomplish that purpose, won't
he? Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. When
he opens the windows of heaven, this is the man spoken of by
the prophet who has the keys to the house of David and what
he opens no man can shut and what he shuts no man can open.
And if he opens the windows of heaven, he will open his word,
because that's the window of heaven. We're not looking for
some sign in the sky. We're looking to God's word.
This is where he has been pleased to speak to his people. And our
hope is that he will He will open that to us and enable
us to rest in Christ. We're looking at Acts chapter
16. If you'd like to turn back there
with me in your Bible, and the message is when God opens the
heart. Notice with me in verse 14, halfway
through this woman whose name is Lydia, whose heart the Lord
had opened. You and I are not able to open
our own hearts. God has to do it. We are dependent
upon him for that work of grace. And so we come hopeful, believing,
and resting in the glorious person and finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ for that work of grace. And that's what we saw. We saw that in the first hour. This is a continuation from the
first hour. In the first hour, we saw where
the Lord had forbid the apostle Paul to preach the gospel in
Asia because the woman who lived in Asia was in Philippi. And
all those people who lived in Asia were forbidden to hear the
gospel because because the gospel had to go to Lydia, who was in
Philippi at the time. And we learned from that that
the only thing of any eternal significance or any importance
to God is the salvation of his people. Everything else is a
means to that end. And everything else that we see
God doing in this world is for the purpose of saving his people
and glorifying himself. And so Isaiah said, though nations
are a drop in the bucket, they are a speck of dust on the scale
to God. They are of no significance to
him. The Lord will move nations and
mountains and people and lands for the salvation of one of his
lost sheep. And we see also from this story
that Lydia was meeting on the Sabbath. And we understand that
in light of the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilling that sign of the Old
Testament Sabbath, that yes, it was on Saturday of the week,
but it's to us, what does that say? That the Lord always opens
the hearts of his people on the Sabbath. Christ. He's the one to whom the Sabbath
points. He's our rest. He's the one who
finished the work of redemption, and so we don't try to add to
what he has done. We rest in the finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ for all of our salvation. Notice
also in in our text that verse in verse in verse 13 and on the Sabbath
we went out of the city As I said in the previous hour, every word
of God is pure and perfect, and our God doesn't waste words. He's not just giving us a timeline
or some sort of historical or geographic picture here. He's teaching us the gospel with
every word. What is the significance of the
apostle Paul going out of the city to find these women who
are down by the riverside? Well, turn with me to the book
of Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13. Look with me at verse 11. For the body of those
beasts, or the bodies of those beasts, speaking of those Old
Testament sacrificial animals, whose blood is brought into the
sanctuary by the high priest for sin, God said, when I see
the blood, I will pass by you. And these Old Testament sacrifices
were a picture of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of
the world. It's the precious blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The blood of bulls and lambs
cannot take away our sin. These were types, these were
pictures of what would be accomplished in Christ. And so he says, the
blood was brought to the sanctuary by the high priest for sin. And they are burned, the bodies
are burned without the camp. Wherefore, Jesus also, when he
might sanctify the people with his own blood, was sacrificed
without the gate. He was taken outside the city.
That's where he was sacrificed. The body of these Old Testament
animals, after their blood was shed and the blood was put on
the mercy seat, the body was taken outside the city and burned. representing what the Lord Jesus
Christ would do when he shed his precious blood as a covering
for the sins of his people and went outside the cities and was
hanged upon a tree and became a curse. Look at verse 13. Let us go forth therefore unto
him without the camp bearing his reproach. For here have we
no continuing city, but we seek one to come. By him, therefore,
let us offer the sacrifices of praise to God continually. That
is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. And men by
nature love the praise of God, love the praise of men more than
the praise of God. They will not separate themselves.
They will not be separated from their friends and family members
in order to follow Christ. And here's the picture here.
