Take your Bibles with me again and turn to Acts 16. Acts 16. We are going to read verses 6-24.

This is a passage that tells us about the conversion of two people. Two ladies. They couldn't be more different. But the key player in this story isn't Paul - and it isn't these two ladies - it's the Holy Spirit. It's God working.

But I do want to say something about the fact that this story talks about two ladies. There are lots of people out there who want to paint Christians as mysogynists and sexists. We are the ones who are holding woman down. We are a bunch of knuckle dragging neanderthals and it's the savvy people - the people who live in places like New York and California that care about women.

That's a very shallow view of history and a view that displays total ignorance of the Bible. At the time of Christ - most of the countries of the world treated woman like dirt. You could do to your wife whatever you wanted with no consequence. If she messed up your breakfast - you could kill her and it wouldn't matter. Killing girl babies was extremely common. Forced prostitution was extremely common. Having more than one wife was extremely common. Keeping concubines was extremely common. It was totally normal for a Roman to be married more than 3 or 4 times. Woman had no protection and no status.

But you would barely see that if you read the New Testament. Many of the heroes of the New Testament were woman: Mary, Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, Dorcas, Lois and Eunice, Eudioas and Syntyche and on and on. We don't totally get their role - but their were female prophets mentioned many times in the New Testament. The church is "the bride of Christ" that God loved, cherished and sacrificed for.

The early Christian church wasn't anti-woman - not at all.

Here in this chapter we see two woman who couldn't be more different but they had one thing in common - God was working in their lives, drawing them to himself.

Now, I want to go through this story and explain it fairly quickly because I want to get to what the story teaches us. It starts by telling us about Paul and Silas' journey. They kept running into closed doors in Turkey and God made it clear to them in a vision that he wanted them to expand their ministry to Macedonia so they traveled from Western Turkey by boat north and west until they got to a city called Phillipi.

Let me give you a quick geography lesson. Macedonia is North and East of Greece. It sort of makes a land bridge between Greece and Turkey. Functionally though - it's a pretty Greek place. Many people mistakenly think that the Greek's took over the world before the Romans did - that's wrong. Phillip the great was a Macedonian. He just loved greek culture and spread greek culture around the world.

So they are leaving the Middle east and middle eastern culture moving into Europe and european culture. And this first city that they go to is actually a Roman City. It was considered a little part of Rome outside of Rome. It was a local capitol - but never a huge city. Think Springfield - not Chicago.

In fact - they weren't even big enough to have a synagogue. So, when Paul and Silas get there - they can't follow their normal pattern and preach in the synagogue - because there isn't one. So they wait until the sabbath and they go to the river because it was customary for jews to gather by the river for prayer when their wasn't a synagogue.

And when they get their they meet an interesting woman - Lydia. One of the things I learned studying this is that Lydia was probably her nickname - because it's actually the name of the place she was from. The other name for Thyratyra was Lydia. Thyratyra was known for purple dye. She was from their and sold purple dye. So it was probably a knickname or business name.

Anyways, Lydia is not Jewish. She’s a Gentile. But she earnestly wants to worship God. So even though she’s not Jewish she is worshipping with the jews at the river and when she hears what Paul is saying about Jesus the Bible says “Whose heart the Lord opened.” She accepts and believes the gospel and gets baptized. Then brings that message to her house and they believe and are baptized.

She then begs Paul and his helpers to come and stay with her while they are in Philippi.

So, that’s the first woman. A wealthy moral kind woman who was never anything but kind to Paul and his team.

But the next woman couldn’t be more different. The story says that as they went praying they met this damsel - probably a teenage girl, who is a slave and who is demon possessed. Her owners use her to make money by telling people she can tell the future. So she’s some kind of psychic.

When she sees Paul and Silas she starts following them around and yelling to whoever would hear “These are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.” She follows them around doing this many days.

If you are anything like me you might read that and think “Ok - why is that a problem?” I mean - they ARE the servants of the most high God. They are telling people the way of salvation. So what is the problem?

This girl is demon possessed. She’s acting on the influence of demons. I’m sure she was doing this in such a way that it really scared people and turned people off from the gospel. So, finally Paul can’t take it any more. The Bible says he is “grieved” but that word could mean “annoyed, miffed.” He can’t take it - so he turns to her and says:

”I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”

He was talking to the Demon. He exorcised her. And the Bible says "He came out the same hour." So, she was actually demon possessed and she was actually healed from it. And she was immediately a different person. The Bible doesn't say she got saved - but I think we can assume that she did.

