It is a dangerous thing to listen to such things and move on. I fear that we are doing that if you are not watching our own hearts to listen to what we heard about worry. I must confess to you that I only found out that I was to say some words today, last night, as I got the sheet. I must have missed reading my emails properly. And then I worried more when Pastor Waldron spoke to us about worry and what can we say about what has been said today.

But I hope you won't forget what you have already heard, that you would later on go and pray over these things, because we will give an account one day for every word. My name is Pouyan Mirshahi. I forgot to introduce myself. Pouyan Mershahi, pastor of a Reformed Baptist Church in England, in Cheltenham, England. It is two and a half hours from London, northwest of London towards Wales.

We are only five minutes drive from the birthplace of George Whitfield, 20 minutes away from William Tindale's birthplace, and again, five minutes from the place where one of the first English reformers was burnt at the stake, John Hooper. We are also five minutes away from the place where the Sunday school movement began, And that is another story. Robert Raikes was from Gloucester. Now, what is burning in our hearts? I am involved on a daily basis.

And while I've been here answering a number of emails and responding to some requests and that is what is burning in my soul. Of course there is the calling of God upon our lives as ministers of the gospel towards our own churches and the glory of God to be seen amongst our people and for them to be growing. But one of the avenues that the Lord has opened up is the ministry of God's word amongst my own countrymen of Iran. I'm originally from Iran. Let me give some words of education about pronunciation.

It is Iran. I have been, I had this burning in my soul every time I talked to some folk from America who pronounced my country's name incorrectly. So it is Iran, not I ran. I don't run. I walk.

And therefore, I hope that will stick in your head every time you are tempted to say I ran, to remember it's not running. So one of the things that is very much burning upon my heart, and I don't know it is upon your heart, is to remember those who are persecuted for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. When was the last time you prayed for those who are in bonds? The Apostle says in Hebrews 13, I'll read to you the words of Hebrews 13 and verse 3, remember them that are in bonds as bound with them and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. It is not an option for us to remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them, but it is a calling, a command upon every Christian.

We are living here in comfort because there were those in history who were bound, who were martyred, who were willing enough to shed their heart's blood following the Lord Jesus Christ, to give themselves for the cause of God and his glory and that resulted in effect the freedom of the Western world and the heritage that we have. Should we not therefore be concerned for those who are bound, who have to give so much, sacrifice so much because of what we are doing here? Following the Lord Jesus Christ, having our Bibles in our hands, having access to the Word of God and be able to praise God. Can you imagine to not to have any of these things? Can you imagine being a Christian and be fearful of singing God's praise.

I can't imagine that because since the time that I was converted, I've had the privilege of being able to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs unto the Lord. To have a Bible to read, to have sermons to hear, to have Christians that without hesitation to be able to talk to them and fellowship with them and share these things. But what burns within my soul because I I deal with them many many times over the course of a week, even though I pastor our own church, I feel I am pastoring so many other people as well, which is a privilege. And oftentimes, I'm sitting behind my desk in the comfort, and I have to blush. Sorry.

Iranians are emotional creatures. I have to blush and hang my head in shame because I am speaking to someone who is suffering greatly and yet they speak as a free man. Can you read the writings of the Apostle in Philippians? Every time I read Philippians, I feel I am the one in prison. He's the one who is free.

He keeps speaking, rejoice, rejoice, and again I say rejoice, And that is what I hear of brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, right now, they are suffering. I can only speak of my country of Iran, but do not forget the rest. So many thousands in the Middle East, all over the world, who love the same things as we do, who love the same Savior. They love to serve Him.

They want to have fellowship together and yet they have to live under such circumstances that oftentimes they cannot. And when they do, they must do it under fear. I presume you know little history of the Christian church in my country, and so maybe say some things about that. If you were to read in the Old Testament, you find a whole line of believers going in, we find ourselves reading in the time of captivity of the Jews who went into Babylon and then the Persian Empire and they took the Word of God with them. That's a wonderful thing.

