Pooyan Mehrshahi was born and raised in Iran as a Zoroastrian but after emigrating with his family to England he converted to Christianity. Since 2007 he has been pastor of Providence Baptist Chapel, Cheltenham, just about the only local church to stay open throughout ‘Covid’. You can watch some of his learned, thoughtful sermons at the church’s website https://cheltenham.church
You can find his sermons and articles by visiting his personal website pilgrimshelp.com
https://jamesdelingpole.co.uk/Podcasts/Psalms/
Psalm thirty seven This is the Miles Coverdale version for the book of common prayer fret not thyself because of the ungodly, neither be thou envious against the evil doers, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and be withered, even as the green herb.
Put thou thy trust in the Lord, and be doing good, dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
Delight thou in the Lord, and he shall give thee thy heart's desire.
Commit thy way unto the Lord, and put thy trust in him, and he shall bring it to pass.
He shall make thy righteousness as clear as the light, and thy just dealing as the noon day.
Hold thee still in the Lord, and abide patiently upon him, but grieve not thyself at him whose way doth prosper, against the man that doeth after evil counsels.
Leave off from wrath, and let go displeasure.
Fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil.
Wicked doers shall be rooted out, and they that patiently abide the Lord, those shall inherit the land.
Yet a little while, and the ungodly shall be clean gone, thou shalt look after his place, and he shall be away, but the meek spirited shall possess the earth, and be refreshed in the multitude of peace.
The ungodly seeketh counsel against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
The Lord shall laugh him to scorn, for he hath seen that his day is coming.
The ungodly have drawn out the sword and bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of a right conversation.
Their sword shall go through their own heart, and their bow shall be broken.
A small thing that the righteous hath is better than great riches of the ungodly, for the arms of the god the ungodly shall be broken, and the Lord upholdeth the righteous.
The Lord knoweth the days of the godly, and their inheritance shall endure for ever.
They shall not be confounded in the perilous time, and in the days of dearth they shall have enough.
As for the ungodly, they shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall consume as the fat of lambs, yea, even as the smoke shall they consume away.
The ungodly borroweth not, borroweth and payeth not again, but the righteous is merciful and liberal.
Such as are blessed of God shall possess the land, but they that are cursed of him shall be rooted out.
The Lord ordereth a good man's going, and maketh his way acceptable to himself.
Though he fall he shall not be cast away, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.
I have been young, and now am old, yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.
The righteous is ever merciful and lendeth, and his seed is blessed.
Flee from evil, and do the thing that is good, and dwell for ever more, for the Lord loveth the thing that is right, he forsaketh not his that be godly, but they are preserved for ever.
The unrighteous shall be punished.
As for the seed of the ungodly it shall be rooted out, the righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.
The mouth of the righteous is exercised in wisdom, and his tongue will be talking of judgment.
The law of his God is in his heart, and his goings shall not slide.
The ungodly seeth the righteous, and seeketh occasion to slay him.
The Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.
Hope thou in the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall promote thee, that thou possess the land, when the ungodly perish, thou shalt see it.
I myself have seen the ungodly in great power, and flourishing like a green bay tree.
I went by, and lo, he was gone.
I sought him, but his place could nowhere be found.
Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right.
For that shall bring a man peace at the last.
As for the transgressors, they shall perish together.
And the end of the ungodly is they shall be rooted out at the last.
But the salvation of the righteous cometh of the Lord, who is also their strength in the time of trouble.
And the Lord shall stand by them and save them.
He shall deliver them from the ungodly and shall save them.
Because they put their trust in him.
Welcome to the Psalms with me, James Dalling Paul.
And I'm delighted to invite my special guest, Puyan Meshahi, to talk to me about Psalm 37.
Thanks for taking on this one, Puyan.
It's it's one of the big ones.
Yes, it is it is a big one, but it's a wonderful psalm.
It is, it is.
Um by the way, thanks for thanks for doing this.
I it's been ages since I last did a psalms podcast.
And people are probably wondering, what has James lost interest in the Psalms?
No, I have certainly not.
I've been learning learning them apace.
I think I'm now I've over definitely over a fifth of the Psalter I've got under my belt, and possibly possibly heading towards a quarter.
So I'm I'm very happy with that.
Um it's the difficulty is finding people who are both interested in the Psalms and informed about the Psalms, and at the same time people who are awake.
Sorry, but I can't really talk to people who aren't awake about anything.
Is that wrong with me?
I don't think so, no.
No.
Okay.
So the re Psalm 37 was one of the obviously the toughest of all the Psalms to learn in terms of length is Psalm 119.
But I think Psalm 37.
Is one of the longer song psalms, and the reason that I I decided to learn it was because have you ever been to Westminster Hall in London?
I have, yes.
If you look at the roof at the ceiling, you'll see inscribed into the ceiling are the words of a psalm.
I thought, ooh, these are some good lines, really good lines.
What psalm is that?
And I looked it up and it was Psalm 37.
I think it's a it's got some of the best lines in the Psalter.
But my criticism of this this Psalm, I don't know whether you share my feelings, is that it's it's a it's got some really good lines, but it doesn't flow in the same way that some of the Psalms do.
It's it some of them uh read like lyric poetry and they're they're glorious and they flow and they're a delight.
Psalm 37 feels to me more like something from the book of Proverbs.
It's a sort of series of statements which don't really flow.
Bye.
Bye.
Thank you.
That's right, there is a ruggedness about it, but it is because it's a wisdom psalm rather than a normal uh psalm that we are used to.
It is it is um meant to be fatherly counsels, so there are short maxims as it were, they're just um but obviously eternal truths.
Um but uh it's not called, it's not detached instructions.
Uh it it is very personal, so it is it can be uh they're just very pithy uh statements, and they are painfully realistic, but then they're very warm as well.
You know, it's it's an old man speaking to um as it were young uh young son or the future generation.
He says in verse 25, I have been young and now I'm old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
So that's the tone of it.
Uh it's a very aged aged saint, yeah.
