Jason Dohm and Pooyan Mershahi discuss the blessings of the past year. They explain, giving thanks to the Lord for difficulties that caused many blessings to fall on the churches.

� 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 20-23. Just before that, a singles conference called holiness to the Lord, May 19-20. Also, go to our website. We have lots of resources, over 5,000, churchandfamilylife.com.

Also, please go to the section �.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. � and Family Life exists, to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture for Church, and Family Life and I'm here with Jason Doam.

Hey, Joe, Jason, here we go again. Hello. OK, Poo-yan Meirshahi is with us from the UK. Hello Poojan. Hello Scott.

Good to see you. Poojan, it's such a joy to be with you. Poojan Mershahi preached at our conferences. Dear brother, very like-minded. So thankful for Poojan.

I wish we were able to be closer together geographically, but it's so good to see you and we're just grateful that you can join us. Puyon is the pastor at Providence Baptist Chapel in Cheltenham, England, and he is a local church pastor and he also ministers to Iranians all over the world, and he's ministered to us. Puyon has wonderful messages on sermon audio. You should go hear some of them. They're really good.

So Puyon, we're here to talk about the state of the church, particularly in your experience in the United Kingdom. You know, God has his plans for his church in every nation. These plans seem to be executed in different ways and so we wanted to hear from you about that and I think we're here to learn from the Lord about the existence of the church particularly in the midst of a secular society. So Pujan, tell us what's happening in the UK right now from your perspective. Thank you Scott for your welcome.

Well the past 12 months or so it has turned everything upside down. It has � ཀོཽསཱིེུསེ཯ིོ཮ཱིོས཰཯ཱིསི཯཰ཱ཰ས཰ིཨཱིསཱཱཱི཯ེསཱ཯ཱསསཱ཰ཱིིསཱཱཱཻསི཰སཱཱ཰ཱཱཱཱཱཱཱཱཱཱཱཱ � real challenge. The U.K. Has brought many challenges in the U.K. Amongst the churches here but also it has brought about many good things.

Many encouraging things. Things that we would not have thought of before. However, there are many concerns about how the U.K. Government have imposed certain things, certain sanctions on the churches and they've taken on themselves to demand from the � n the local churches to what they ought to be doing, how they should be gathering, where should they be gathering, how often should they be gathering, what should they do in their gatherings, but now, thankfully, they are taking incremental steps to loosen things up. And they are saying that by June July time, things should go back to somewhat normal normality.

But obviously, they have said these things before. And so they are, they don't really know exactly how things will turn out. But the response of the churches, generally speaking, has been � both churches and also people within the churches. Sure Pouyan I've got a question for you on that I'd like to talk about that more that's a very important subject fact we were on the line with a pastor in Africa talking about the same thing the the division that has been caused now in America you know statisticians in America Church you know people who study the Church they develop statistics on you know the level of compliance that churches are going through, you know, a particular percentage of churches are doing this and other percentage are doing that. Do you have any information like that?

You know, what percentage of the churches were completely compliant or partially compliant? Do you have any feel for that? From personal experience, it would be 99.9% of churches are complying. There are certain levels of flexibility the government gives. � they say that we should not sing but they are not saying we must not sing and they give a different definition to the word should and must.

I don't know if that is the case in the United States and so they say if it is a they say something we must not do that is a legal requirement but when they say that we �, but we we can go against that. And so, but most churches, they have accepted both of the shoulds and the musts and and but I would say 99.9 percent of churches they have complied the churches that have not complied have generally been sort of some of the charismatics some of the new Calvinist churches on rare occasions there are among some of the reforms and Bible believing evangelicals but generally there has been an acceptance of what has been given and what the media then pumps out, which is the government's narrator Puisane, I'm sure we'll return to talking about this time where we have regulations related to the pandemic, but I'm it's not really clear to me exactly what the baseline is. So would you just take a moment and profile what you think the the overall spiritual environment in the United Kingdom is how Christianity is doing? Well, it is, there's a dearth in the land, spiritually the church is very weak, and I think the COVID situation, and the last 12 months, it has shown our desperate need of revival, that has also proven to be a good thing in the sense that there has been a level of expectation � more and more pastors are coming together online to pray together.

People who've never would have crossed paths they are coming together to pray I think that there's been a good thing and it's showing that ministers of the gospel are seeing that they are not what they were they thought they were that the the churches the evangelical churches were not and what they thought they were and the the covid situation has has shown that has uncovered that for many But the general state of UK is that it is a liberal nation, it is a pagan nation and the numbers that go to church are very very few in between. The mainline denominations have higher level of people attending but right now they're all closed, the mainline denominations are closed so no one goes to their churches, they have all gone online as it were. I've got a question �T to the left of you Pouyan, I'm sure it came straight off of George Whitfield's Facebook page in the 18th century. So there's a painting of George Whitfield there right behind you and there was a way an awakening are some of our greatest heroes that we read today came out of that awakening how do you what's to learn what is to learn about that you you now have a famine in the land that came off you know from 200 years ago of really the Lord moving mightily in your land.

