The importance of this change is intimated in the remarkable declaration of Jesus Christ to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." It is essential to the possession of paradise; it constitutes the very basis of the Christian character; and to be indifferent to it is a mark of condemnation. Its present influence, and its future consequences, are so wonderful, that it becomes us to cherish an immediate and incessant solicitude upon the subject. Look upward--Almighty love "waits to be gracious"--Is it not recorded, and can it ever be forgotten, that "every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened? If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" III. The account of Lydia is further illustrative of the _effects resulting from a divine influence upon the human heart_. The first of these effects is intimated by the statement, that "she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul." Her spirit was exceedingly different from that of the hearers of Ezekiel: "Thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear thy words, but they do them not." Lydia, on the contrary, heard to profit. She listened, reflected, and "inwardly digested," the truths of the Gospel. She heard with seriousness and with self-application. The doctrine was to her novel and interesting. The Gospel came to her, "not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance;" for she "received the word of God which she heard, not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God," which "effectually worketh" in believers.