Actually, I suddenly realize before before we go on, I'm I'm I'm dying because I've I've spoken to you before, and you're an incredibly erudite, thoughtful man.
You you're you're clearly possessed of a of a deep deep faith.
So I I'm really looking forward to your take.
But let's find out a bit more about you.
I mean, I discovered, for example, you told me that you used to be a Zoroastrian.
I don't know what Zoroastrians believe.
Yes.
Um yes.
Well, I was um originally I'm originally from Iran, and uh I was born in 1980, and I arrived in United Kingdom in 1993.
So I was about um thirteen years old when I came to UK uh with no English at all.
Uh my father came to study uh do his PhD, and so we came with him.
Uh but I was brought up in a in a religious family, um, but our faith was Zoroastrianism, uh which is an ancient religion, the ancient religion of um the old Persia before Islam came uh about um sort of um it goes back to roughly around 1500 BC,
something of that um time, and um it's the religion of Darius, Cyrus, you know, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, all of those people.
When Daniel was in Babylon and in Persia, uh that uh was the religion of the day.
And uh when the three Hebrew children were thrown into the furnace, it was actually a demonstration that this god of the Zoroastrians, or at least the representation of the God of the Zoroastrians were going to swallow up these Hebrew children,
but they actually came out uh not even the smell of a smoke on them, uh, because an ancient religion of uh we could say it's a mixture of Babylonish Persian uh religions mixed under a one roof,
and um there is very little evidence in terms of um manuscript evidence of the early writings, um but it was a it was an amalgamation of these various uh borrowed from Mithraism and uh various other uh Babylonian new age religions.
So the the when we used to when I was a boy, the priest would say to us, we we need to turn towards the fire.
There was the um the old Mithraistic religions, they were they had elements of fire worship in them.
So that was brought in.
And um so we would stand in a fire temple, and they still they have fire temples there, and the fire in there, the priests have the responsibility of uh keeping the fire burning.
So in my city, I think it was for 700 years, this fire in the fire temple had been burning.
And um and so we would turn towards the fire and say our praise, recite our prayers and burn incense, or if there was no fire, we would turn towards the sun.
So it was part of that Mithraistic religion of sun worship as well.
They would say we are not worshipping the sun or the fire, but they would say we were we are worshiping uh God but through these elements.
Um and God represents himself in the fire, and they would bring various um sort of spiritual lessons out of that.
But that was the religion really I was brought up in.
Um and um uh and uh we there it's quite nationalistic as well, the religion.
Um we believe that uh we are the true um sort of Persians and uh that we have pure blood and that kind of a thing runs it in in it, and uh it so it rings with it quite self-righteous attitude,
that we are better than others, we are better than Muslims, you're better than Christians, the Jews, uh, because we have the pure religion that is older than these, and and um uh during Hellenism, the Hellenistic uh sort of Christians were being affected by uh the uh the Zoroastrian teaching, um uh which was really destroying Christianity in those in those early days of um the the first three hundred years after Christ.
So uh I was brought up in that.
I don't want to go too much into that, but um I came to this country with that sort of proud attitude, but we were taught that um you know England is a Christian country, and um, and so we we expected coming here, still people believe in God or or believe in Christianity and they know what to say about Christianity, but very soon I found out actually there are a lot of atheists, and I couldn't understand it.
How can you be an atheist?
Um, how can you see the world and deny that the world had a creator?
Um and it just we couldn't understand it, and um and then realized actually a lot of people are not Christians at all.
They might wear a cross, but they don't know what the Bible teaches, they don't know what is the message of the gospel, and uh so for a number of years I was I went did my education, you know, a l um GCSEs, A levels,
uh, with my broken English, and uh and um it was in my final year of A-levels in Sheffield, um uh uh that um friends at the sixth form college that I was at, they challenged me about uh God and religion and the Bible, and uh I always was able to sort of I always had an answer for them.
I always uh was able to say, Well, no, your religion, you borrowed from us.
Um, and uh, so I was so arrogant, and uh and so but somebody gave me a Bible to read, and I began reading it, but at the beginning I began reading it to find faults with it.
I began to say, Look, there are the inconsistencies here and there, but the more I read it, I read Genesis, I've read halfway through Exodus, then it was really difficult, I couldn't understand.
I had no Christian background, so um, then they said, Well, why don't you start in the gospels?
And actually, the Psalms, the Psalms I began reading, and they were so helpful.
I used to always think, How did how did God know?
Or how did the psalmist know about me?
Because this is talking about me.
And um, and then I read the Gospels, uh, I read Romans, um, but the more I read, even though I was looking to find faults in the Bible, it was finding faults in me.
And I I became really um I I felt the more I was reading it, it was like I don't know if you've read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the man with a with a burden on his back.
I I really realized I I I am that man.
I always get emotional when I speak about these things because it is um so um uh I I still remember it just how I felt this load of guilt and sin, and and after two years of really battling against all of these things,
um I came to realize, you know, I I had read John's gospel so many times, and I read this text that Jesus Christ says, um, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
I read that, and for I don't know, maybe fifth time or something like that, and um and my eyes were opened.
I I I have I have been on a different road, I have been on a wrong road, and Jesus Christ is the only way, and He is He's the only Savior, He's the one who died for me, and He rose again and He gave His life for me.
But there was a question, if I could say this as well, I'm waffling on, but I there's a question that a friend of friend at school asked me, and he said this, he said, What would you do with your sins on that final day?
So I had all this guilt, I had all this burden on my back, as it were, and he said, What would you do with your sins on that final day?
And I remember talking to my parents, I remember talking to other Zoroastrian friends and even writing to one of the priests saying, What what does our religion teach about sin?
How can I have my sins forgiven for sure?
These boys at school, they know for sure, but how can I know for sure?
And um, and everybody said, Well, you just follow the rules, you you never know for sure, and you just follow what you have been told.
Our our religion is ancient, don't you know?
You were you were brought up in this, God selected you to be born into this, and uh you can't question it.
Don't question it.
And so every time someone says to me, you're not allowed to ask questions.
That's for me, it's a red rag to the bull.