The Lord Jesus Christ was taken outside the camp. And our Lord is telling us that
we're to follow him. wherever he goes. And in following
him, we will find ourselves estranged from some people. And that's a place where the natural man doesn't want
to be. He doesn't want to be ostracized. He doesn't want to
be looked down on or thought to be strange. And yet, that's
exactly what the gospel does, isn't it? You believers know
what I'm talking about. You know what it's cost you in
your families and in your friendships with people to stand for the
gospel. The Lord said that your enemies
will be of your own household. We don't separate ourselves.
We don't, but they will, they will. We follow Christ who has
come outside the camp. And in so doing, we find ourselves
to be separated from men. Notice also in verse 13, and
on the Sabbath, we went out of the city by a riverside. by a riverside. How significant
rivers are in the Bible. When the scripture in Genesis
chapter 2 describes the Garden of Eden, the Bible says that
there is one great river that divides off into four rivers,
and the Bible gives us the names of each of those four rivers
in Genesis chapter 2. And each of them, I'm not going
to tell you, you can look up the biblical names, but the definition
or the, yes, the meaning of those names is the word increase, bursting
forth, rapid, and fruitful. And here's the river of life
that flows clear as crystal from the throne of God and from the
Lamb in the book of Revelation. Here's where God's people go
in order to drink in that river. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
river. He said, if any man thirst, let
him come unto me. Let him come unto me. We live
in a dry and thirsty land, and the men of this world would find
all that they need to sustain their lives in the polluted cisterns
of man-made, freewill, works religion, or in the in the broken
cisterns of worldly possessions, but the soul of the child of
God, when he opens the heart, we're not able to find our sustenance
in those things. We've got to have Christ. We've
got to have him. So these women were down by the
river. You remember when when Jacob
was fearing his brother Esau. And the scripture says they were,
he was at the river Jabbok. And the word Jabbok translated
means emptying. Now, what did God do for Jacob
at the river Jabbok? He emptied him of himself, didn't
he? He emptied him of himself. Jacob
wrestled with the Lord right there all night long. And the
Lord touched the hollow of his hip and left him crippled. And
Jacob was emptied of himself. And God changed his name to Israel. And so this is where the Lord
opens the hearts of his people, down by the river, outside the
city. We have to come out from among
them, the scripture says, and be separate, saith the Lord.
And he gathers us together around the river of life and enables
us to drink in that river. How oftentimes
we read of the River Jordan. in the scriptures, and how the
Lord was baptized in the river Jordan, and how Joshua brought
the children of Israel into the promised land across the river
Jordan. What does Jordan translate mean? Well, it means to descend, or
it can also mean death. And so, here we are. Here we are being buried with
Christ in baptism. dying to self in order to be
brought across by our Joshua. Moses couldn't bring the children
of Israel across the Jordan. He had to die in Transjordania. He had to die on the eastern
side of the Jordan. Only Joshua could bring them
in. As we just read, or in the previous
hour in Hebrews chapter four, Joshua didn't really provide
them rest. No, that even was a picture of
our Joshua, the Lord Jesus, who would provide us eternal rest
by his accomplished work of redemption. Here's the picture. When God
opens the heart, he turns the world upside down for each one
of his children in order to bring them to faith in Christ. He does
it through the finished work of Christ on the Sabbath. He
takes them outside of the city and he brings them down by a
river. And that's what Zachariah meant
when he said, in that day, a fountain will be opened for sin and for
unrighteousness. That's what we are, unclean before
God. And yet God has opened up a river. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities,
God opened up a river, a fountain of blood that flowed forth from
the Lamb of God for cleansing and for sin. God opens the heart. He ordains all the circumstances
of our lives in order to bring us to where the gospel is or
to bring the gospel to where we are. He does it on the Sabbath. He calls us out from among them
to be separate. And he cleanses us in the river
of life. What a picture. You see, this
is the same story told over and over again for every child of
God. And notice in verse 13, where
prayer was want to be made. Now, what is prayer? What is prayer? It is an expression
of our complete dependence upon God. That's what it is. Lord, save me. Lord, have mercy
