Hear the story of the conversion of an argumentative Zoroastrianism. Pooyan Mershahi grew up as a faithful law-abiding, proud argumentative Zoroastrianism. What was it that humbled him and brought Him to follow Jesus Christ?

Hey, welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Let me tell you a couple of things real quick before we get going. Hope you can come to our Theology of the Family Conference at Ridgecrest, North Carolina, May 20 through 23. Just Before that, a singles conference called Holiness to the Lord, May 19 and 20. Also, go to our website.

We have lots of resources, over 5,000. Churchandfamilylife.com. Also, I just published a book called The Family at Church, How Parents Are Tour Guides for Joy. I think this book could really help sweeten your local church experience. Okay, let's get on now with the podcast.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture. And so Jason Dome, we have Poojan on the line here right now. How about that? I love these life story editions, they're great.

These are so good. Right, Poojan Mirshahi, He is a pastor at Providence Baptist Chapel in Cheltenham, England, and a very dear friend. And we're so thankful to have you with us, Pujan. Thank you, Scott. It's lovely to be with you.

Thank you for your invite. So we want to hear the story of how the Lord saved your soul, the story of your life. I, you know, before we got on, what was in my mind was what David said when he said, blessed are those that know the joyful sound. You know, they shall walk in the light of his countenance. There's nothing better than to hear the joyful sound and then to keep hearing it for the rest of your life and so that happened to you.

So Puyant, tell us the story of your life. Well thank you for this opportunity. 40 years ago I was born in the country of Iran in a family of a loving family, a very kind family, but a family that did not know the Lord, and still sadly most do not know the Lord. But I was born in a Zoroastrian home, a home that believed in the Zoroastrian faith. Of course, many of you would know that Iran is a Muslim country.

Ninety-nine percent of people would profess to be Muslims. However, it is encouraging to hear that there are many who are leaving Islam, who are disillusioned with Islam. But that was the country in which I was brought up in. Went to a first Zoroastrian school and then an Islamic school, learned the various books, religious books, as well as the Quran, memorized large sections of the Quran, as well as the Zoroastrian prayer books and so on. Very religious, believed in God, believed in God to be my creator, but as all false religions are, so to please him by my own good works, which was never ending.

Tell us a little bit about Zoroastrianism. Just give a real quick thumbnail sketch. Well, we would know of Zoroastrians when we read our Bibles of the time of Daniel with Nebuchadnezzar and Darius and Cyrus and Xerxes and Arthur Xerxes. And when the religion of the day was Zoroastrianism, when we read of Esther and Mordecai, The religion of the day was Rastrianism. When we read of Esther and Mordecai, the religion of the day was Rastrianism.

Why was it that the Hebrew children were cast into the furnace? Was because of the belief of the fact that God represents himself in the form of fire and the fire which consumes. And so they believe that since they have dishonored their god, their god was going to consume these Hebrew children and so of course they were not which proved that their god was only an idol that could do nothing. And Zoroastrianism is an ancient religion which was before Islam, and which was an ecumenical religion in one sense. It brought many of the Babylonian religions such as Mithraism and others under one roof.

And that was the religion of the Persian Empire until the invasion by the Muslims and when the Arabs invaded and then they took over but the minority remains Zoroastrians. Some fled to India, others remained, and there is only a handful of them left now in the world. So I interrupted you with this Zoroastrian question. So continue on the story of your life. So until when I was about 13, 14, I was in Iran studying And we believed as Zoroastrians, we believe that we were the people who passed on a knowledge of God to Muslims and the Jews and the Christians.

And there is this superiority, this attitude that we are the true race or the true religion. And that sort of self-respect and self-worth and thinking of highly of ourselves and that sense of pride, it affected our thinking and it still does to this day amongst many of the Zoroastrians. And they feel themselves of being a pure people with a pure religion. And until I came to UK and what we were taught in Iran, that UK is a Christian country. And I was shocked to see that actually there were people who didn't believe in God.

I couldn't understand how could someone deny the existence of God. And so that was a shock to me. And but for me all along, I felt that there was that I have to serve God, I have to please God by my own good works and by my own religious keeping of the religious things that I was taught by the keeping of the laws and so on. And it was until I came to the UK, I had not heard the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We had been taught certain things at school, at the Islamic school about who is Jesus Christ, but that was the Islamic version of Christ, which was false.

And then when I came to UK, I began to hear things. Still, I was not interested. I even heard people who were preaching in the open air and I mocked them, I despised them, I saw them as being religious fanatics and I felt I was right with God until when a question was asked at school. I like to argue about religion with people, and I wanted to show how they have simply borrowed from Zoroastrianism. But a friend of mine asked me a question, which is a fundamental question.

What will you do with your sin on the final day? And I had no answers. I was shocked. I was dumbfounded. I never had thought about sin.

And then it was that that bothered me. I couldn't sleep. I was so affected by it. I asked my parents about it. They said that really, we just have to work harder.