I have to question it.
And so I said that was the final straw, as the English say, that broke the camel's back.
I became quite disillusioned in this because I thought I have this guilt of sin, I have this debt to God, and what I have been brought up in has no solution.
It is ancient, but all it's saying is work harder, do more, be more committed.
But actually, there is no assurance.
Have I done enough?
How do I know?
And yet the Bible was telling me Jesus Christ paid the price for my sin.
And it is all dealt with, it's all paid for.
So after two years of wrestling with all of this, it was 1999.
And I uh I I my eyes were opened.
I read that text, uh, reading through the Gospel of John, and my burden fell off.
Um and I knew the Lord Jesus Christ paid for my sin.
I was set free um from this bondage, and uh so then um really I um the rest of it is really history that um unfortunately churches that I was going to I had no idea about churches, I didn't know what what was a church or anything like that, and the Bible was not being explained, uh the gospel was not being clearly explained.
People were it was more to do with entertaining people, and um really it was a charismatic Anglican church in Sheffield, and um and it was fun, it was sociable, but I wasn't learning the Bible,
and I was just reading at home and coming with questions and um but yeah, God led me from different in into different places, and um and um so this is where I am now.
Um I've been a minister now in our church in Cheltenham uh for the last 18 years since 2007, and um and uh so and and my desire is to explain the Bible and preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to anybody and everybody in the open air.
We go regularly every week into the open air in Cheltenham, in Gloucester in Stroud, um, even in before the parliament last month, I I went with a group of ministers outside of Parliament preaching, and uh last week the police came saying, Oh, you're not allowed to do this kind of a thing.
And I often say, you know, um, we are living in United Kingdom.
That the foundations of this country, the foundations of our laws are our scripture, the Bible, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And I always say, begin in my open-air preaching said, are you thankful for living in the United Kingdom with the heritage that you have?
Don't lose it.
Um a man stood there um about two months ago, sorry, I'm waffling here, but about two months ago, he was he was walking by with his dog, very posh man, and he said, Go back to your own country.
And um normally I say that to people, you know, to foreigners, go back to no, I don't say that, this is only a joke.
Um, but normally um so this man said, Go back to your own country if you don't want to hear this.
And I said to him, Sir, are you an Englishman?
He said, Yes, I am, and I said, I am so thankful to live in England, because you see, I have freedom because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ sets sinners free, and the gospel set this country from free from tyranny, and I said, Do you believe this?
He said, No.
I said, What kind of an Englishman are you?
That you um you you don't believe the very thing that has set you free.
And um, And I said, Do you have a Bible?
He said, No, I don't need all of that superstitious stuff.
I said, Englishmen died so that Englishmen would have a copy of the Bible.
I said, What kind of an Englishman are you?
He said, I'm an atheist.
I said, Well, why don't you pack up and go to North Korea?
Why don't you pack up your bags and go to a place where consistently it is following your values?
But I am thankful to God for God for bringing me into this country where I learned about Jesus Christ and the gospel and the Bible.
And I want to tell everybody about that, and the law protects me to be able to say these things.
But if I was in a country where you would be the king, an atheist king, I I would not have these freedoms.
So I said, I think I am more of an Englishman than you are.
You should go and find a country that believes what you believe.
Anyway, about that point, he uh there was a crowd that gathered, and um people generally were laughing at these things.
But um, but I I think it's important to say these things to people that actually the freedoms we have is not because of our secularism or atheism, it's because of the Bible.
Uh the Bible set this country free, and that's why I love to preach it to people.
Uh preach about you.
Sets us free spiritually.
You are uh you are a fighter, I can tell.
And I just wanted to ask you something.
Um arising from what you said earlier on.
You talked about Zoroastrian, Zoroastrianism, Zoroastrians thinking of themselves as the as the as the bees-knees of of all the all religions, because they're really old.
And I've heard this a lot, by the way.
You you hear it particularly in sort of new age circles, people who sort of want to demonstrate that Christianity is just this sort of a new thing, and there are there are older, older religions which are more authentic.
Um you quoted that key line from John, no one comes to the Father except through me, which is Christianity uh claiming for itself the same exclusivity that Zoroastrianism does.
How what is it?
You you obviously like the Christian message, you were that you read the Bible and it appealed to you.
But how do you know that Christianity is is the real deal and Zorias Zoroastrian is not?
It is because there are really ultimately two religions in the world.
There's a religion that says it is all down to you.
You have to do something, but then there is the religion of grace that that speaks is by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of your own, but it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast.
There's the religion of grace that says Christ has done everything.
He he his final words was it is finished.
There is no no other religion like this.
There is nothing else.
Everyone else is a shade, their name may be different, but in terms of the essence, how can a man be right with God?
That's the question.
How can I have my sins forgiven?
That was the clincher of a question that really affected me.
And there are only two two things that people say.
Either you just have to try harder, get up earlier, have a cold shower, you know, uh do this, follow these rules, and maybe.
They never say for sure, they say maybe, hopefully, I hope.
And then there is a religion that the apostle Paul says, I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep me.
Uh um and and so he was sure.
And the the promises of Jesus Christ is sure.
There are not maybes that hopefully, if you just do enough, maybe.
Um so that's that's really it.
I I uh that coming to a conviction that my sins are all dealt with, and I have had no part in it.
Um he loved me and gave himself for me before I ever knew him.
Um that's powerful.
There is nothing else like it.
Um so anyway.
Um let's let's get back to the Psalms.
Um, I mean, I could talk, I could talk to you for hours about this stuff.
And in fact, I've already said, and we're gonna do this, we'll do it, we'll do a separate pod podcast where we can talk about more of this stuff, and I want to find out your views on Bible translations, because this is I uh a fascinating topic which I haven't covered yet, and you're the man, I can tell.
But let's talk about the Psalms, which you've probably encountered.
There's there's quite a lot of Christians out there who who sort of think the new the New Testament is everything, and they sort of they they see the Old Testament as well C. S. Lewis actually described it as a sort of Jewish thing, a sort of i i it belongs to it belongs to the Jews.