upon me. Lord, teach me. Lord, open the
eyes of my understanding. Lord, give me faith. Lord, do
for me what I cannot do for myself. How many times have you heard
someone say, or perhaps you've said it, you know, there's nothing
left to do now but pray. Someone's deathly sick. and we
say, well, there's nothing left to do but pray. You know, the
only time that prayer is really prayer is when there's nothing
left to do. As long as we're doing something,
we're just, you know, we're praying maybe, but prayer really becomes
prayer when we are When we are at our wit's end, and we've got
no place else to go, and no one else to help, God's gonna have
to intervene here, and God's gonna have to do something. That's
what true prayer is, and that's what, it's an expression of our
complete dependence upon the Lord. And God had set these women's
heart to pray. Daniel chapter 10, the scripture
says that Daniel began to pray, interceding on behalf of the
children of Israel, which were in captivity in Babylon. And
he prayed for three full weeks, three full weeks. And then the
Lord answers his prayer. And the first thing the Lord
says to him, He says to him, he says, when thou set thy heart
to pray, three weeks ago, when you very first started praying,
I heard thee. Now, what is the Lord telling
you and me? Did Daniel have to pray for three
weeks in order to twist the arm of God? Did he have to pray in
order to persuade God to do something that God was reluctant to do?
Is that what prayer is all about? No. No. The Lord knew that Daniel needed
to be changed. Prayer doesn't change God. Prayer
changes us. And so the Lord sets the heart
to pray in order to prepare us for the answer to that prayer.
That's what he does. He sets the heart to pray in
order to prepare us for the answer to that prayer. Oh, the Lord
did let the Lord say, knock. And that word knock means a continual
action. And so he's saying, continue
to knock and it'll be opened unto you. Continue to ask and
it'll be given unto thee. Continue to seek and you shall
find. And you have not because you
ask not. Didn't the Lord say that? Oh
my God. If God's gonna open our hearts,
He's going to do it through prayer. He's going to set the heart to
pray and cause us to see our dependence upon Him. Looking in faith to Christ as the only one. You say, well,
the sincerity of my prayer is so imperfect. and the fervency
of my prayer. Well, here again, when we pray,
we're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only one who offered
a perfect prayer. We have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. Father, I pray not for the
world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me out of the
world. What did the Lord say to Peter? He said, Peter, before
the cock crows, you're going to deny me three times, but be
of good cheer for I have prayed for thee. What was the difference
between Peter and Judas? One thing, one thing, the Lord
had prayed for Peter. Judas, he left him to himself.
So when we pray, we are, we are looking with an eye towards Christ
as the only one that can make those prayers acceptable to God.
I'm not suggesting that, oh, if you just pray hard enough,
God will hear you and God will, no. Prayer is for the purpose
of changing us. And the change that God works
in us is to cause us to become more and more dependent upon
him. Does the Bible not say the effectual,
fervent prayer a righteous man availeth much?" Who is the righteous
man? Were his prayers effectual? Were
his prayers fervent? Yes. Where prayer was wont to
be made. You see, I'm hoping right now
that every one of us God has given to us a heart of prayer
that we come to this place that God called this the house of
prayer. That's what he called it. You've turned my house of
prayer into a den of thieves. You are merchandising men's souls
and selling the gospel for profit instead of calling on my people
to bow before me. and to depend upon me for everything
that they need. This is God's house of prayer.
And that's what we've come here to do, to seek his face, to pray,
to ask the Lord, Lord speak. And if he does speak, if he opens
our hearts and he opens the windows of heaven, he's going to speak
to us by his word. God calls us to be a people of
prayer. Prayer is humility. It's what
it is. It's submission. And the Bible
says that God gives grace to the humble and he resists the
proud. Proud don't pray. No, I got this. I can take care of this. I got this worked out. Only the humble, only the weak,
only the needy, only the poor, they're the ones that pray. The Lord tells us to come before
the throne of grace with boldness. That word means confident. Confident
in what? Confident that our prayers are
effectual and fervent? No, confident that the Lord Jesus
Christ has already offered himself to our Father on our behalf and
that everything that God requires of me is to be found in him.
