Equipping Eve: Choice or Chance

Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

Well, it's true, there's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women,

No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Ebendroth and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

Well, hello ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve, the show that seeks to equip you with fruits of truth from God's Word.

Why fruits of truth? Why do we say that? Well, because God's Word is wholly true.

And so when we study His Word, learn His Word, we delve into His Word on a daily basis, we are gleaning those fruits of truth to apply to our lives.

Every single aspect of our lives is governed, or should be, by the truth and authority of God's Word.

Why? Because it is God's Word, because of its very nature and character.

It is authored by the God of the universe, the God and creator of the universe who is holy, just, perfect, righteous, merciful, gracious, forgiving, loving.

That is the God who wrote those 66 books that you hold in your hand that you probably take for granted.

Let me say we take for granted because I certainly can't exclude myself from that.

How many of us have multiple Bibles on our bookshelves? How many of us have Bibles on our phones or iPads or computers?

We have access, free, open access to the

Word of God. That is phenomenal. Do you realize what a gift that is?

I mean, have we ever paused to really ponder that? I know I haven't, actually, until this moment.

That is phenomenal. There are still people today who don't have the entirety of God's Word in a language that they can understand.

That is why we're so thankful for those Bible translators who are out there working and learning these maybe obscure languages so that God's Word can get into the hands of these people.

That's a phenomenal effort and a phenomenal feat. We should be praying for those people and be very thankful for the way that God's Word has prevailed.

The way that God's Word has persevered and prevailed and survived through the centuries, that alone testifies to its divine nature.

Doesn't it? Doesn't it? It does. Let me answer that question for you.

It does. And so that is why we go to God's Word here at Equipping Eve. We can sit here and talk about how we feel all day long.

It doesn't matter. It does not matter how you feel at the end of the day. It does not matter how a

Bible passage makes you feel. There we go. Now I'm hitting a little closer to home. It doesn't matter if you don't like that particular passage.

The truth that it contains is still true whether you like it or not. The truth that it contains is still true whether we even exist or not.

And that is something that we need to come to understand and come to appreciate because that speaks to the authoritative nature of the

Word. Right? Am I right? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to preach at you like that.

Sometimes I get a little excited over the Bible. I love

God's Word, don't you? And I feel like I don't love it enough and I don't read it enough and I don't study it enough and I really don't like that.

Sometimes I think, you know, I need a job where they just pay me to stay home and read the Bible and study the

Bible. I don't understand why that's not okay. But my employer would not pay me to do that.

So we are thankful that God still provides time and moments of refreshment where we can get into His Word and ensure that we are in that Word day by day.

You know, it sounds silly, it sounds cliched, but your day goes a little bit better when you're in God's Word, doesn't it?

Not in the sense that everything goes right and everything is wonderful and all good things happen to you.

But speaking personally, I handle things a little bit better. I react to things a little bit better, a little bit more sanctified perhaps, and it's because my mind has been transformed and renewed by the

Word. And so we really encourage you ladies to be in God's Word daily.

Daily, if you can, you will see such a transformation and it's nothing that you have to try to do.

God's Word does that transforming work. And the more we're in it, the more we love it, the more we know

God and Christ. There's the key, right? The more we know Christ who is revealed in that Word, that's why we want to go to it every day.

That's why we hunger for it. That's why we long for it. That is why we treasure it. And now

I've preached some more. So hey, at Equipping Eve, some of you who have been listening for a while may know that we have a little segment.

We don't do it every show, but from time to time. We like to do the Just Be Awesome segment.

And if you're on Twitter, that's hashtag Just Be Awesome. And that was actually derived from a book written by a woman named

Holly Gerth. And the book is actually called You're Already Amazing. So the book in itself is a lovely narcissistic piece.

And so we have just adapted that to Just Be Awesome. And so one of my listeners came up with that.

And so thank you. We like to run with it. Also, just for your information, ever since we came up with that,

I have had a little plaque in my office that I found. I think it was at Big Lots.

And it says, Be Amazingly Awesome. And I bought it because it was funny. And it's one of my favorite things.

So that is what is inspiring me here today. Be Amazingly Awesome. And I mean it as a joke.

Anyway, so that's in my office. So Holly Gerth wrote this book, You're Already Amazing.

