What is the biblical pattern for how salvation works?
God opens the heart and understanding, but He does not force His way in. A person hears the explanation of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, listens and responds, and is left to choose or reject. That is the biblical pattern: God enables, but He does not coerce; the individual must attend to and respond to the truth.
Les teaches that Lydia is the perfect scriptural explanation of how salvation works. She was a religious lady, a seller of purple from Thyatira who worshipped God, but she was lost. Along came the Apostle Paul and began to explain the work of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The Lord opened her heart, but she still had to listen and respond. Les explains that God opens the heart and opens our understanding, but He does not force His way in. He leaves it with us, so we can choose or reject.
And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.