THE CONVERSION OF LYDIA.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, Nov. 17, 1889, BY THE

REV. JOHN MCNEILL.

:

"And from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and colony and we were in that city abiding certain days. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. 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. 12-15.

I MUST cast myself upon your indulgence to-day. Let me say at once that this is not the subject from which I meant to preach. I had prepared myself, because this is College Day, on a subject which brought in some special and particular reference to professors and students. I have no heart now to make the remarks.* My subject is taken from me; and so I ask that you and I alike may to-day feel that the Lord Himself gives us the message. He has taken you and me into His own hands, and I trust that out of this, which certainly puts me very greatly about and which reduces me to the very uttermost, He may bring glory

* The preacher had only learned half an hour before of the death of Professor Elmslie.

to Himself. That, at any rate, is what one might reasonably expect that when a man feels himself utterly confused, and utterly at an end of what little power he may think he has, then is the time when God may be glorified. May it be so. We are going forward to our communion service this evening, and I should like to take up this subject because we have here the elements of the Gospel, and if the Lord applies it to our hearts it will be the best of all preparations for sitting down at His table.

"On the Sabbath day," says the narrative, 66 we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. 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." This narrative brings out one side of the work of grace very plainly. Other narratives bring out other sides; but this narrative seems to be put here to emphasize that the human heart naturally, the human heart even at its best, the human heart even when it is, so to speak, religious, and, in a sense, possessed of the fear of God as the one Lord and Creator, the Ruler and Disposer of all things, is still shut against the indwelling of that same Lord, as He has revealed Himself for purposes of grace and salvation in Christ Jesus.

Before we come to that point let us see, however, how the narrative itself leads us up to it. This is a critical time, I had almost said, in your history and in mine. When we open the Bible at this chapter we open it with peculiar interest, for here the Lord of grace and of salvation is on His way to us. The Lord is bending His steps westward, and, so to speak, committing Himself to cause the channel of His grace, which ultimately is to bless all the earth, to be cut through Europe first instead of through Asia. It is a critical moment. Just suppose that Paul and Silas had been ordered the other way instead of this way. Then very likely, if everything else had happened as it has happened,

these lands of ours would have been the India and

the Asia and the Africa that now are; and away in those lands the Gospel would have been abundant, and ministers would be doing their best to get their people to contribute to foreign missions, to evangelize the barbarians of Europe and all over this way. It is a critical place. We ought never to open this page without having that in our minds. God is committing Himself to come this way. Behind that shut heart of Lydia lies Europe, with these islands of the sea. It is a thrilling narrative. How silently it begins. How quietly the story is told; so quietly that unless you read and think and examine the history and drift of things, you do not see the great departure that God is taking. Slowly God does His work; but let us always be interested in it, for whatsoever He does is from eternity and has consequences to eternity.

Leaving that high aspect of the question and coming to the human side, as the narrative is told here, see what has to be taken in. They had been staying in Philippi for certain days, as you might be sojourning in London, and on the Sabbath day they went outside the gate to the river side, where they supposed there was a place of prayer. So then, humanly speaking, the Gospel came to Lydia, and the Gospel came to us, because Paul was a man of fixed principles and fixed habits. Paul was not a man who was a devout worshipper when he was in Jerusalem, but who when he was in Philippi spent his time on Sundays as the Philippians did. Not he. I am not straining: I am not exaggerating. We are warranted to look minutely into every point in this wonderful narrative, remembering its place in the Divine purpose for a great mass of mankind; and looking at it in that way, we are warranted in condescending with some force and insistence upon this—that had Paul been as loose and uncertain in his observance of the Sabbath day as some people whom we know, this story would not have been written under his name. It is very hard to do what Paul did. It is not a little thing. It requires

purpose and determination. He had to gird up the loins of his mind, if on the Sabbath day he would turn his back upon Philippi and upon all its wonders. Unlike us, Paul, true to his training and true to his habits, this oldfashioned, narrow-minded, prejudiced, bigoted Jew turned his back upon Philippi, and went outside to where he expected that, following their usual custom, his countrymen and countrywomen would be gathered together for their peculiar religious rites and ceremonies. Do I speak to

strangers who are among us to-day? My friend, let this lesson be for you. Forget not your God to-day. Forget not the ways of worship in which you were brought up in some place else when you are sojourning here in London to-day. Remember that God is with you to-day. Remember that God is watching you to-day. Remember that for this Sabbath you shall be responsible. To-day you are not in your accustomed place. You are not in your accustomed church. You are not to-day in your usual Sabbath-school work, or in your usual Christian work of whatever kind; but God has not given you the holiday to spend as you please because of that. Remember that perhaps you were brought here to-day to open some door which, but for your arrival, would have remained shut. Look up to God to-day, and ask Him this day as earnestly, yea, perhaps more earnestly than ever before, to use you for His glory in this strange city, and amidst the strange surroundings in which you feel yourself at this very hour. Lord," says the Psalmist, "I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth.” Can we say the same? Is the love of worship, the love of the old familiar round of worship, so strong in us that when the worshipping day comes round our heart almost by itself wakens up with strong desire to engage in the dear and familiar round? Sometimes we have to speak severely, lest the routine of worship may become the end in itself. Sometimes we have to speak severely against an observance of the Sabbath day which is an observance only in form and in dull, monotonous routine,

66

But here we are at the other side of it.

Never delude

yourself into believing that I-to speak for myself—am saying a single word against the Sabbath day the need for the Sabbath day, and the need, if you will, for steady plodding attendance on the ordinances of grace as these are conducted on Sabbath particularly and peculiarly. Out of Paul's steady-going habits there came this wonderful story of grace and salvation.

What a wonderful scene is presented to us! "Outside of the city," the city away back there, with its sin, and its bustle, and its sprightliness, and its gaiety, and its multitude. They turn their backs on the city, and go out here to this quiet place by the river side. What a picture after all of all congregations! Where are we to-day? Along the river of time we glide" all the other days of the week, floating down to the vast sea of eternity. Some who were with us last Sabbath, it may be have gone into the great sea. But on the Sabbath day we

We land,

reach a little quiet creek, and God's own hand thrusts our boat in here; and while the river goes speeding away on to the sea, we disembark for a little. This is a resting day. We get out of the swim and the stream and the current. We disembark, and quietly, for a little time, while our boat rocks idly in this little bay, we rest ourselves. and we sit down, and lo! God's servant providentially comes among us, and he lifts up his voice, and he speaks of things that belong to eternity and to the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and we open our hearts, or rather our hearts are opened for us, SO that we attend to the things that are said to us, and receive inestimable blessings thereby. May that scene be repeated while we sit here, and as this service goes on this forenoon. May it have a thousand thousand illustrations all over the land on this blessed Sabbath day.

What a boon comes to the world when the Sabbath day comes! What a blessing came to Philippi that Sabbath day, although the great city back there knew nothing