That's right. That's right. Well, George Midfield was born just five minutes from where I live. Oh, my, and that we actually preach in the open air in front of the bell in where he was born, and just a few yards away was where he was ordained where he went to school, and is a historical environment in which I am living. What is needed in the land is one hundred George Woodfields.

Thanks be to God, God is raising men, I believe. The Lord is causing at least the older � ૻૻ૸૿૸૽૸૽૾૱ૺ૰૸ૺ૲૸૸૲૲૸૲૾૰૲૸ૹ૴૱ૼૹ૽ૹૻ૸૱૱૾૸૾ૹ૱૾૱૱૽૲૴૾૽ૺ૾૲ૺ૽૲૸ૺ૱૸૱૲૲૽ૻ૱ૹ૸૱૱૸૱૱૱૲ � to realize that we need to come together to seek the Lord for another outpouring of the Spirit. And that was a real encouragement to me to see that actually more people, more older saints are attending prayer meetings than ever before. That's what I am saying. And there is a greater interest of older Saints are in their 80s and even 90s who have forced themselves to learn how to use technology so they can attend more prayer meetings.

And that has been a real encouragement to me. I think that that has that gives me hope that the older generation who went through war, the second world war, and they were much more well versed in the scriptures, and they are seeing the needs that we need a visitation from God. My concern would be the younger generation that they seem to be there is a less of an interest. There has been � somewhat, and that has been a big concern of mine personally. But yes, there are many things to be thankful for, but I fear as it is being at the moment shown that the larger denominations are have been hit very hard many of them we are told that they will not open after the lockdowns are over they will not be opening the ones that will be opening and who are growing are churches who are sticking as closely to the scriptures as possible �.

That is a real encouragement that our numbers have grown. The last year has been one of the most blessed years for our church. And I know from other congregations too that this last year has been the most blessed year numerically and also spiritually. Yeah, hey, let's talk about that. Let's hang on that for a minute.

There were some difficult things of last year. What were the blessed things? And there were many, I think our church experienced, you know, the very same thing that your church did as well. So let's give thanks to the Lord. Let's itemize the good things that have come from what was the strangest thing we've ever seen.

So let's talk. OK, well, maybe I may mention that because of the lockdowns in UK, there were many who took the initiative of saying we can't reach out to people. Everybody have locked themselves into their own homes, but the government was encouraging everyone to go for a walk half an hour walk so what did the the Lord's people do many many hundreds and hundreds of people and churches put out boxes of the scripture outside of their homes they never thought of doing that before and everyone was saying Why didn't we think of this before? And just ourselves, just our own home here, we just put a box of literature and bibles outside of our home on the footpath you would say sidewalk and we in two months 350 bibles were taken by the amazing amazing and and that is happening all around the country and so people christians finding ways Of being creative of giving the word of God to people and 11 congregations 1 church. They put over 200,000 tracks into people's homes.

They said we can't go to them. People won't come to hear the preaching so we will take go and give them literature and they had this major initiative in London. � to put through people's doors 200,000. And such things are multiplied throughout the country, which is so encouraging. That's so good.

In our church, it forced me to preach on things I'd never dreamed of preaching on before about what the Bible says about plagues about what the Bible says about disease you know Romans 13 first Peter to Moses parents the Hebrew midwives � the Hebrew midwives. I was forced to preach on things that I wouldn't have preached on. And our people are clearer on a lot of matters. It's a huge blessing. I think most people in our church really hadn't carefully studied every word in Romans 13.

But they have now, and they think differently about it. Praise the Lord. That's right. We have had children who have now professed faith in our church family. New members joining.

It's caused people to be � of what they have had and every Lord's Day is now cherished more than ever before. And so there are many, many good things. I've heard of congregations who have grown so greatly that they are thinking of what they will do. They can't contain people in their own building. And that is wonderful.

Obviously it has made churches also become more prayerful because there are congregations who were not allowed to meet in the sense that they did not have their own buildings and and so if they were hiring a place, they couldn't hire anything. And the British weather being what it is, it is not so easy to meet outside under the rain and so on. Some have, but that has been a difficulty. Another challenge that churches I have faced were churches without pastors and elders have been hit hard. And it has again raised the matter of congregations pleading with the Lord for the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers in a way that they have not done before, because they are feeling it much more than before, because they don't have ministers are told that they can't travel.

And so they many have resorted to zoom meetings because they don't have the resources. They don't have the pastors and so it has made them to be much more prayerful. There were certain churches that were happy not to have a pastor. They had gone for so many years and maybe for some churches were 15 to 20 years without their own pastors. And now they have realized how desperately they are in need of spiritual care and regular ministry.

So it's just raised awareness over these many things that churches have taken � for granted or they have just gotten into a rut. So it's not all wind bleak. So here's a question. Since we're talking about George Whitfield, you know, behind you, you know, George Whitfield, when he came to America, he went up and down the eastern seaboard riding horses, walking. Imagine George Wittfield in the world of Zoom.