I've never felt that.
Jesus quotes the Psalms more than any other book of the Old Testament.
But tell me why you think the Psalms matter.
If it was a psalm, if it was something that Christ quotes more than any other book, the apostles the same, it uh it was the hymn book of the church, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, then it must be so true.
And there is so much of the New Testament in in the Psalms as well, because the there are the shadows in the Psalms that are fulfilled in the New Testament.
So you read the New Testament and you say, Well, actually, wait a minute, I have read this already somewhere else.
And so there are allusions uh that you get in the in the New Testament that we will look into some of the allusions in in Psalm 37, and there is Christ in the Psalms.
We we sing I've got the Scottish Psalter in front of me, and um we we sing this Psalm uh uh ever every uh well not this Psalm but the Psalter, we sing the Psalter through in our church, and uh it's it's wonderful to actually sing the words of Scripture, um the the words that Jesus Christ sang with his with his apostles.
So if it was important for the apostles, the early church, then it should be important for us.
Truth never changes.
Two plus two has always been for, and truth of the scripture always is going to be applicable and relevant for us.
So have you ever wondered what it was what it what the tunes might have been that Jesus might have sung?
I mean, do we have any idea what what there are certain uh I think certain evidences um uh in um uh about s certain uh of the psalms I believe, but on the whole I don't think so.
Uh even the titles of the Psalms, which are actually part of the inspired text.
This is uh an issue I have oftentimes.
People read the Psalms, they don't read the titles.
But actually in the uh Hebrew text, the the titles were part of the first verse.
And they're part part of it.
It's um oftentimes it explains, it describes who should be singing it to the chief musician, for example, Psalm 36 says.
A Psalm of David, it explains who the author of it is.
And then it says it gives the servant of the Lord.
And Psalm 37, it simply says a psalm of David.
Um so uh uh but I I don't think we would know the tunes um uh exactly for today.
No.
Um well there are some classic lines in this psalm, and um one of my one of my favorites is very near the beginning, and it seems to be contain the essence of everything we do.
Put thou thy trust in the Lord and be doing good, dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
I mean how reassuring is that.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, the whole psalm is begins with such wonderful words as well of um, you know, fret not thyself because of evildoers.
Uh neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
It begins with fret not.
Uh there is nothing to fear.
Um and this was the psalm that um the Scottish Covenanters would be singing uh when they they were being persecuted, or they uh or the um during the civil war, the uh English civil war, Cromwell would be uh encouraging the army, the parliamentarians to sing this.
And even in the American Civil War, Stonewall Jackson.
It this is one of his favorite psalms that he would be reading them out, and then they would sing out the either the cover version or the uh the Scottish metrical version.
They would be singing, and you can only imagine what it would sound like.
All these soldiers, and they're facing a battle, it's a battle psalm.
And um, and they're facing a battle, and everyone singing, they're they're facing life and death, and yet the psalm says, fret not thyself because of evildoers.
It's wonderful.
Um be cut down like the grass and be withered, even as the green herb.
This is this is a common theme in the in the in the Psalms, isn't it?
This this we are as grass.
That's right.
That's right.
And James refers to this, um, Isaiah refers to this, and um, and so uh and it calms the soul that um that where are we in our lives?
Um that word fret, obviously, doesn't doesn't necessarily just mean worry in our modern sense.
Uh the the Hebrew word for fret um is to burn, to grow hot with frustration.
That's what the Hebrew is.
Uh it's a sort of an internal agitation that you're feeling, and um when you see corruption, you know, when you see corruption in the world triumphing, and you there's the there's that burning sensation.
Uh you say the wicked are prospering, no one seems to care.
Um it's it's a heart slowly as it were catching fire.
Um not with um and it is it is with holy zeal.
Um I'm sorry, I should say it's not with holy zeal, it's it's actually with resentment.
Um and David is saying basically, and God through David is saying, Don't go there, don't let the sight of the wicked flourishing, light that fire in your heart.
Why is that?
Because verse 2 tells us, for they shall soon be cut down like the like the grass and wither as the green herb.
So the the wicked he's saying, they look wealthy, healthy, they're untouchable.
But David is saying, Well, like the farmer who's just gone out as has watched many seasons, and is reminding us grass always gets cut, green herbs, uh they will wither when the sun beats upon it.
Um they're temporary, they're their glory is superficial.
That's what the psalmist is saying here.
Their root is shallow.
And so instead of fretting, what should we do?
Verse 3.
It tells you it instead of that, there's this sort of five-fold uh instruction that we are given from verse 3.
If you look down to verse 8, uh so what's God's remedy for people who are restless in their heart, and maybe there are people watching this, and they they are going through great anxieties, and everything around them may be crumbling, and and you think, well, uh, what should they think?
Verse 3 says, Trust in the Lord.
That's the solution.
You trust in the Lord and do good, so shall thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
So the call isn't just passive sort of waiting, but actually active trusting and obedience, keep doing good.
Um live faithfully, dwell in the land.
That is stay in your calling.
Don't run, don't panic.
Uh and so God is promising, says you shall be fed.
Um that's simple faith, a childlike faith.
Um, it's not striving, it's not plotting, it's trusting.
Uh, this was Martin Luther's psalm, but uh he discovered justification by faith.
He he he fretted deeply.
He beat himself before he he was truly converted, he's beating himself, he fasted endlessly, he confessed obsessively, um, but he had no peace.
Uh and it wasn't until the the gospel pierced his heart.
The just shall live by faith.
And his soul was still.
And he he devised the hymn out of this psalm as well.
And he would sing this verses again and again.
And then the next step, it's like as if there are stepping stones.
Verse three, four, five.
The psalmist says, instead of fretting, these are the steps you take.
So trust in the Lord.
Then secondly, delight thyself also in the Lord.
And he shall give thee the desire desires of thine heart.
So this doesn't mean that you get whatever you want.
It means that when you delight in Him, and we we can say with New Testament eyes, we can say, when we draw delight in Christ, your desire changes.
Then He becomes your treasure.