And so we can come. we can come with boldness to
find help and grace in our time of need. And let me add this,
because everybody knows something about prayer, when our circumstances
are hard and impossible, we find ourselves praying to God to be
delivered from something, and that's a good thing. But if that's
all we pray for, then when those circumstances do get better,
then we'll no longer have a need to pray. That's why it's been
often said, that which is born in the storm often dies in the
calm. And that's true, isn't it? We're
not talking about boxhole praying here. We're not talking about
just praying for the purpose of getting out of trouble. or
being delivered from some particular circumstances, though we ought
to pray for those things. I'm not saying we don't, but
what I am saying is that you and I have a problem that never
goes away. Not really. It's called unbelief. It is the sin that doth so easily
beset us. It's called the body of death.
It's called our flesh. It is called sin. And it is ever
before us. And we are in constant need every
day of a savior. Only sinners need a savior. You
see, if all we need God for is to deliver us from some temporal
problem, then when that goes away, so does our need for God. But if we need Him to save us
from ourselves, and save us from our sin, and save us from Satan,
and save us from death, and save us from the curse of the law,
that never goes away. There's when prayer is want to
be made. Isn't that the kind of prayer?
That's saving praying there. Look, look. So we find these
women down by the river on the Sabbath praying where prayer is wont to be made.
The last part of verse 13, and we sat down. And we sat down. Oh, let's not miss what the meaning
of that is. Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3 says, when he had by himself
purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Did
not God Almighty tell the Lord Jesus Christ when he ascended
back into glory, sit thou here at my right hand until I make
thine enemies thy footstool? You know, oftentimes, there were
several times where our Lord is seen standing or seen sitting
while he teaches. And something significant about
that, isn't there? He sat down in the boat and he
taught them. He sat down among the 5,000 and
he taught them. When he was given the scroll
of Isaiah in Nazareth and he opened it to Isaiah chapter 61
and read from that passage, declaring himself to be the Christ. And
the scripture says, and he sat down and he expounded unto them
the meaning of that passage. Oh, our Lord is seated. These
apostles sat down with these women, and it reminds us of how
our Lord has finished his work. He's seated at the right hand
of God. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 12 says,
but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin, sat down
at the right hand of the majesty on high. That's where he is. He's seated. His work is finished. What comfort, what grace, what
hope. He shall not cause his voice
to be heard in the street. Our God's not running around
frantically pleading with men to let him have his way. That's
what we see in man-made religion, don't we? Free will religion.
Oh, won't you let Jesus come into your heart? No, he must
open your heart. If he does, if he does, He will
cause you to see that He has sat down and He will cause you
to sit down. It's like I said earlier, the
hardest thing about being saved is not doing anything to be saved.
Lord, what must we do to inherit the kingdom of God? What must we do to work the works
of God? Isn't that what they said? This
is the work of God that you believe on Him. It is the work of God
that you would believe. The Lord didn't say you want
to do the work of God, then you got to believe. The Lord said,
this is the work of God that you believe. If you believe it's
because God did a work of grace in your heart and caused you
to believe. God is going to make us cease
from our labors as he did from his. Some of us came out of a
religious practice whereby at the end of the service, a service
very similar to this, at the end of the service, the preacher
would tug on the heartstrings of people to leave their pew
and come down the aisle and kneel in front of the pulpit and pray
the prayer to accept Jesus. Have you ever been a part of
that? How blasphemous. Why do men do that? Why do they
do that? You know, that was invented by
a man by the name of Charles Finney, who is called the father
of American evangelism. It happened, he was preaching
back in the middle 1800s, and he came up with this idea. He
was a rank Arminian. He believed that men could be
saved by manipulating their will. And so if we can just give people
something to do, let's give them something to do to be saved. And that's where the whole invitation
system came from. Just give them something to do.
