A Liberated Woman
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2017 · 5 February 2017
The whole message is really about two women, a liberated woman and an enslaved one. So these two women that we are going to talk about are in opposite situations. One of them is godly and the other one is Satanic. And tonight we're going to talk about a lady called Lydia, who is the liberated lady. And next Sunday we will discuss the second one.
And really they are mirrors of every woman. For every woman fits either in to the Lydia category or in the category of the maid who had a spirit of divination. There are only two kinds of people in the world, liberated ones and enslaved ones. And that is the same for men, there are only two kinds of men in the world, liberated men and enslaved men.
For a while Paul and Silas on this the second missionary tour, must have felt that the Spirit of God was continually saying the word 'no'. Because no matter which direction they wanted to go they were stopped by the Holy Spirit. Paul and Silas started in Jerusalem and went north on the second missionary tour. They went to Galatia where Paul and Barnabas had come on their first tour.
The first time around Paul and Barnabas came through Paphos on the isle of Cyprus, but on this journey they came backwards to the churches that had already been founded at Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Antioch in the area known as Pisidia. They had strengthened the believers, because the priority in evangelism is to develop strong Christians who are able reproduce themselves.
Now it seemed very natural to progress west into an area known as Asia Minor. There were great cities there, Philadelphia, Sardis, Thyatira, Pergamum, Smyrna and Ephesus who really became strongholds for the gospel. But it says in Acts 16:6, "That the Holy Spirit forbid them to preach the Word in Asia." Now we don't know how He did that but it was done. Well that left them only one way to go.
Paul managed to wiggle through a narrow passage way between Bithynia and Asia and keep going like that. This is a great lesson for us to learn, when doors slam shut, keep on moving. That may be God’s test of your faithfulness and out of that test may grow your capacity to do the job that really needs to be done. So if you learn to be persistent, as they were, God will open doors to some marvelous things.
So they came to this little town called Troas. Now town was named Alexander Troas after Alexander the Great. It was a town that was ten miles away from the city of Troy and where the word Trojan horse comes from. It had been a free Greek city until Caesar Augustus made it a Roman Colony. This whole territory was famous. Helen of Troy, the great heroes of the Trojan War, Homer and Hippocrates, all came from that area.
Then God gave directions in verse 9, "A vision appeared to Paul. He saw a Macedonian man who said, come over into Macedonia and help us." Well that was the first step of the gospel moving into Europe. Now Macedonia is today called Greece. It was under the power of Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. At that time it was simply a Roman province with great cities like, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens and Corinth.
In verse 10 after the vision they left right away. Verses 11-12, “Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, 12 and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony.” And God provided a boat. Do you understand that God never asks somebody to do something without a means to do it?
Samothrace is this little island half-way between Troas and Neapolis. And Neapolis up here is the port of Philippi, which is ten miles inland. This island is a mountain coming out of the sea, "and the next day they proceeded to Neapolis,” then they walked to Philippi. That only took two days while the return trip took five days. So when God opens the door, the boat is ready and the winds are favorable.
And when they walked to Philippi, they met two women. Now these two women represent the two different categories, one was liberated and one was enslaved. It's amazing that all these women who are talking about liberation do not really understand what liberation is. The idea to have abortions whenever you want, to be free to fool around sexually with anybody, to act out blatant lesbianism, and to violate patterns of love and submission, is ridiculous.
That is not liberation. What they are really doing is exchanging one kind of human bondage for another worse kind. But down deep they soon discover that what they really want is the flight of the soul. They want the soul to be free to transcend the bondage that they will never transcend. That liberation is a mirror of the fact that people are still prisoners, they just are in different prison cells.
But here we are going to meet a liberated lady named Lydia. Her liberation was to be content with what God designed her to be. That is when you are truly free. Jesus defined it this way in John 8:32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” A person can really be liberated through Jesus Christ, when he or she is liberated from sin, death, Satan and hell, Amen?
Now, let us look at this lady. Verse 12 continued, “And we were staying in that city for some days.” Now this city of Philippi was an important city of Macedonia. One of the reasons it was important was it was located on the Egnatian Highway, one of those massive Roman accomplishments, a road that was 490 miles long. It was an area where there was much traffic and trade and military movement built in about 146 B.C.
Well, the gospel landed there. Verse 12 says they just hung around for a few days waiting for Saturday, because that was the Sabbath. Paul went always to the synagogue of the Jews because they would have a hearing for him there and a place to speak because he was Jewish and a Pharisee. He also went to the Jews to win some to Christ so they could help him evangelize the Gentiles.
However in Philippi there was no synagogue. It took ten men to make a synagogue, but there weren't even ten Jews. So the gospel spread in Europe is going to begin with a bunch of women. In Christ there is neither male nor female in the sight of God. Verse 13, “And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there.”
Apparently there were not enough Jewish men to have a synagogue. And here were some women, with no men to lead them and no men to teach them. But they faithfully met anyway and they had a place of prayer. Maybe they just had a grove of trees, or maybe a little wall, we don't know, but they were accustomed to go down by the river. One of the things the Jews did in their worship was ceremonial cleansing.