And it's really all about you and how amazing you are with some Bible verses thrown in, taken out of context.

So that's fun. So I decided to look up and see if Ms.

Gerth was on Twitter. And she is. So I'm looking at her Twitter feed now.

And here's an interesting one. I think it's a quote from a book written by a friend of hers.

Yes. So this is not a Holly Gerth quote. But it says, In the middle of your mess,

God is writing your message. In the middle of your mess, God is writing your message.

And it's on one of those little meme picture things. You know, someone put the quote up there.

And it's interesting that they've bolded and used a larger font for the words, your mess, your message.

Because it's all about you after all, right? And I guess this quote is from a woman named Caitlin Bouchion.

I don't know. I'm probably butchering that. So I do apologize. In a book called Even If Not.

So in the middle of your mess, God is writing your message. So you see, it's all about you, isn't it? Isn't it?

You know, never mind that God works all things together for His glory, and for the good of those who love

Him. I mean, yes, God is indeed working things together for the good of those who love

Him and live according to His commandments. However, it is not primarily about those who love

Him and live according to His commandments. It is about God, right? So it's not about God writing your message in the middle of your mess.

It's about God displaying and carrying out what He has ordained from the beginning of time to bring

Himself glory. Why? Because He is the ultimate sovereign ruler of the universe.

That's why. So it is not about your message. It's about God's message. And what is God's message?

It is salvation and redemption through Jesus Christ alone. And that, indeed, friends, is the message that brings

Him glory. And let us not lose sight of that, especially if it means that we have instead put our sights on ourselves.

May it never be. Amen? Let's get an amen.

Okay, so that is not the main point of the show.

So I was driving home from work, as I do every day.

And on my commute, I know I've said this before, we've actually done a few shows on bad church signs or sad church signs.

And so I passed some really adorable churches on my commute. They are so cute.

One of them is like the quintessential little white chapel. It's in the middle of a scary neighborhood.

But anyway, I'm sure in its day, it was lovely. And they recently repainted it, so it's all white, has the little belfry.

I mean, you just want to walk in and worship in this church because it's so adorable.

I believe it's a holiness church, so I shall not step foot in there because it frightens me just a little bit.

But they have a church sign that they change approximately every three to four months, if there's anything on there at all.

And I drove by the other day and it said, choice, not chance, determines your destiny.

And I thought to myself, I don't think they realize how right they are now.

To be clear, I do not know anything about this church. And this is not a commentary on that particular church, but I am guessing based on other church signs and based on the type of church that it is, that it is probably a little bit

Arminian in its mindset. It probably is one of those churches that would say that you need to choose

God, choose Jesus, pray this prayer, walk the aisle, sign the card, and you are saved.

You're good to go. You need to make that choice. It's all up to you to make the choice to choose

Jesus. And so it's your choice, not mere chance, that determines your destiny. That is what

I believe they would believe and teach. And if I'm wrong and find out that I'm wrong,

I'll be happy to retract that. However, I don't think I am. But think about it for a second.

Choice, not chance, determines your destiny. That particular interpretation of that phrase would be dead wrong, according to the

Bible. But the phrase itself is not dead wrong, according to the

Bible, is it? Let's think about it. It is choice that determines your destiny. Whose choice?

God's choice, right? God has foreordained those whom he will save.

God has determined from before the foundation of the world those who are his, those who will be saved.

And then, then God does the saving. That's the best part, right?

Because it means that when we go out and preach the gospel, which we do, because how will they hear if there is no preacher and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, Romans 10, 17, and how can you hear the word of Christ unless someone preaches it to you, right?

So we share the gospel. We proclaim the gospel, not knowing who God has chosen before the foundation of the earth.

We do that out of faithfulness and obedience to our Lord. But the best part is that we don't have to persuade someone to pray a prayer and say, oh, good,

I got them saved. Because if we did, if we went out and had a conversation in the grocery store with someone and happened to have opportunity to share the gospel and they didn't pray the prayer, well, how could you sleep at night?

You didn't save that person. Because it is not up to you to do the saving.

It's up to God. That's what's so fantastic about our Lord. He alone does the saving.

There is a great little paragraph, actually, a great huge book here that I just received,

I don't know, maybe a week ago. And it is Biblical Doctrine. It's the systematic theology that has recently been published and was written by John MacArthur and Richard Mayhew out there at Master's Seminary.