The true believers, they wanted the Word of God and they took the Word of God to the point that Daniel was able to search the prophecies of Jeremiah for himself. What a wonderful thing to have the word of God and they had it. You read then about Cyrus and Darius and Esther and Mordecai and such people and you know you could actually visit their sites of their death and the sites, their tombs are still with us to this day, you could visit them. And there are pictures that you can see, videos of people, tourists who have gone to those places, and also prophet Habakkuk, his tomb is there to this day, but there was that. God's people, God's covenant people had gone there and the word of God taken there, but then you come to the to the book of Acts.

Did you know that Iranians are mentioned in the book of Acts? We read our Bibles too quickly. In Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, when the apostles are preaching the word of God in other tongues, there gives a list of nations that are represented there. I won't read all of them. In verse 8, they ask this question, How and how here we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born and then they say where they are from Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and so on those those names are the names of the tribes the three tribes main three tribes in the Persian Empire, Parthians, and the Medes, and Elamites.

And these people were proselytes. They had gone to worship Jehovah. And What did they hear? They heard the word of God. They heard the preaching of Jesus Christ.

And then, this is their testimony, and said, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And what did they do? They had only come for the feast, they would return home, and they would take with them this message. There were those who were preaching the way, the way of Christ. And throughout the times of the apostles, the Lord Jesus Christ had said to them to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

And that is what we find not only in inspired history but in recorded history. If you were to read, I hope you read the John Fox's book of martyrs, Acts and Monuments of the Martyrs, you would very soon find out that there were believers, there were some of the disciples who went throughout the Persian Empire of the time. Thomas, he records, that he went and he preached the gospel, and then there were people converted from paganism, from my religion of the past. I was brought up as a Zoroastrian. Iranians were not always Muslim.

Islam is from Saudi Arabia. Let me say some other thing as well. Just to save you from offending an Iranian, and that is, don't refer to them as Arabs. We are not Arabs, we are Persians. And I don't know what word might offend you if I called you a certain name from a certain country.

But for the English to be told they are French, It is most offensive. Or for the Scottish folk to be called an Englishman, that is again most offensive. Or for my wife who is from Yorkshire to be called a Southerner, that is most offensive too. So it is for an Iranian man to be called an Arab or that they speak Arabic that is also offensive. We speak Persian or Farsi and we are Persians.

Anyhow, I've lost the train of my thought. The history of the Gospel in Iran. The Syrian churches in the early days, before, well very soon after Thomas established some churches, there was a missionary spirit amongst the Syrian churches, and they sent flooded Iran with, or the Persian empire of the time, with missionaries. And it's a wonderful account to hear how then the gospel took root. And there were churches popping up here and there.

And what you find in AD 325 in the Council of Nicaea, there was a great debate, a wonderful creed was formed and we all, if we are true evangelicals, we would hold to the Nicaean Creed. And there, if you read the accounts and who were represented, you'll find at the bottom of that Creed and names of at least three Iranians they signed that Creed. They were there defending the faith of Jesus Christ. Sadly, just over a century later, I think it was 451 AD, in the Council of Chalcedon, there was a great division. Error had crept in, And the main Iranian churches had taken up the heresy of Nestorianism.

Now, there are better men to describe what is Nestorianism, so I direct your attention to other men for that. But Nestorianism had come in, and with it, the gospel of Jesus Christ was veiled and they did not preach the Lord Jesus Christ as he is given to us in the word of God. There were still some believers, but even that Nestorian church under the banner of Christianity, sent missionaries to China, and India, and Mongolia, and other parts. And it is wonderful to find that there are places in China that The names of these missionaries recorded there still to this day. But let me give you something by way of the current estate.

And this is the thing that is burning in my heart. That in the year 1979, there was a great revolution that took place. Before that time, Iran was an Islamic country, but secular Islam. You see, from the 7th century, Islam had come into Iran, And the religion, which was Zoroastrianism, was toppled. And they removed the kings, as it were, and Islam came as a national religion, the state religion.