Wittfield would be Zoom in all over the world probably, but they would have missed his presence that's right so puyon quite a number of our theological heroes were in their heyday in let's say the mid-1800s but definitely the 1800s let me give you some names j.c. Rile charles spurgeon hudson taylor founder of the China Inland Mission, William Carey, the father of modern missions who went to India, George Mueller. So these are men who knew each other. England's a country, but in terms of geographical size, it's comparable to North Carolina, the state that we're in. It's just astounding to me to list all those names and say they were all in their heyday really at the same time in in a geographical area no bigger than the state we're in.

So my question for you is to what extent is the theology of these men still alive in England? And to what extent in churches would those names be significantly known? Within evangelical and reformed churches those names are well-known. However, their theology is also well-known and respected and held to but the practice of those things and the sacrifices that those men made is not something that we see that readily. Spurgeon suffered much.

Ryall suffered much. Ryall was so influential and he was preaching so much within the Church of England and writing so much that they made him a bishop to get rid of him. They thought if they could make him a bishop, he would have too much on his hand to be preaching. It backfired because he used his influence as a bishop to encourage the evangelicals within the Church of England. But he suffered much too and others, George Whitfield and others.

I think what is lacking within the churches that know these names and revere these names and have the books of these men and they are well quoted, The experience of these men is what's missing. The that's anointing of heaven is what is missing. And and what what I'm encouraged to see is that there is a resurgence of, at least the number, which wasn't there a year ago, of people who are seeing the need and they're coming together and calling upon God for revival and for the same kind of spirit to anoint them. That is so helpful and so encouraging. There are others who have their heads in the sand, I must say as well.

Does the Church of England still have the successors of J.C. Ryle, like a robust evangelical segment within the Church of England? Does that exist? There are some, but they have to compromise on some things. There are some who still have to, even though they may reject women bishops, yet they still have to stand in the same path and shake hands with those who are pro-homosexual, pro-LGBT, let alone pro-women bishops.

And so they have to make some compromises. Sadly, the same kind of men of the same caliber, they are few and far in between. � be a handful of men who I can associate with. However, they are going through hard times. Some actually have left and one or two denominations, smaller Church of England denominations have been formed to separate themselves from the mainline Church of England, but they're very small in number, but they're trying to be faithful.

So this is a fascinating case study. Charles Spurgeon and J. C. Riley had very different views over the Charill spurgeon couldn't believe that J. C.

Riley would stay in the church of england and it strongly and publicly exhorted him to leave and j.c rile said as long as we have the 39 articles to defend the 39 articles would be very similar to the westminster or to the 1689 Baptist Confession in terms of theology. As long as we have the 39 articles to defend, we shouldn't leave the old ship. So I actually went to see when they changed the 39 articles because I know that the church has gone very, very liberal. And here's what I found. They never touched them.

The 39 articles are still intact, they just don't adhere to them any longer. That's right. That's right. It is something of an ancient relic. And that's it.

Well, hey, let's let's wind up with this. Poojan, thank you for talking with us. Let's just go around each of us and let's give one thing that we're so grateful for, for God's providential hand over the last year. What are we most thankful for? Jason, let's start with you.

Pooey on then you and then I'll follow up. With the restrictions and the governmental guidance that's come up, it's really fixed in our minds. We have this set of things that we're just radically committed to because there's a straight line between the things that we're doing and the scriptures that say the Lord's people ought to be doing them. And Pooyon, you started out by saying in many places, the world of the church has been turned upside down. We found exactly the opposite.

The things that we're doing have such a straight line to grounding in scripture that we just can't, in our heart of hearts, think of any of them as dispensable. And while the government is calling things, you know, these are necessary, these are unnecessary, we can't look at the things that we're have been devoting ourselves to and say, well, we can do without these in a pandemic era. It's been a real encouragement to me. It makes me think hey, with all our faults. We are on the right track.

And the things that we're giving our time to. Because when push comes to shove, we don't think we can let go of hardly any of them. Amen. What about you putting on? I've been thankful to see the increase of unity amongst the brethren, amongst churches of coming together and praying with one another and praying for one another.

That has been most encouraging for me and also I think what I'm encouraged of there has been a sifting that has been going on that needed to happen and that this has become a little shaking of the churches to go back to their first love, and to realize that all the outward things that they have held on to, of their heritage, when it comes to the point of being tested, it means nothing. It is what we have now that counts. � and that has been a very encouraging thing for me to see the love of the brethren, to see the sifting that has been going on and then to see the examination of our own hearts and conduct that has awakened many has encouraged me. Isn't it wonderful that God does cause all things to work together for good? For me, this whole situation has introduced me to many, many new brethren, like my new brethren in a lot of different places.

I feel like I've been enriched by brethren around the world. Some of them I bumped into because they were preaching certain things and I heard them and they become friends and comrades in arms frankly right and I'm just really grateful for that God used this time to really expand the brotherhood in my life and I'm really thankful. You know we were getting brethren on the line to talk about these things you know throughout the year. You know we'd have four, five, six, seven pastors up here on the screen just processing this whole thing but it went far beyond that and I'm really thankful. I've got some new brethren out there as a result of what God did through this whole thing, and I'm really thankful.

That's right. Amen. So, okay. Well, I guess that's it. Pujyan, thank you so much.

And, Hey, thank you for joining us at the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up. Hope you can join us. Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.