And of course, I have not read this cover to cover yet. It's approximately a thousand pages. I probably will not sit and go from start to finish.

It will be one of those where I say, I want to read about such and such today. And that's what I'll do.

Anyway, side note, if you're looking for a gift for someone who loves to study God's Word, this book, this is an amazing resource.

So I highly recommend it, even though I've only read bits and pieces of it up to this point. The table of contents is amazing.

So I think it's a really great resource. Anyway, in speaking of salvation and regeneration, this book,

Biblical Doctrine says, the author of this radical change of man's nature cannot be man himself, but rather must be the creator of all life, including eternal life,

God alone. So they're talking about regeneration and that moment when your heart, your mind are transformed and conformed to the

Word of God. So the book goes on. Some other aspects of the application of redemption require believers to participate actively.

In conversion, for example, the repentance and faith are themselves sovereign gifts from God. We ourselves must turn from sin and trust in Christ.

Though God grants us faith, he does not believe the gospel for us. Similarly, though the

Christian's growth and holiness is the sovereign work of the spirit of God, we are called to avail ourselves of the means by which the spirit sanctifies us, working out our salvation with fear and trembling, and making every effort to supplement our faith with virtue.

The work of regeneration, however, is unlike these other aspects of the application of redemption.

In regeneration, man is entirely passive. God is the sole active agent in bringing about the creative miracle of the new birth.

And we know this, right? We know this because we see this in scripture. Think back with me to John 3.

Everybody loves John 3, 16, right? But if you look earlier in the chapter,

John 3, verse 1, Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Born again, the word again has a little one next to it in my Bible, and so I go to my cross -reference and it says born from above.

Unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. That means

God must cause regeneration. If you would like further teaching on that,

John MacArthur has, it's probably more than one sermon, but he has an amazing series of sermons on John 3 that I will try to remember to link in the blog because you'll love them.

So let's look at a biblical example of God's work in regeneration.

Ladies, if you'll turn to Acts 16. Acts 16 verse 9 says,

A vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him and saying,

Come over to Macedonia and help us. When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

So putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samoth... How do you say that?

I don't know. Okay, we ran a straight course to the next city. And on the day following to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a

Roman colony. And we were staying in the city for some days. And on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to a riverside where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer.

And we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled. A woman named

Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening.

And the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us saying,

If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us.

The Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.

Repentance and faith are gifts from God. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

One must be born again from above. And so who is this woman,

Lydia? Who is this woman? Well, S. Lewis Johnson has a fantastic sermon on this particular passage.

And so let's see a little bit of what S. Lewis Johnson has to say. And he has...

I won't read this whole thing, even though I kind of want to. Again, we'll link this at the equipping Eve blog. But you know, he's talking a little bit about what we saw.

That Paul had this vision to go to Macedonia and preach the gospel. And so here

S. Lewis Johnson says, That often happens to a preacher, you know. A young man going to seminary, he's all fire.

God has called me to the ministry. And he thinks, I have a great, great ministry to perform. And so he goes out to his first position and he discovers, he comes in on the middle of the week and comes in for the time of the prayer meeting and goes in with a great deal of enthusiasm and expectation and finds 22 people in the prayer meeting, of which 18 are women.

So often true in our churches, where are the men? Where are they? He says, well, they have more important things to do than prayer.

They have their business to think about. They have to think about that. After all, everything depends upon them and what they do in the business world, doesn't it?

No, of course it doesn't. They could do a whole lot better business if they were in the meetings of the Lord, he says. He says, well, here, as Paul arrived, there was an up -to -date prayer meeting.

The women were present. And apparently, Iodia and Syntyche were there too, because the Apostles, when he writes

Philippians a few weeks later, says the gospel has borne fruit in your midst from the first day until now.

So Lydia and Iodia and Syntyche were some of the first converts on the continent of Europe.

And God, it seems, has laid his hand upon these women for our spiritual good.

And I love that, that the women are not dismissed here. And he goes on, he says in verses 14 and 15, we have the message that the

Apostle preached. He says, the word of God is that which is sufficient for us.

And the reason that people are fleeing to other things for help is because they are not sufficiently exposed to the word of God, either in the meetings that they attend or in their own private study of Holy Scripture.