But they managed, those Christians there, the Syrian churches and the Assyrian churches, were able to function and continue for 14 centuries until 1979, where there was the Islamic Revolution in Iran. I wasn't born then. I was born a year later. Some of you would remember that time and how the American Embassy was besieged and all of those things that went on at that time. In 1980, the war broke out between Iran and, remember the pronunciation, Iraq, not Iraq.

So there was war there and it was then that the missionaries were thrown out, that the Word of God, the Bible, the Persian Bible was banned. It was then that they martyred or murdered a number of pastors. These were Pentecostal pastors mainly from the Assemblies of God, but there were some Anglicans also who preached the word of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Western churches, the Western evangelicalism was filled with fear. They thought, and everyone thought, and the Iranians themselves thought, that that small group of evangelicals, we are talking about 500 maximum of Muslim background believers We're going to die out they will they and the church in in Iran would not continue much longer.

Friends in 2017 the Lord has done great things and the very opposite has taken place. Some estimate that there is over a million believers in Iran, in Iran, not outside of Iran, outside of it, thousands upon thousands of Iranians. What is that saying to you? The word of God is always true. Jesus Christ's kingdom extends.

No one can stay his hand the scripture sir or say to him what doest thou? What are you doing? No one can say to God anything like that and so we are rebuked. The Western churches are rebuked to think that God would not have a witness when the word of God says he does. And so what we find in that country, these believers coming to know the Lord, these Muslims through different means coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ through media, through satellite television, through the internet, mainly through the internet coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ And they are prepared to do the thing that we often are not prepared to do.

And that is to be willing to give their lives. I know of many accounts and I know individuals personally, I have not read these things in a book. To know of individuals who are willing to lose their families, lose their wives, lose their husband, lose their children, lose their jobs. I have, I don't know if there is a pastor here who has had to counsel someone before they go into prison for their faith in Jesus Christ. Knowing that this woman might be raped, might be tortured, and even might die.

Have you ever done that? And then I sit behind my desk in my comfort having to counsel this one just 15 minutes they have before the police arrives. I've had to do that, and it humbles me. And also seeing miracles. I am not a charismatic.

Yet seeing God's hand revealed in some ways that I cannot describe. And the Lord shielding the eyes of these, we call them the Revolutionary Guards, they are the ones who keep the revolution alive in people's eyes and they have great power. And for me to hear that they did not see these people, they did not see these Christians, they came for them but they didn't see them. Who can describe it? I had just been counseling them what they should do and how they should stand for Jesus Christ and not be ashamed.

And then hearing, they came, but they did not see. I filled in the form, they read the form, they said all was well. It is amazing. Of course, this is not always the case. Most, nearly all that I know of believers who are faithful have suffered in great ways.

And do you know the thing that they ask me, again it is so humbling, it says pray for us. Pray for us. And that is the thing the Apostle Paul says to us. Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. Now you might say, well I don't know who these people are.

You can investigate. You can look online or receive some literature regarding the persecuted church in all kinds of countries and then you have some idea And you can pray with understanding. But can you not pray to the God of heaven, who knows all, who knows the number of the hairs upon our heads, and he knows his people by name, he calls his own? Does he not know? So you can pray, even if it is general.

Can you not have a map and pray for different countries, different areas, learn something, and encourage your children to learn something about those countries, and so you can pray? I think of William Carey, and you all know about his map and he had before him and he was able to pray and have that vision burning in his heart. So remember then in your prayers, please. That's the thing I face. That's why it is burning on my heart.

That's the thing, because I have to counsel them on a weekly basis. People who have no pastors and people who are now hungry for better things. Most Iranians, the churches are Pentecostal in their theology. They do not have the things we have. And friends, the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of those of his day who heard him preach.