It'll make them feel better. You take the first step and God
will do the rest. And if you've studied American
history, you've studied the first great awakening, the second great
awakening, the third great, those weren't great awakenings. No,
they were, they may have been moral reformations that took
place during those periods of time, but they weren't spiritual
awakenings. They were spiritual deadenings.
They were men like Charles Finney who were giving men something
to do in order to be saved. and just causing people to rest
in their religiosity and in their changed lives for the hope of
their salvation. No, they went out of the city. They found a group of women that
were in want of prayer down by the riverside, and they sat down. This is always the means by which
God opens the hearts of his people. He said, well, I want to do something. And I don't want to be a hearer
of the word. I want to be a doer of the word. If you ever acknowledge something
that you do as being a doer of the word, you can be pretty sure
that you didn't do God's word. God's people do His Word. They
do. But they're ashamed of what they
do. They see how imperfect what they do is. They don't boast
in it. They don't take pride in it.
They don't rest in themselves being the doer of the Word. The
Lord Jesus Christ did all of that. Here's what God says, for
by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourself. You didn't come up with that
faith, God gave it to you. God opened your heart just like
he opened Lydia's heart. Not of works, not of works, lest
any man should boast. And then verse 10 in Ephesians
chapter two says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ
Jesus unto good works, which he hath ordained that we should
walk in them. Now, if God's ordained something
to be, it's going to be. Don't you worry about trying
to find something in your life that's a good work. As soon as
you identify it as a good work, it's a dead work. You look to Christ. Look to Christ
as the one who is good. Paul said, in me that is in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. You'll do good works. God's ordained
them. But you won't acknowledge them.
You won't be taking notice of them and glorying in them and
looking to them as evidence of your salvation. What'd the Lord say? Seek ye
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these
other things to be added unto you. And we're going to see at
the end of this story that Lydia wanted to be a servant of God.
And, uh, and that's the, that's the evidence of the Lord opening
the heart. We just want to serve him. But
even after having served him, what do we say? There's not a
Sunday that goes by that I don't go home beating myself up for
how poorly I did in trying. Caleb, you know what I'm talking
about, don't you? You can't glory in something
that you do. Lord, how selfish, how imperfect,
how fleshly. You're gonna have to do something
with that. If it's gonna be of any profit
or any benefit to anybody, you're gonna have to do it. And that's
the way you feel, child of God? You're trying to try to do something?
You sit back and look at it and think, well, I did a good work
today. You can be sure that it was a dead work when that happens. Look at verse 14. Well, let's look at the last
part of verse 13. And we sat down and we spake
unto the women. That's what I'm trying to do
right now. And that's what you do every time you share with
someone what God is doing and what he's done. You speak. They that call upon the Lord
shall be saved. But how should they call upon him in whom they've
not believed? And how should they believe in
him in whom they've not heard? And how should they hear without
a preacher? I was telling the folks Wednesday
night that this past week I was with a man who was very irreligious,
very profane, and very proud of the fact that he was an environmentalist. He was protecting the environment
and that we needed to do more to not destroy the earth. I suspect this man had never
read a verse in the Bible ever in his life, so I just couldn't
listen to it anymore, and I pulled out my phone, and I pulled up
Genesis chapter 8, verse 22. Look at Genesis chapter 8, verse
22. Let's turn there just a second. And I said to him, I said, well,
I said, I'm all for, you know, taking care of the world that
the Lord has given to us. But here's God's final word on
all this talk about global warming. By the way, I do believe in global
warming. I just believe it's going to
happen a lot quicker and it's going to get a whole lot hotter than most
people think. God sends the fire of his wrath
that's gonna get, yeah, yeah. But here's the final word on
all this environmentalism from God. Verse 22, Genesis chapter
eight. While the earth remaineth, seed
time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and
night shall not cease, period. That's all I need to know. And
I showed him that. I didn't even read it to him.