This is one of the most beautiful stories of the liberation of women by Jesus Christ. Women at that time in the world, whether they were Greek women, Roman women or any pagan women, were looked upon as slaves. For example, if a man didn't like his breakfast he had a right to kill his wife without recourse. No woman had the right to change her religion apart from her husband.
One of the biggest problems of Christianity was this that in Christ there was no male and no female. A woman could come to Jesus Christ and be totally liberated independent of her husband’s desires. A lot of women were getting saved and these husbands were getting real uptight. In 1 Peter 3, Peter instructs saved women to win their unsaved husbands by living such a Godly life that they can't resist it.
Paul addressed this problem in 1 Cor. 7 when he talks about the unbeliever who can't deal with Christianity and finally just departs. And Paul says if he wants to depart let him depart. And it was all because of the liberation of women. Paul was raised a Pharisee, and you know what prayer had to recite? “Oh, God, I thank You that I am neither a Gentile, a slave or a woman.” Just imagine, for the first time here was a religion where a woman could choose totally independent from the desire of her husband.
Verse 14-15, “Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. 15 And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.”
Now her name is Lydia. Lydia is also the name of the area she came from. So she's Lydia from Lydia, an area in Asia Minor where the city of Thyatira was. That city was a very important place biblically because the church was placed there according to Revelation. And here was a Gentile lady who had become a God-fearer, she had turned to the God of Israel worshipping Him. Incidentally, Thyatira was famous for purple dye.
God loves an enterprising woman. Look at Proverbs 31. God wants a woman to be creative and enterprising as long as it never affects the responsibility she has to her husband and home. Verse 14 says first that this lady worshipped God. This is the beginning of her liberation. She was a slave to sin, to Satan, to hell to death and then she turned to the true God. She became a God-fearer, a Gentile who turns to God.
But she didn't do this independent of God. Romans 3:11 says, "No man seeks after God." God had drawn her and she was already seeking God. Now Jesus had lived, died, rose and ascended into heaven, the gospel was being delivered and she as a pagan, didn't know the gospel but she was seeking to know God. If there is a pagan who in his heart honestly seeks to know God because he was chosen, God will reveal Himself in the gospel to that individual.
Listen to John 7:17, Jesus said, “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.” It is saying if there is a seeking heart God will never shut Himself off from that heart. Here is a seeking lady. And Paul, Silas, Luke and Timothy are wandering all over following the Holy Spirit just to get to this lady. That is God’s attitude towards a seeking heart.
And that is also God’s attitude in your Christian life. If you really want to know His will it is available. As God told Israel through Moses in Deuteronomy 4:29, “You will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Psalm 119:2 says, “Blessed are those who seek Him with the whole heart.” And read Hosea 6:3 that says, “Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.”
Second thing, she not only sought, she also listened, and she heard Paul. All people have ears but many don't hear. Jesus encountered many hypocrites, who didn't hear anything. They didn't see the truth when He stood in their presence. Matthew 13:12 says, “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”
And the implication is that without faith these hypocrites could not understand the truth, but this woman heard it with faith. Faith comes by hearing. And the actual Greek of that verse in Romans 10:17 is, “Faith comes by hearing a speech about Jesus.” We translate it faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That is not entirely correct. Faith comes by hearing and hearing a speech about Jesus, Amen?
Third thing about her; this woman not only sought and she not only heard but then God opened her heart. Look at verse 14, “The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.” She put her faith in Christ. Salvation is of the Lord, that's what the Bible says. People say to me - don't you get discouraged if people don't respond? No, that's all up to God. He's the one who opens the heart.
In evangelism it is not about having a clever approach. One of the most important things in presenting the gospel is clarity of content. We often talk about evangelism like it's an emotional decision, it is not. It is God’s work in the heart of an individual. As you go through the book of Acts they are only speaking about Christ, about the resurrection, about historical facts about Christ and the gospel.
So whenever we evangelize we must be full of understanding. And when the time comes and the man understands the content, God has the ability then to open his heart. And it may not always be dramatic and it may not always be emotional but it's still happening. It ought to be exciting and thrilling and you ought to be as emotional about it as you want to be, but do not forget to give a clear content along with it.
Verse 15, “And when she and her household were baptized.” This happened because they could see that God had opened up her heart. They not only did they baptize her but they baptized her whole household. Acts 16 is the household chapter. The next person that gets saved is the jailor and he also gets saved with his whole house. God is building a church in Philippi with only a couple of households.
Lydia's house became the place where the church met. Look at verse 40, “So they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed.” Women are important in the church but the lead and the rule of the church belongs to the men. Well, where are the men? They are there in verse 40.
Verse 15 continued, “She begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.” If you think my salvation is real, “come on into my house and stay.” That's true hospitality. Let us be content with what He has designed for you. Only Jesus Christ that can free you from prison. How is it with you? Are you really free or are you a slave of the world? You too can be free right now! Just give your life to Jesus. Let us pray.