And then God is your portion.
Christ is your portion.
the longing of your hearts are satisfied not with things but with him and so we go to him he says come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest so So yeah, and then the next step is verse 5.
Commit thy way unto the Lord.
Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.
So that word commit in Hebrew, it is it is wonderful.
And I've just finished revising uh the Persian uh Psalter uh from the Hebrew text.
And I I do translation work for a Bible society as well.
And um this this word in the Hebrew is wonderful, it's fantastic, because um it uh literally it means to roll it off, trust uh sorry, commit thy way unto the Lord in verse 5.
It means you roll something off your shoulders onto some somebody else.
Uh so you've got burdens, it says you've got fears, you've got all of these issues, frustrations, this weight of sin, and he says, God has rolled them on to me, I will carry them.
And of course, that's what Jesus Christ did.
He he took our sins, he became sin for us.
And so we can see these fulfillments in the New Testament.
Um so um, yeah, I could go on verse 5.
Then it says, Rest in the Lord.
That's the next step you take.
Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him.
Uh again, the word rest here is be silent, be silent, stop murmuring, stop plotting, stop trying to take control of what only God can do.
We want to be in control.
That's that's my big problem.
I just want to fix things.
Are you a fixer?
I don't know.
We want to fix other people's problems too.
Um I'm a great I'm I'm a great warrior.
And um I I I tried this one day.
I was worrying about arrangements and decisions and stuff, and I thought, um I was I was learning Psalm 37 at the time, I think, and I was um inspired by some of these lines.
I thought, I know what I'm gonna do.
I'm just gonna trust God and leave it to God to sort out.
And I'm not gonna fret.
And sure enough, the next day, all the things that I've been fretting needlessly about had sort of been arranged, and I find it I find it this stuff is very effective.
I'm I'm sorry by the way, that um delight thou in the Lord, and he shall give thee thy heart's desire.
Doesn't mean you get lots of cool stuff, but it but it's but at the same time.
Am I not right in thinking that if you're if your needs are in tune with what God wants for you, you do get it.
I mean, it's not like he's not a meanie, he's not stingy.
No, he he does bless uh with all that we need, and even more.
Our cup runs over.
Um that's what the psalmist says, and uh and so uh but uh so there was a there was a Scottish um pastor called Andrew Bonner, and I recommend his writings to you.
Um he he said that the hardest grace to learn is patience, and he wrote some of the wonderful hymns that uh we sing, and patience.
Oh, that I would learn patience, and um uh because when I'm not patient, I'm saying I could do it better than God.
I I I wish he would hurry about things and do it in my time.
Um but um but it there in verse 7 it says, Rest in the Lord, be silent.
Um and then he says, wait patiently.
Uh so he says, let the wicked rage.
Let the wicked rage, let them worry, let the world mock mock you.
God is not slow, he says.
He's never early, he's never late.
Uh, but be patient on him.
He's not going to run the world on your clock.
That's what is the psalmist is saying here.
Um so I I need to refuse to fret, and you need to, and everybody else who reads this psalm needs to.
Instead, I wait on the Lord.
Um it talks about verse 8.
Uh, if you look it up, it says cease from anger.
Yes, so this is this is interesting.
So this is another of the I think the most useful phrases in this psalm.
Fret not thyself because of the ungodly, neither be thou envious against the what am I talking about?
I've critical.
Um yes.
Leave off from wrath and let go displeasure.
Um fret not thyself, else thou be moved, shalt thou be moved to do evil.
I found that so useful.
Whenever I'm whenever I'm um tempted to to burn somebody or to take you know, I'm I'm plotting my revenge because somebody has aggrieved me and done me wrong.
And the point that line those lines are uh making, surely is actually this is a waste of your energy.
You're you're putting yourself on the level of the people that have annoyed you, and you should just let it pass.
Definitely bitterness, anger.
Uh isn't it like a poison to our soul?
Faster than any any kind of trial, it it destroys us.
And people who are angry and uh bitter, they're never happy.
Um it will turn us into the very thing that we hate, doesn't it?
Uh and David knew it firsthand.
Um you remember when he raised against Nabal, he was so angry at Nabal, and he would go and kill him.
Uh God has stopped him in in his mercy.
Um so all of these things are saying, you know, uh don't fret, trust, delight, commit, rest, wait, cease.
Um and they're not just commands to us, but they're lifelines for the true child of God in a dark world, and we are living in a dark world.
And what the messages Puyan, this is this is this is a charge that's often leveled against Christians, that they are essentially too passive, that they're they're like leave it to the big man.
Um we don't have to do anything.
And and it's it's it's used against us, isn't it?
I mean, the the this is um the problem with you Christians is that you know you know you're not taking any action, you know.
You just want to sit around trusting in God.
How do you counter that?
I would say that the trusting here, it does not mean um being idle.
The trusting is actually very positive thing.
We then go on the attack.
The Christian is a warrior, he's a soldier, and our aim in life and our our um purpose in life is the glory of Christ, and it means that we want the knowledge of Christ to dominate the world.
We are actually on I I want the whole of Cheltenham to become Christian.
I want the whole of Gloucestershire to become Christian.
I want to go into, and this is what we are actually doing, going into uh areas where there are Muslims, and reach them with the gospel.
I want them to be converted, like me.
I was once lost and had false ideas about who God was, and um so actually it is very very powerful.
Um it's not idling about or going into a monastery or hiding ourselves somewhere and saying, I just want to keep the world out.
Uh I've got I don't have to do that.
Um Because I've got such a I I've got a sinful heart that it it needs the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse my sin every day, and I can't shut myself away.
I must fight against the world, the flesh and the devil And Jesus Christ's plan for us is to go into all the world and preach the gospel, and the Bible then transforms nations.
It sets the laws, it sends the um the behavior, the moral standards, all of these things.
So this is this is why I I seek to when I'm preaching the Bible, I'm saying, so what does that mean?
In what way will it affect your hands?
What way will it affect your feet, your tongue, your eyes, your ears, or else it is just useless words.
But God never gives us useless words.