I let him read it himself. And his response back to me,
he looked at it, he read it. Well, that means to me. And he went into this long, explanation
of what he thought that verse meant and how it fit into his
whole view of protecting the environment. And I thought, you
know what, I'm done talking to you. Now you hold that in contrast
to that Ethiopian eunuch. We're talking about Paul sat
down with them outside the city, by the river, and he spoke to
them. And they heard, they listened
to what he had to say. What did that Ethiopian eunuch
say? And he was a man of great stature,
great intelligence, great education, great material wealth. And he
sees this little, I could just imagine what Philip looked like
walking through the desert. Understandest what thou readest?
What did Ethiopian Eunuch say? How can I accept a man should
guide me? Come up here and tell me what
this means. Is the prophet speaking of himself or is he speaking
of another? When God opens the heart, he shuts the ear. I mean,
he shuts the mouth and he opens the ears. And he causes us to
sit down and to listen. We don't come with a critical
spirit. We don't come with just curiosity. We come listening for God to
speak. Lord, take your word and speak
to my heart. That's when the Lord opens the
heart. He opens the ear. He spake unto the women, which
resorted thither. And verse 14, look at verse 14.
And a certain woman named Lydia, a certain woman. This is one
of God's elect. God talks about a certain person.
God's salvation is certain, isn't it? He has certain people. He accomplished a certain work.
He's gonna certainly save every one of them. And if he has to
leave an entire continent to itself in order to take the gospel
to one little woman over in Philippi, he's gonna do it. It is certain. that all those for whom Christ
died will be saved. It is certain that all those
whom God chose in the covenant of grace Christ died for, it
is certain that he will not leave one of his sheep behind. It's
certain. God's not trying to save with some sort of uncertain outcome,
no. I looked up this word certain. Listen to the definition. Free
from doubt or reservation. Confident. Sure. Fixed. Established. Unquestionable.
Definite. Particular. That's our God. The God that we hear of in the
world is nothing like that. Oh, he's just, he's doing everything
he can to try to get it done, but he's, bless his heart, he
just, he just can't quite accomplish what he really would like to
do because the hearts of men are uncertain. When God purposes
to open a heart, it is certain that that heart will be opened,
certain. Notice that Lydia in verse 14
was a cellar of purple. A cellar of purple. What is the
significance of purple in the Bible? You remember the veil
that I understand was 14 inches thick that separated the holies
of holies from the rest of the tabernacle. The Ark of the Covenant
was in there. The mercy seat was in there.
And there was this very thick veil that separated that little
room. from the rest of the tabernacle.
And once a year, the high priest would go into that little room
and take the blood of the sacrificial lamb on the day of atonement
and put that on the mercy seat. And God would meet with them.
And what happened when our Lord, when our Lord cried from Calvary's
cross, it is finished. Father into thy hands, I commend
my spirit. What happened to that veil? It
was ramped from top to bottom. The entire veil was rent. Now
you go back to the book of Leviticus. I think it's in some of it might
be in numbers as well, where the Lord tells Moses and Aaron
exactly how to make that veil. And he tells them to make it
of blue on the top and red on the bottom. And as the blue yarn
comes down from the top and the red yarn comes up from the bottom,
they meet together to make what? Purple. What's the significance of this?