So he goes on and talks a little bit more about Lydia and says, Lydia came from Thyatira. Isn't that interesting?

Paul had tried to go into Asia and was forbidden. Thyatira is in Asia. Here is a woman from Asia.

And this is a place that Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to enter into and preach. But here is an

Asian located in Philippi. Now, if Paul had the whole texture and God had given him all the explanations that he might have thought about, he might have said, look,

Paul, I want you to reach an Asian, but the Asian I want you to reach is not in Asia at the present time. He's over in Philippi.

And this is my provision for the elect of God. It's my intent that Lydia come to faith in Jesus Christ.

And that's why I'm sending you on this journey over to Macedonia, because the Holy Spirit has been working in her heart. And she is reaching the stage where she is prepared for the reception of the message concerning the

Lord Jesus Christ. He goes on, Lydia was a wealthy woman. She had a household that usually means servants and workers, a successful business woman, dealt in purple, the most expensive kind of materials you could deal in.

A pound of this kind of material sold for the equivalent of hundreds of dollars. So she dealt in the most expensive materials.

And if she was still from Thyatira, this may have been one of her branch offices. But if it was not, she was still a successful businesswoman, but also very concerned about spiritual things.

They can go together, you know. So that'd be an encouragement to those of you ladies who do have jobs.

Now, one can distinguish seven stages in her conversion and Christian experience.

First, he says in verse 14, it says that she worships God. That's an evidence of common grace working.

And S. Lewis Johnson explains, common grace is God's general blessing to all creatures. He gives us food, drink, clothing, etc, etc.

But he says that kind of grace is resistible and men do resist it. Those who do not come to Christ resist that kind of grace.

You can resist common grace. You cannot resist effectual grace. That's why it's effectual.

Amen. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. So she worshiped God. Second, he says, the scripture says, whose heart the

Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of by Paul, the word of God. That's what

Paul preached. If you look back at chapter 13 and examine the preaching he did, he'd go into the

Old Testament, unfold the history of salvation, apply the history of salvation to the events in the Lord's life. The second thing, the scripture says that the

Lord opened her heart and she attended unto the things spoken of by Paul. So the word of God, Paul was preaching the word of God.

And then the scripture says, the third point in verse 14 is that Lydia heard us. So she heard the general call going out to everyone to respond to the gospel, right?

And that is, that's true, the general call. Not everyone will respond. But the general call goes out to all men so that no man, no man is without excuse.

But in verse 14, you get beyond the general calling and see the special calling, not just common grace, but effectual grace.

Whose heart the Lord opened, the scripture says. Who opened her heart? That would be God, right?

That's what he did. A little bit further in a sermon, Johnson says this is a perfect illustration of whose heart the

Lord has opened. And that indicates, of course, that when the Holy Spirit works through the word is when a man comes to Christ.

God does this. That's what happens when a man is converted. The Lord opens that person's heart.

And he makes a point here. He says, not Lydia. She did not open her own heart. It was not a prayer. It was not a friend. It was not even the word only, but the word in the hands of the spirit.

I love that. The word in the hands of the spirit and ultimately by the determination of God. So there you have it.

That is how Lydia was converted. Another article at the

Out of Ordinary blog. This is a blog for women. Out of the Ordinary, Solid Theology, building solid women.

It was posted by Persis. And she writes, we aren't given many details about Lydia's conversion, but one thing is very clear.

God opened her heart. The word open is translated from the Greek word dianoigo.

This is defined by Greek scholar A .T. Robertson as to open up wide or completely like both sides of a folding door.

Another definition is to open by dividing or drawing asunder to open thoroughly. Thus the

Holy Spirit had been at work behind the scenes, changing Lydia's stony heart to a heart of flesh and preparing it to receive the good news.

As Sage Spurgeon said, although the Lord opened the heart, Paul's words were the instrument of her conversion. The heart may be opened and willing to receive, but then if the truth of God enters not, what would be the use of an open door?

But God always takes care to open the heart at a time when the messenger of mercy shall be going by, that the heart may give him admittance.

Lydia exhibited her newfound faith in word and deed. She and her household were baptized and she opened her home to Paul and his companions.

And she goes on. She says, in a way, Lydia's story is our story too. The Holy Spirit was working in advance, unbeknownst to us, creating a hunger for God and convicting us of sin.