Um the Christian actually is the most um busy person.
They should be.
They're not just there to go to church, uh, but they're taking uh this powerful message that transforms everything.
Uh, there's an excellent book I have just at the back there, the book that changed the world by uh by uh I don't know if you've ever seen it uh before or not, but but by Vishal Mag Magwabaldi is a um is a um Indian Christian theologian, and he shows how the Bible actually has transformed so much of the Western world and even his own country of India.
No other book has done that.
So this book is so powerful, it's sharper than two-edged sword, it transforms people, not just to go to heaven, uh, but in this world.
So I I don't agree with uh the kind of um waiting on the Lord.
That means I just I just sit back and do nothing.
That's not what it means.
David was the most um the psalmist himself is showing you that he what he didn't live like that.
Uh there is more to it than these uh than what we see on the surface.
Um this this next bit we it's sort of re reiteration.
I mean, uh the the I th what I find is this psalm does is it says says something in one section and then it repeats it in in another one.
So wicked doers should be rooted out.
Um they that patiently by the Lord, they shall inherit the land.
Yet a little while and the ungodly shall be clean gone, thou shalt look after his place, and he shall be away.
And that that line gets repeated later on in the Psalm.
So you you're you're constantly enjoying to Yeah, even though the the baddies are really annoying and they seem to be thriving, don't worry.
Ill pass.
Yes, they they're gonna be gone soon.
Definitely, and the first part of it, the first eight verses is really speaking about trusting the Lord, not fretting, not listening to the BBC, not listening to all of this stuff that is just saying you need to constantly be worried.
The world is coming to an end, the world is going to this is gonna happen.
This is and the that's that then verses 9 to 22, it's saying the fate of the wicked versus the righteous.
Uh so verse 9, as you read, uh, for evildoers shall be cut off, but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.
So we are not uh it's taking us deeper uh into this psalm.
Uh and David doesn't simply tell us not to envy the wicked, he shows us why it is foolish to do so.
Because the the wicked, he says, may climb high, uh, they might have all of these establishments, but the rope is very short.
Uh the righteous may seem very lowly, but their foundation is eternal, it's in God.
So the wicked have short-lived success, he says.
So verse 9, the evildoer shall be cut off.
Verse 10, yet a little while and the wicked shall not be.
Verse 12 and to 14, the wicked plotteth, gnasheth, draws, draw the sword.
Verse 15, their sword shall enter into their own heart.
Verse 17, the arms of the wicked shall be broken.
Verse 28, the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.
So uh this is not just poetry, it's actually prophecy.
Uh God has declared their end.
Actually, we know what is going to happen.
We've got the final chapter of the of the book of the world.
So all of their plan, all of their wealth, all of their lineage, all of their strength, all of it will collapse.
Their own weapons will be turned against them.
The very strength that they have.
Yes.
So can I ask you something which is which is often puzzled me about the Psalms?
The baddies in the Psalms always seem to be slightly cartoonish.
The ungodly seeketh counsel against the just and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
It's they constantly sort of making threatening noises, but rarely rarely do they get physic.
I mean, okay, they seeketh occasion to slay him.
It sometimes does get more visceral, but generally the baddies just kind of threatening, and they're not they're not physically don't seem like a real threat.
And I and that puzzles me because after all, this is written in a time where there were real baddies killing people with their swords and and spears and butchering babies and stuff.
What why does it kind of present them in this kind of cartoonish way?
It is because ultimately they are not as powerful as we can see and be they think they are.
Ultimately okay, I'll explain it like this.
Um wicked people have come and gone, but the church of Christ still is here.
They've sought to destroy it, but they have done their utmost to destroy it.
There was Voltaire, uh the who famously in France mocked Christianity and predicted, said in fifty years there will be no Christianity in Europe, Voltaire said.
Um and and when he said it, he said it or he said in hundred years the Bible and Christianity would be forgotten.
Within fifty years of his death, do you know what happened?
The Geneva Bible Society was printing Bibles in his former house.
That's what happened.
Take that.
Google it and uh find out.
He was cut off, even though he did everything in his power through his uh teaching and writing to destroy Christianity, but the Geneva Bible Society was using his house to print Bibles.
Um so he was cut off, as the Psalm says, Um, and his his lamp was i extinguished.
And verse ten, it says, and yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be.
Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be.
So uh you may search them, you may Google them, you may write biographies about them, but they will be gone.
Uh he history forgets them.
Heaven never knew knew them.
Um I I get the overarching truth of this.
I get the big picture stuff.
But suppose you were um one of the people who sang that well any time in the well when when was the psalm written roughly?
It is um roughly um sort of seven hundred uh sorry.
It would be end of David's life, whenever that was.
Um just over a thousand BC, something like that.
Thousand BC.
Okay.
So people have been singing this psalm for over three thousand years with great sincerity.
But a lot of them will have shortly after this singing this psalm will have died horribly.
They'd have been butchered by the very people that the Psalms not warning them not to fret about.
How how do you how do you um explain?
Because they see themselves not just in a in a uh in their own locality and in their own individual, we are part of the body of Christ.
The body of Christ cannot be destroyed.
Uh there will always be a witness uh in this world, and Jesus Christ is actually conquering this world, not not necessarily not with sword, but with his truth and the gospel.
And so the Christian sees his life.
I am just part of the this building block of the body of Christ.
If I am truly a Christian, that's where I am.
So uh Jesus said that fear not them that kill the body, but fear him that kills the body and soul in hell.
Uh so uh my my um my body may be burnt, but uh if I'm part of the body of Christ, the body of Christ is growing uh and it will uh dominate.
So that's the hope, that's the glory.
That's why John Hooper, who was just down in Gloucester, he was the bishop of Gloucester, one of the early reformers um that was burnt at the stake, he sang this psalm as he was being burnt at the stake.
And um and uh Hugh Latimer as well, um who who went before the king and he the king had asked him to um to preach a sermon, and uh and everyone was scared of of uh of the king, obviously, and uh Hugh Latimer began his sermon, he said, Now Latima know before whom you are preaching, and now Latimer remember who it is who hears your word and so on.
