Brother Ducky:
It was not regeneration that caused Lydia to give heed to what Paul was saying. Rather it was latent faith.
This sounds plausible, except it does not accord with the teachings of Total Depravity and Accursedness found elsewhere in the Holy Scriptures.
You are describing a communicable attribute of God (faithfulness), being implanted in a spiritually dead soul. A soul that does not have the life of Christ present and abiding within.
Which means you have separated a Godly attribute from God. This cannot be.
No sinner can possess faith, latent or otherwise, apart from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit of Christ only comes to abide with a sinner at the point of regeneration.
God knows those whom He has implanted latent Faith within.
The primary basis for God knowing whom He will gift with faith to believe the Gospel, is His electing Decree. IOW's, the elect sons of God are always and only known IN CHRIST. There is no way a sinner can harbor just a portion of the Person of Christ (faithfulness), without being in total union with Christ. Which only follows Justification, which only follows the Atonement, which only follows the effectual Call to life, repentance, and faith.
That latent Faith was arbitrarily given us before we were born, so that when we hear the true gospel, we will and cannot fail to believe it.
Where do you find this teaching in the Bible? You are confounding the Scriptural teaching of Election according to eternal Decree, with temporal conversion events, which is not proper doctrine at all.
You are attributing a spiritual ability and quality to sinners (even if it is supposedly sleeping and inactive), that they are not born with unless regenerated by the Spirit in the womb.
Salvation has three components. Irreducibly, the components or conditions for Salvation are Grace, Faith, and The gospel.
The three "components" of salvation are:
The Father's Unconditional Election
The Son's Limited Atonement
The Holy Spirit's effectual call and regeneration to new life.
Grace, and faith to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the result of the three necessities.
We are not saved by Grace alone. Nor are we saved by the Gospel alone. Rather, we are saved by Grace through Faith in the Gospel. The gospel is the catalyst that activates the reactant faith that lies dormant in His sheep (the Elect of God). Faith is at first dormant in those predestined to salvation and only becomes quickened and apparent by their hearing the gospel and believing it.
Underlined emphasis, mine.
This is subtle but serious error, for it makes the exercise of faith to be a human work upon which the efficacy of the Gospel depends.
It is that latent Faith within the Elect that causes us to pay heed when someone is teaching the True Gospel. And once the sheep hear His voice, they cannot help but respond and believe it.
Regeneration brings new spiritual life, and hearing the Gospel preached is God's means of gifting the new creature with faith and repentance.
You are omitting the necessity of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in your scheme of events.
If God sovereignly saves the ones He chooses, then why is faith required of us? It isn’t. Faith isn’t something God requires from us in order that we are saved. Rather Faith is something God implanted within us in order that we would be saved.
Now you are changing the eternal Law of God, and thereby changing the Gospel message. The Law (which draws sinners to their need of Christ) certainly proclaims the requirement that all men believe and have faith in Christ. But the Law also reveals that no man CAN or WILL do so. Thus, the need for the Savior!
Faith is a duty under the Law, that a sinner can only receive through the imputation of Christ's righteous obedience under that Law. To say otherwise, is to omit the importance of Christ's atonement that satisfied the old Covenant of Works, in order to establish legal basis for providing a new Covenant of Grace for His people.
If a person tweaks and twists the Holy Scriptures even just a little bit, in order to make pleasant and reasonable sounds, the end result is always serious heresy.
The People of God are Known of God in the same way that Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived. God Knew us from before the foundation of the world when He implanted within us that Latent Faith with which we will inevitably believe.
This is why we must preach the gospel. There are many people out there among the masses who have that Latent Faith and they are only waiting to Hear the Gospel in order to Come to Life.
Many will hear and not Come to Life.
Matthew 13:14-16 (KJV)
Underlined emphasis of erroneous teaching, mine again.
I do not disagree with you that God intimately knew His own, IN CHRIST, nor do I disagree with you that His means of calling them to Justification by Faith is through the preaching of the Gospel, but I disagree with the notion that a "latent faith" is implanted in sinners apart from the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit of Christ.
Everlasting life does not follow an exhibition of faith. Faith follows Godly grace (regeneration) that provides everlasting life.
Nang