Well, the blue represents the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the purple, the red, the
scarlet on the bottom of this veil represents the humanity
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the two colors mixed together
show us the mystery of the God-man. fully God and fully man. Now, what are you getting at
preacher? Well, turn with me to Revelation
chapter 17, I'll show you. Revelation chapter 17. The Lord
is describing the false church, the mother of all harlots, mystery
Babylon. And look what he says in Revelation
chapter 17, verse one. And there came one of the seven
angels, which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto
me, come hither, and I will show unto thee the judgment of the
great whore that sitteth upon many waters. with whom the kings
of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth
have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he
carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness, and I saw
a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy,
having seven heads and 10 horns, and the woman was arrayed in
purple. What is she doing? The very first heresy that the
church had to deal with is found in Acts chapter 17. We looked
at it recently, in the last few weeks. The Jerusalem council,
when the apostles had to get together to settle the issue
of law and grace. You remember that? And they concluded
that salvation was all of grace and we're not gonna put these
Gentiles under the law. And that was settled. Soon after
that, the heresies that crept into the church were on the nature
of Christ. And so the very first councils
that got together had to settle the issue of who is the Lord
Jesus Christ, because some were saying, well, he's God, but he's
not really man. And others were saying, well,
he's man, but he's not really God. And the church established
early on that Jesus is fully God and fully man. And every person who refers to themselves
as a Christian in the world would give lip service to that doctrine. Jesus Christ is fully God and
fully man. He is the purple of the veil,
the blue and the scarlet mixed together. Lydia was a seller
of purple. And that's what these false churches
are doing. They're professing to believe
something that they don't really believe. You see, they either
deny in the end, they either deny the deity of Christ, and
in so doing, have to establish Mariology and other saints that
you've got to go to in order to get to God. If they deny his
humanity, I'm sorry, What do we find in the churches today?
They deny the humanity of Christ and exalt His deity to the point
to where you can't get to Him. He can't sympathize with you. And so you've got to set up another
man. You've got to set up another
priest in order to get to God. Or they will deny his deity and
say to you, well, you know, he's really not able to save you unless
you do your part. And so you've got to make a decision
or pray a prayer or work a work. All of that in order to say,
Lydia had to have her heart opened because like all these false
churches, they are sellers of purple, but in doing so, they
are merchandising men's souls and they are every heresy and
every error that's ever come about in the church has to do
with the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to one degree or
the other, every false gospel will either deny his deity or
they will deny his humanity. Now the mystery of our Lord being
fully God. means that he is the absolute
sovereign savior of sinners and that he was successful in his
work of redemption. He could not fail. He's God. And at the same time, he's fully
man. So that he's able to sympathize
with our weaknesses and he suffered He suffered in His humanity and
in His flesh, oh, so much more than you and I could ever, ever
experience in this world. Our God, our Savior, had to be
made in the likeness of sinful flesh. He had to bear in His
body the sins of His people. He had to be born of a woman
and born under the law to redeem them who are cursed by the law.
He had to be fully man. And he had to be fully God in
order to be successful as our Savior. And that's who he is. Lydia, prior to the Lord opening
her heart, was just like all these other false religions,
sellers of purple, but in fact, denying the truth of that glorious
mystery about who our God is, fully God and fully man. If God opens the heart, he will
cause us to worship. Look at verse 14, and a certain
woman, now Paul's traveled all the way from Asia to bring the
gospel to this small little town in Macedonia because God's elect
were there. They weren't in Asia. He did
it on the Sabbath. He came out of the city. He went
down to the river. He spoke to them, those who were
in want of prayer. They were doing their best to
try to express their need for God through prayer. And yet Lydia,
being a cellar of purple, look what the scripture says, of the
city of Thyatira, which worshiped God. Now, you can look this up,
but there's two words in the New Testament for worship. One
of them means to be religious or devout, and it's used 10 times,
and this is one of those 10 times. The other word for worship in
the New Testament means to bow down, to kiss the hand, to do
homage and obeisance, to worship God and it's used
over 60 times. This woman was like Cornelius
in Acts chapter 10. She was a God-fearing woman.