He went on for ages uh talking to himself before the king, and he said, It is not the king of England, but it is the king of kings that you're preaching um before, and um and he says, So make sure you do not offend the king of kings.
Uh it does not matter if the king of England is offended.
And and Latimer, he he um uh preached and sang this psalm um in his life, but also at his death.
It was one of the favorite psalms because it really speaks of ultimately they may burn my body, but actually they are the losers.
Uh they will die and perish.
Who remembers the person who who uh ultimately uh burnt Latimer?
Nobody knows who it was.
Um but but we know Latimer.
Um we do.
Uh so well Cranma Latimer and Ridley, that was were they burned by by Mary.
That's right, yes.
1555 was it?
So Henry's Henry's daughter, Henry VIII's daughter, presumably Henry the Eighth is the king you were talking about that that he was right, and Cranmer, of course, wrote large chunks of the Book of Common Prayer.
So we he he lives out of that as well.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I I just wonder do you think that um being a Christian makes your end less painful?
I mean, physically.
Not at all.
No.
No.
No, two weeks ago, I I was at the side of a godly lady, forty-four years of age.
She was dying of cancer, full of pain, full of um yeah, horrible stuff going on.
But do you know the night before she was singing psalms and hymns, she was praising God the night before she died, uh her body is riddled with cancer, and she says, I'm victorious, I'm more than conqueror through Jesus Christ.
Um so uh and her she's left uh you know three children, uh two, three-year-old and seventeen.
She was forty-four, yeah.
That's awful.
And she's left her husband, but her husband says, uh, you know, our peace is in Jesus Christ.
He's the one who has my wife safely home.
Um I don't have to worry about her anymore.
I know that she is secure in Christ.
Her sins are forgiven.
And the night before, knowing all of these things, she was singing God's praise.
She she was the victorious, she wasn't the prison in in a prison of Kenza.
She was actually looking forward to arrive safely to the place where Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you.
So that's the victory of the Christian.
The sting of death is gone.
Paul said, Oh grave, where is thy victory?
Um that's the Christian.
Everyone else is fearful of of death, but through these Psalms, and even David himself, he he he knew he was always going to be in the presence of the Lord.
If he was go to heaven, if he was even going to go to hell, he says, Thou art there.
And so for the Christian for the Psalm.
That's right.
It's it's a wonderful experience that the Christian has.
I don't have to fear death anymore.
Death is just the doorway into the house of my father in heaven.
And so this is just the experience just two weeks ago.
Her funeral is in next week, next next Friday.
And she was singing with thankfulness.
She wasn't bitter, she wasn't angry.
She said, I I wish I could be there as a mother for these children.
And I wish I was there to support my husband.
But I know that the Lord would care for them.
And I can leave it with the Lord.
And so that that's that's the triumph of the gospel in a sinner's heart.
Um that they um we are that's why the Christian can be the most useful person in the world because we actually fear no one but God.
We don't fear the tyrants, the the parliament, the all of these people.
And uh so in 15th of July, there was a group of ministers.
We we said with with the abortion bill going through parliament with the assisted dying bill going through, said what are we doing?
You know, am I just going to come and type on Facebook, you know, isn't it so awful that this is happening?
So we contacted some of the MPs who who said they were Christians and who actually had spoken, and we said, Well, we need to just go and speak to the people.
I I wrote a little tract.
Um actually, this one here.
Um might not say it's hope for our nation.
Um and I wrote this very quickly, just in one day I wrote this, and we got it printed, and we gave out three thousand copies of this uh to people passers by and and politicians that were going by, and the police came uh and uh and they actually said, Look, don't preach here, go and write in front of the parliament.
So uh just in front of the gates, we were preaching on these issues and saying, you are answerable to the king of heaven.
Uh the word of God is the is the law, and um, and so for what I'm saying is actually the Christian has no fear of uh of man anymore.
If we fear God, we have and and we fear our own sin.
Uh we don't have to fear the devil.
The devil is limited, he's not infinite.
Um, and the governments of this world, they only have enough power that that God allocates to them.
Um but the king of heaven, that's the one I I fear, and I must serve, and it um, and so we can be as as as bold as a lion as we read in the word of God.
Um, but humbly, not with arrogance.
It's not it's not um because of me uh or anybody else.
How do you understand fear of the Lord?
Well I I know that the fear of the Lord is the is the beginning of wisdom, but it presumably doesn't mean we should spend our lives in a state of abject trembling terror at God's wrath.
It's something more all-encompassing than that.
Definitely.
The the fear of God is actually uh so vast, so it's a it's a pregnant word.
Yes, it means we stand in awe of him.
It means that we respect him, it means that we actually love him, we love his law.
It is like a child to the father.
There is that familial fear, uh, but not a slavish fear.
We we are not slaves, we have been set free.
He said the Lord Jesus Christ says, I I I call you friend.
Um, but it's that sense that this savior, this king, Came down from heaven and he died for me.
It's that kind of a fear that it is unbelievable what he did for me, and I my whole life is given to for him.
And why would I want to do anything to to offend him?
The fear is actually full of affection, full of trust and full of joy as well.
I'm shaking in my boots, and oh, I'm worried God is standing above me with a stick.
That's what I used to think of God before I was converted.
God was so distant, detached.
But the psalmist he speaks of the fear of God with love.
He he says, I am with you, you are with me.
Um thy rod and thy stuff, they comfort me.
That's the fear of God.
Yes.
That that actually to know that the Lord actually will use his rod to even prod me and discipline me.
That's that's a great comfort.
I he won't let me go.
Um and he will defend me, and he will save me from myself, my own foolishness too.
Um so uh the fear of God is a wonderful subject that actually uh Christians have forgotten what the fear of God is, it's not preached.
Um, and yet the Bible says it's the beginning of wisdom, it's the beginning of knowledge.
Um but but fools despise it and reject it.
Um so but the righteous man, the Bible also says that he fears God, and this this psalm is about the the righteous as well.