We have to be more religious. We must seek to be more holy and so on. And they gave me no satisfactory answers. I contacted some of the priests, the Zoroastrian priests who were supposed to give me all the answers about how to deal with sin. And I remember one of them writing back to me and said, this is not something that we discuss.

No one knows how to be forgiven of sins. Only we have to hope for the best. And he just encouraged me to keep the laws, to follow what I was brought up with, and don't ask questions. And that, of course, was not satisfactory. And that set me on a path of listening more to my friends who were witnessing to me.

And to take a Bible and I began reading it critically. I didn't read it for my own soul. I began reading it to find fault with it. But the more I read, the more I realized it was talking to me. It was not just another book.

It wasn't like the Quran that I had read. It wasn't like the books such as Avastar that I would recite by rote, but it had no meaning to me. This book was speaking to me and it was telling me that I was a sinner. And it was telling me that I was depraved, that I was lost. I was actually, none of my good works would satisfy God, that God was a holy God, a just God, and he must punish my sins.

I'd never heard things in that way before. I knew I was a sinner, but I thought I could fix myself. I thought I could wash away my sins by my own works, and at the end, God would weigh my good works and bad works. And I wasn't such a bad person until I read how I was a miserable wretch, and there was no hope for me. And I remember that that really bothered me that there was no hope for someone who is trying to be religious and trying to fix their own life.

And And I read the Gospel of John and Romans. Those were the two books that really affected me severely. I still get goosebumps when I read the Gospel of John. It brings me back to those days that I read the Gospel of John over and over and over again. And after about two years of conviction, after about two years of the Lord really humbling me, showing what a wretched sinner I was.

I wasn't as good as I thought I was. The Lord opened my eyes to the words of the Lord Jesus that said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the father but by me. And I had read that before many times. And I was miserable, but I never saw the beauty.

I never saw the wonderful assurance of hope that the Lord Jesus Christ was giving there, that he was saying, there is no other way. There is no other right way. I am the way. There is no other life except the life that I give you. There is no other truth except the truth that I am and what I give you.

And I remember that it was in the spring of 1999 when I received my assurance of faith. I don't know exactly when I was converted, but it must have been sometime before that because when I read that portion again, I realized I know the Savior. I know him, and I trust in him. And I repented of my sins. But so in spring of 1999, I received, I believe, that assurance of faith.

And there was a change in my life. There was a drastic change, first of humility, that pride that was so radiating in every part of my life was gone. My language was changed. My behavior was changed. My family thought I was sick.

There was something wrong with me. And they said, what is wrong? Why are you not swearing anymore? Why are you doing the things that you did anymore? Why are you being kind to your brothers?

And so on. And we joke about it now even and so on. But it was a drastic thing. But of course, that was the beginning of the journey. My family felt that I was becoming a religious fanatic, but it was not going to last.

They were hoping it won't last. But after about six months or so of it continuing, and I was attending church, and I was reading my Bible and so on, they became more uncomfortable. But by that time when we were fighting every day at home in the sense that they were not happy with my life now. And I used to say, do you want me to go back to the way I was before? Do you want me to go back to my past lifestyle?

And, but then I went to university and so there was a disconnect between myself and my family. And I was able to grow in the knowledge of the Lord more. What happened? Were there individuals that came to you? You said the gospel of John in Romans was pivotal.

What were the mechanics? How did it happen? There were one or two 16, 17 year olds at school who were attending a charismatic church and they were keen to talk about Christian things. They invited me to some Christian meetings which I went to and I just liked to argue with them. That was it.

It was my argumentative spirit that made me to go along and to prove to them how wrong they were. And but they kept on, they were faithful. How long did that go on? It was two years over a period of two years. Sadly, as I would go to church, I heard no gospel.

As I went to this charismatic church, large charismatic church in the northern part of England, there was nothing about sin mentioned. There was nothing about the real work of Christ, what he did upon the cross, it was very much sentimental, very much prosperity gospel, and easy Christianity. And I had a problem with that, because what I was reading in my Bible was different to what I was hearing. And I used to say to them, well, this life that I can read in the scriptures is not what I'm hearing here. And that that Jesus Christ is talking about the total surrender is talking about being his disciple and dying to self and taking up our cross and following him.

And there's a new heart that he gives. And that is not what I was hearing in that place. And it was a sort of a pep talk, an encouraging message that would be given, which was more akin to psychology, self-help type teaching than a humbling message that brings man low and brings God high. But I was reading my Bible and God was speaking to me through the scriptures and I was miserable. It was two years, worst days of my life in one sense because I was a miserable man and I could see my sin and I couldn't get away from it.

I tried to get away from it. And I tried to bring up all kinds of things against the Bible. Well, it was written by men. How could God keep it pure throughout these ages? And what about other religions?