She knew that she had to pray and she knew that God, that there
was a God with whom she had to do, but she had never really
worshiped God because God had not opened her heart. She was
religious and devout and doing what she thought she had to do. Here's the truth, brethren. Being
religious and being devout and going to church will not save
your soul. God has to open your heart and
cause you to bow. cause you to do obeisance, cause
you to kiss the hand. Does the scripture not say kiss
the son lest he be angry? And that's what we do. We come
before him in complete submission and devotion. Lord, you're everything
and I'm nothing. Lord, you're gonna have to do
all the saving. What a difference. Nicodemus was very devout and
very religious. And Nicodemus came to the Lord
by night, representing the spiritual condition he was in. And what'd
the Lord say? Nicodemus, except a man be born
of the Spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus, in his spiritual blindness,
said, Lord, how can I, a grown man, enter again into my mother's
womb and be born again? And the Lord said, oh, Nicodemus,
that which is of the flesh is flesh, that which is of the spirit
is spirit. You understand all these fleshly
things, but you don't understand the Spirit of God. Why? Because
you've not been brought, you've not had your heart opened. When
the scripture says that When we were yet without strength,
Christ died for the ungodly. I've shared this with you before.
That word ungodly doesn't mean that you're out performing some
sort of shameful acts in the world. No, it means it's the
word worship with the alpha in front of it. That's what the
word ungodly means. Left to ourselves, we're like
Lydia. We're unable to worship God. That's all that word means. You
can't come into the presence of God. You can't worship him
unless he opens your heart. Oh, I'm sorry. I've got to take
two more minutes. Look at the rest of this verse.
She heard, and notice the word us is in italics. If all you
hear is the voice of a man you hadn't heard from God, they shall
be all taught of God. Lord, I thank thee that thou
hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and you've
revealed them unto babes. She heard, she heard what Paul
was saying. And she attended unto the things
which were spoken about of Paul. She gave her undivided attention
to them. She knew that the salvation of
her soul depended on these things. She knew that this was the very
word of God. This was the only hope she had. She wasn't just some curiosity
seeker. She wasn't sitting there critical
of what Paul was saying. She was listening. She gave attention
to the things that Paul said. In verse 15, and when she was
baptized, here's the evidence. The evidence that God has opened
the heart is that he gives us attention to the things of God. He causes us to be concerned
for our immortal souls. He causes us to believe what
God has said. I don't think anybody can ever
accuse me of coming to them and talking to them uninvited about
being baptized. I don't think I've ever done
that. Why? Because when the Lord opens the
heart, you want to be baptized. You want to confess Him. You
want to identify with Him. You want to follow Him obediently
and let all the world know that when Christ died, I died. And
when He was risen, I was risen. And you want to renounce all
your false hopes and every false religion. She was baptized. She didn't have to be persuaded
to be baptized. She said like that Ethiopian
eunuch, what doth hinder me to be baptized? Why? Because the Lord had opened her
heart. And finally, what did she say? She besought us. She pleaded with us. Oh, if you
have found me faithful, If you have found me to be a
true believer, please come to my house. I'd love to provide
for you. I would love to hear more. I
want to be close to the source of this message. God makes His people willing
in the day. We don't have to manipulate people to serve God. We don't have to shame people
to come to church. Not if God opens the heart. If
God opens the heart, they just, they want to serve and they'll
take no notice of their service. They'll after having served the
Lord and his people. I love what Paul said in 1 Corinthians
chapter 16 about the household of Stephanas. He said, they addicted
themselves to the ministry of the saints. Now that's a good
addiction. That's a good addiction. They addicted themselves to the
ministry of the saints. Do good unto all men, especially
those of the household of faith. God's people just want to express
their gratitude for what the Lord has done. She pleaded with
them that she might be of some service. There's the evidence
that God has opened the heart. Our heavenly Father, we pray
that you would open our hearts. We pray that the The life giving
water of your word would nourish our souls and or that you would
cause us to come out. Outside the camp. That you would
give us ears to hear. That you would open our hearts
and. Cause us to be willing. We ask
it in Christ name. Amen. number 26 in the spiral
hymnal. Let's stand together.