We know she was very different. We know that because verse 18 says that her masters saw she was different. They saw that their cash cow wasn't giving milk anymore and they got so mad about it that they incited a riot and got Paul and Silas thrown in jail.

So we have these two women, one a rich business woman who was very moral and religious and one who was a poor wretch who was a demon possessed. But they both needed the same thing - they both needed Jesus. They both needed salvation.

Now what does God want us to learn from this story? What are the lessons for us? I have four of them for you this morning:

1. God is seeking after people.

Jesus said in Luke 19:10

"For the son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

God wants to save people. He is actively seeking sinners. He is actively looking to save people and bring them to himself. And I think we see this crystal clear in this story.

If you were to look at the way that Paul and his team travelled - it doesn't make sense. Every where they went God was closing doors sending them on a very narrow line to this little city of Philippi. Why?

I think it's because there was some people in Philippi that God wanted to hear the gospel, and God was moving the pieces in place.

Have you ever thought about this? God wants to save people. He wants people to trust Him.

You might hate your job. You never planned on doing it. You never wanted to do it. It's not what you signed up for. And you might ask God "Why?" Every day. Do you know, maybe there is a Lydia at your job that God wants you to share the gospel with.

Or maybe you live in a crumby neighborhood and you want to get out. You didn't plan on going there. Have you ever thought that maybe their is a damsel in your neighborhood that needs you to share the life changing message of the gospel?

I don't know. But I do know this - God is actively working to save people.

A second thing we can learn from this is:

2. God is seeking after all kinds of people.

If I say, God wants to save people. That's not a very controversial statement. Most Christians would give some agreement to that. But when we read the Bible it's clear that God wants to save all kinds of people.

Most of us rejoice when we see another Lydia come into the church. People with property and standing. People with morals and religion. People with nice clothes and nice language. People who, like Lydia, have something to offer right away.

But when God brings us into the path of a damsel girl. Someone with a past. Someone with the marks of sin all over them. Someone who is openly hostile to God. We don't even think that God would save a person like that. But God does and God can.

And listen, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. God wants to save the Lydia's of this world. Praise the Lord for the Lydia's. But God wants to save the slave girls too.

Remember what they accused Jesus of? They didn't say "Jesus, we can't stand you because you just are too high and holy." No, they said "You are a friend of publicans and sinners. You are hanging out with THOSE people."

Think of this. I think this is beautiful. I can't imagine a situation where Lydia and the damsel would have anything to do with each other - but with Christ they were sisters. In Christ they were part of the same spiritual family.

God wants to save people. All people. The creepy people at Bagelfest. The uppity people at the restaurant. The religious people in the pew. God is after all of them.

A third lesson from this story is similar.

3. God is powerful enough to save those most enslaved by Satan.

This damsel girl was demon possessed. She was literally being led and controlled by the devil. It's likely she was used as a prostitute too. And she follows Paul and Silas around for many days mocking them. I think if there was anybody you could write off and say "nope, she's too far gone" it's this girl. But God saved this girl.

Paul said in Romans 1:16

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believe that; to the Jew first and also to the Greek."

The gospel is "the power of God unto salvation.". That word power is the Greek word dunamis. It's the word we get "dynamite" from.

Hebrews 4:12 says

"For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

Boom. Do you know what that means? It means the gospel changes people. It has the power, when it is clearly presented, to turn lost men into saved men. To turn slaves into free people. To turn children of the devil into children of God.

Boom. Dunamis. The power of God.

And let me be clear before I move onto the last point - it is THE GOSPEL that saves. These people weren't saved because of Paul's awesome delivery. They weren't saved because Paul added another verse to the invitation or squeezed their hand a certain way. They were saved because of the clarity of the gospel and by the power of God.

God wants to save people - all kinds of people - even people who are the most ensnared by Satan.

One more point and we'll be done...

4. When God is working, Satan will be pushing back (But God is working through that too).

At the end of our text this morning Paul and Silas face a riot, are falsely accused, and then beaten and thrown in jail.

Satan pushed back and pushed back hard. But a few verses later - we see that God was working to save the Philippians jailer and his household and that couldn't happen without Paul and Silas in jail.

Sometimes, when we are faced with difficulty we think "God can't be in this - it's hard". But just because we are facing difficulty doesn't mean we are losing the fight. It doesn't mean we are out of control. It's all a part of God plan.

So, what is the point of this passage? I think if I had to sum it up in a sentence it would be this:

Trust God, follow His leading and share His word. Because He is after the Lydia's and the damsel girls of this world and He will save people when we are faithful and obedient.

Let's stand for invitation and prayer.