What about what I was brought up in, what about all of these people who are dying without Christ, what about all the evil that is happening around the world, why there are so many religions in the world, all of these questions that I had, and I held to some of those things. And yet the scriptures had a hold of me and I can't explain it. It was a miracle. So is these arguments that you're these proud arguments that you're in and the Bible that won your heart. Is that how it worked?

When the Lord was dealing with me with my sin and, and showing me who Christ was, it didn't matter anymore. None of those things mattered. So you quit arguing? I started arguing in a different way. But I was humbled.

The Lord really humbled me. And there was no, I could find nothing to say against the Word of God. It took hold of me and I knew it was right. I knew this is the truth. You know, next Sunday I'm preaching on the lukewarm church in Revelation and just reading that over and over again, it seems to me that the heart of the matter was self-sufficiency and pride in that church.

That was the problem. And they'd bought fool's gold. And of course the Lord says, buy for me gold, true gold. That's what happened to you. Poulian, how'd you meet your wife?

I was a raving charismatic when I went to the, when I went to university and she was an old school Pentecostal when I met her. And it was at a prayer meeting. I just wanted to go where prayer was being offered up to God. And she was the head of, we would call her the prayer secretary in the Christian union at the university. And nobody went to her meetings.

She would arrange all of these meetings and nobody would attend except me. And all I wanted to do is to go where prayer was being offered and I wanted to be with the Lord's people. And I had come into a new family, you see, and I didn't want to be away from them. But in those days I was very shy and I didn't feel I could pray. My English wasn't good and I felt I couldn't really pray.

So she did all the praying And I just listened and I grew and she taught me many things and she showed me from the scriptures many many truths and we grew together and The Lord led us into better ways and taught us many things and humbled us. And then we were married and the Lord blessed us with four children. And yes, she has been a great rock to me and my best friend and a great supporter and encourager. So the lesson for single unmarried girls is to hold a prayer meeting and then teach the man. It's not a bad idea.

Tell us a little bit about the first church you were ever in that was part of the stream of theology that you're in now. The Lord led us out of the charismatic movement. Becky and I, my wife and I, we were married then. And we began attending a Presbyterian church, a reformed Presbyterian church in the North of England. And we were just amazed.

It was a small number. So we left churches that were maybe a thousand in number to a church that was about 15 in number. But there was a total difference, theologically. And We began to be taught verse by verse, expository sermons, and we began to sing biblical praises. We began to think biblically about what is to worship God, what is biblical worship, what is biblical church order, and to hearing the word of God, pure word of God, no jokes, no stories, no nothing like that, but to hear God's word consistently, week in, week out, three times a week, we would hear it.

And then the pastor there, who was a very godly man and still is alive, he began to teach us about what it is to be a man, what it is to be a husband, what it is to be a husband, what it is to be a wife. He would come to our homes and he would sit with his Bible and he knew that the background that we have come from had no teaching at all. We had no example or teaching but he would sit with his Bible and he would speak to us words that were very hard to hear, but he would say them with tears running down his face. And I'd never seen this before, a man speaking straight, so clear, the Scriptures, and things that I found very hard, but he was shedding tears for me. And that broke my heart, that broke any kind of resistance.

And it was such a blessing to be part of that group and to be amongst them and we love them still dearly. And they taught us about what it is to be a man, what it is to be a man, what it is to be a husband. And all from the scriptures, we used to say, pastor, just tell us what to do in this situation. And he would say, it doesn't matter what I think is what the scripture says that counts. And we would say, but just tell us what you think we should do in this situation.

And he would open up his Bible and he said, the scripture says this. And I never forget that. Amen. And the way he dealt with us. I think we call that the sufficiency of scripture.

Is that what we call that? Praise the Lord for men who have embraced that and live it out. Well, okay, Puyon, what's one last thing you would say to that religious kid who knows all the arguments, makes all the arguments proud. What would you say if that boy was sitting in front of you now? What would you tell him?

How would you help him? I would tell him many things, but one of the things that I would say to him is to leave all the arguments that he has to one side and go and study who Christ is and his words, his teaching, go and read the gospels prayerfully. Because I think that is what dealt with me, is to leave all of the things that I had in my mind, all of the arguments, all of my religious upbringing and go fresh to read the words of God and especially the life and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But of course, what took place in my life, what takes place in every believer's life, is the work of the Spirit of God sovereignly. But he used his word.

And that is the thing he didn't use for me. He didn't use a sermon to convict me of my sin. It encouraged, the Lord used a little encouragement and a challenging question from a friend and then his word that pierced my heart. Well, that's so wonderful. You know, many people have been saved when they heard somebody say, pick up the book and read.

And that's what happened to you. That's right. And that is what is happening now as well throughout the world amongst many Iranians turning to Christ through the preaching of the Word of God and the Word of God coming into their hands and they read it and the Spirit of God uses it for their salvation. Your words were sweet to me and I ate them. Well thank you for joining us on this broadcast and this wonderful testimony from Puyang Mir Shahi.

And join us again next week and we'll continue to speak about what it means to embrace the fact that scripture is sufficient. God bless you. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.