And he said on that judgment day they will arise from Sodom and Gomorrah. And he says you will be more answerable to them. It will be more tolerable, he said, for some of Southerman Gomorrah than with you. And could we not say similar things about ourselves? When there are things happening and like water, it is running through our hands.

We are losing, we are losing the Christian heritage in the West. And what is the church doing? What am I doing? The things we have, the books we possess, the confessions that we have, and yet are we living for God and his glory? Remember them that are in bonds, the Apostle says, but one of the things that you ought to remember is not to pity them.

It is an awful thing to pity God's people who suffer for the sake of Jesus Christ. That is one thing I've been told many many times, do not pity us. We suffer for Christ. That is the greatest of honors that a person can have, to not be ashamed, to be given that supernatural power to stand, knowing we might suffer. It is supernatural.

You think you may not be able to do such a thing. Well, The Apostle says that all things were possible and that the Lord could do all things as we pray and these people are given this special grace. Praise God for what God is doing. That's another thing you could do. Praise God.

Thank the Lord. Pastor Waldron spoke about thankfulness. Are you thankful? We are living in the most thankless society. Are you thankful?

Thank God for what God is doing. You may not see it, but God is at work. And we may not see it in our own areas, but why do we judge the work of God by our own churches, by United States. We ought to have a great vision. We ought to be as we see the darkness around us, yet have a positive view of God and his glory.

Not to be so cast down that all is lost. The Lord Jesus Christ is not sitting upon the throne wringing his hands and worried what are they going to do in the States. He's not doing that. He's sovereign. And so one thing I hear of my brothers and sisters and also children, also teenagers that I have had to counsel, and what can you say my friends about the things that we have to counsel.

Please pray that the Lord would give wisdom, not only to me, but to any other who are serving these dear people of God. But They say to me, thank God for what God is doing. Thank God for saving me, they say. Then I was so blind in Islam and the Lord's saving me. And so they say, thank God.

Another thing is this. When I have tried to counsel folk and they say to me, why isn't the church doing anything it seems in the West, but they're losing out so much of what they have. And so they tell me, is it true that this is being passed in United Kingdom? Is it true that you can't do this? Is it true that this is banned?

And I have to say, yes it is true. And they say, I thought this was a Christian country. And so I said, what is the church doing? And I said, well, I try to preach about these things in our own church. I try to witness where I can, I try to write to our members of parliament where we can, and the thing that the most discouraging for some of these dear people who suffer for the sake of Christ is our lack of holiness?

And so they say to me, why are you not doing anything and then why is the church compromising? Why do I see Christians changing their views about the Word of God for which we are suffering, for which we are being sacrificed, and we must sacrifice so much and we are running not because we want to, We are leaving our homes not because we want to, but we have to sacrifice these freedoms because of the very thing that the believers and churches are compromising over. And so We ought to pray for holiness. If you want to encourage God's people who are being persecuted, not just in Iran, but elsewhere, live for the Lord Jesus Christ. Live for his glory.

Live holy lives, friends. That's a great challenge to me. And so this gathering is very encouraging to me. It's very gathering, very encouraging because I am seeing people who are wanting the same things. They see their own weakness and I hope you do feel your own weakness and your unholyness Yet you say, but I want to I Know that I am unholy, but I desire the Lord Jesus Christ.

I know what I was I'm not what I was I know something of where I am now, but there is a place I want to be with Christ. And so friends, remember them that are in bonds. Pray for the establishment of sound churches, sound believers, good books and literature. There is a book table downstairs. Later on I'll be putting out just a little newsletter you can take free of charge.

I will put some samples of books that we have published and in the past four years, roughly, nearly, well, just over 30, 000 pieces of literature we have sent, not into Iran, but throughout Europe and United States, but in Iran. Over 200, 000 pieces of those very literature have been downloaded from our website. And so you might be discouraged in your circumstance, but do not be discouraged in the work of God. In general, praise Him, worship Him, He is upon the throne. Amen.