We were at exactly the right place and time to hear the gospel. A messenger delivered the word and God opened up our hearts to receive it.

Likewise, the Holy Spirit enables us to live out our faith day by day. Choice, God's choice, not chance, determines your destiny.

Lastly, ladies, I'd like to read a little bit from John MacArthur's book, 12

Extraordinary Women. And he has an entire chapter devoted to Lydia. And that's why this is one of my favorite passages in the

Bible. I was reading through this book several years ago and it just really struck me how this, it's a very short passage.

You know, ultimately the conversion of Lydia is two verses. There's so much packed in there.

MacArthur writes, the manner of Lydia's conversion is a fine illustration of how God always redeems lost souls.

From our human perspective, we may think we are seeking him, that trusting Christ is merely a decision that lies within the power of our own will to choose, or that we are sovereign over our own hearts and affections.

In reality, wherever you see a soul like Lydia is truly seeking God, you can be certain God is drawing her.

Whenever someone trusts in Christ, it is God who opens the heart to believe. If God himself did not draw us to Christ, we would never come at all.

Jesus was quite clear about this. No man can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. No man can come to me unless it has been granted to him by my father.

Lydia's heart was truly open. She was a genuine seeker of God. But notice Luke's whole point. It was not that Lydia opened her own heart and ears to the truth.

Yes, she was seeking, but even that was because God was drawing her. She was listening, but it was God who gave her ears to hear.

She had an open heart, but it was God who opened her heart. Luke expressly affirms the sovereignty of God in Lydia's salvation.

If it were not for God's sovereign work, drawing and opening the hearts of sinners to believe, no one would ever be saved.

That is the very thing Paul has in mind in Ephesians 2 after stressing the utter spiritual deadness of sinners when he says salvation, all of it, is a gift of God.

Even faith is God's gift to the believer. We don't reach down into our own hearts and summon faith from within by sheer willpower.

God opens our hearts to believe. Repentance is something he graciously bestows. Grace doesn't push sinners against their wills toward Christ.

It draws them willingly to him first by opening their hearts. It enables them to see their sin for what it is and empowers them to despise what they formerly loved.

It also equips them to see Christ for who he truly is. Someone whose heart has been opened like that will inevitably find

Christ himself irresistible. That is precisely the meaning of the expression irresistible grace.

That is how God draws sinners to himself. Luke's description of Lydia's conversion captures it beautifully.

The Lord simply opened her heart to believe and she did. Amen and amen.

And so God determines before the foundation of the earth who will be saved and then God draws people to himself.

God opens their heart. God grants the faith and the repentance. God does the saving.

Salvation is wholly a work of God and we see that right here in the scriptures.

It's so clear in these two little verses and this amazing beautiful story of Lydia.

So ladies, take heart. Be encouraged. We are called to proclaim the gospel.

This does not mean we do not proclaim the gospel. How will they hear without a preacher?

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. How will they hear without a preacher?

And I know we think of the preacher as the pastor in the pulpit on Sunday morning but as one pastor

I heard recently said, I know you think that's me but that's you. Meaning that preacher is you.

That is us out in our daily lives. The people that God ordains that we will come across.

We are called to proclaim the gospel. If we have been saved then we ought to be.

If we have been saved then why? Why would we not want to proclaim that so that others may also be saved?

It's not always easy but let's strive and pray that God would help us to be faithful to him in the proclamation of his gospel because that is how we are the means that he uses.

He uses his word and the spirit works through the word but that word must be expressed.

It must be proclaimed and we have the mouths to do that, don't we? So let us be faithful to do that.

Ladies, we kind of covered a lot of heavy doctrine in a very short period of time and I know

I didn't do any of it justice but hopefully some of our previous shows have helped you and hopefully this encourages you to go and study some more if you have questions.

We will put these resources up on the blog. Some of these sermons and links to the books and hopefully you'll be able to take a look and study a little bit more if you desire.

So ladies, until next time, get in your Bibles, get on your knees and get equipped.

Thanks for listening. You've been listening to Equipping Eve, a

No Compromise radio production. If you'd like to get a hold of Erin, you can reach her at equippingeve at gmail .com

or you can check out one of our two websites, do notbesurprised .com or equippingeve .org.