The righteous are secure, it says uh those that wait upon the Lord shall inherit the earth, and the meek shall inherit the earth verse 11 um and shall delight themselves in abundance of peace.
Uh verse 16.
Uh it says, A little uh that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.
I love I love this.
A small thing that the righteous hath is better than great riches of the ungodly.
And I was thinking, whenever you look at Bill Gates or or Elon Musk, or all these creepy characters who've got all their fancy toys and stuff, and they're swallowing around the world.
But a small thing that the righteous hath is better than all their great rich riches.
Definitely, definitely.
Um but that is contentment, pure and simple.
Better one slice of bread with Christ than a banquet with the devils, the Puritan said.
Um John Bunyan, you know, he was in prison for twelve years.
Uh when he was there in Bedford jail, he had very little, just a jug of water, uh a crust of bread and his Bible.
Yet he said, and I'm quoting this, I never had in all my life so much of the presence of God.
Um so his his little was better than the riches of kings.
I knew a little old lady in uh Bath.
Um my wife went to Bath University, and uh there's this little old lady.
Um her name was um Francis Latimer, actually.
No, Frances That's right, Frances Latimer.
And uh she had no fridge, she had no TV.
She she just had a slab of cold um uh cold slab of stone, um, and she put her food and so on on there.
Um and um, but she's the most joyous person I've ever known.
She was 98, and she had a horrible upbringing.
Uh her uh stepmother would lock her in a cupboard under the stairs.
It was child abuse, she was abused severely, but she said, I have Jesus Christ, it means so much to me.
And I I she said, you know, she's she was just always smiling and said, What have I?
Uh this world will will be gone.
And so she would go and knock on she had a hunchback, and she used to go and knock on all these students' doors.
That's how we got to know her because um she had gone and knocked on the st where my wife was staying, and had invited her to church and and giving hospitality and saying, What can what can I pray for you?
and all sorts of stuff.
She was a busy, busy woman, and full of joy.
What a testimony it was to the grace of God.
She had nothing, a little, a very little she had.
Uh A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.
And you you know yourself of people with so much of this world, and they're miserable, worried about insurance and thieves, and you know, all of these things, inheritance tax and all this kind of stuff.
Um but the Lord knows, it says in verse uh 18, the Lord knoweth the days of the right upright.
Um He knows their path, that's what it means, their time there.
He knows their their trials, he knows their temptations.
Uh but what of the wicked?
You know, just going through, I'm just trying to go through the channel.
Yes, no, I think we we we're right.
Let's let's get um that's right.
We could be on this, you know, and it's such a wonderful psalm.
It could be I uh as I said, I I think I preached about 20 sermons on this, but um verse 19.
Whist through bits and and and and and just pick out little little nuggets of um but in in verse 19 it says they shall uh it says what is going to happen to the wicked, they shall not be ashamed in the evil time.
This is the righteous, in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.
Um even when the economy crashes, uh when when the crops fail, when the funds dry up, uh God feeds his own.
Uh have you heard of George Muller?
George Miller, he was uh he was uh in the eighteen hundreds, he was a um uh a preacher, a pastor, a minister from a German extraction.
He was a brethren leader in the brethren movement, but he was a pastor of a church in Bristol.
He had one of the largest um uh orphanages in the world at the time, and um and he never asked for a penny.
He said, I want to live by faith, I won't ask for a penny.
He fed thousands of orphans, and he had no guarantee of income.
You can read about him, it's it's fascinating how God provided.
So one one morning they would come, there was no food.
They had nothing, and all these hundreds and hundreds of children were gathered together, and he said, Okay, let us give thanks for our breakfast.
But there was no food.
But he said, let us give thanks.
God has promised to provide for us, so we just take him at his word and we'll give thanks.
So he prayed, thank God for this morning's breakfast, and said Amen.
As soon as they said Amen, there was a knock on the orphanage house.
Uh uh, and there was a uh there was a man who was delivering milk, but the cart broke down.
He couldn't deliver the milk to the place that uh he had to deliver.
He says, It's gonna perish.
And I'm just right at the outside of this place.
I thought maybe the children would like to have them.
So all the children had milk that morning.
Then another another uh similar thing happened on the s at the same time.
So there were these people coming to the place, and um, and this is real, this is not story.
So when and newspapers were writing about this.
Here is a man who has never asked for a penny, and yet thousands of children are being fed.
I would I would recommend you to read his story of George Muller.
It is so fascinating.
Is there a book about him?
It is, yeah.
There is um there are quite a number of books written.
Fantastic of him.
And uh yes.
I I'd often wondered about that line.
Um, they shall not be confounded in the perilous time, and in the in the days of dearth they shall have enough.
Because lines like that have a resonance when you're living in times where you and I, and most of the people listening to this podcast know that there are some really bad times coming engineered by the powers that be.
That they want us they've been engineering famine, they've it been engineering food shortages, they've been creating all sorts of situations where we we're gonna have to have rationing, there's going to be great suffering.
And I I I've often wondered, okay, so those people who haven't been prepping, for example, when there's no food around, will if they're good Christians, will God be true to his word in Psalm 37?
In the days of dearth, they shall have enough.
I I hope so, I pray so.
It and it has happened.
You read uh about the revival that took place in Korea in the early 1900s, during the time of the Japanese invasion, the Chinese invasion.
They would read this psalm, and the Lord would provide.
God would provide for these persecuted Christians through other Christians.
There was a network of Christians helping each other out.
And they said, Well, God is answering prayer, not through some miraculous way, but here is a Christian coming.
And he knows we need.
And so there is a, and I think to myself, yes, it is good to prep if one can, but there are individuals who are living somewhere in some sort of apartment, high rise flat in London.
How are they going to manage?
What will they do?
We can't say to them, if if I'm sitting in my affluence, say, Well, well, I'll be alright, you need to be prepping.
But what's going to happen to that old woman who is a Christian, godly person, and they just can't manage it.
Um but the Lord then uses his body, we should be ready to be a blessing.
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
We were just reading that in our family worship this morning.
And um, and so I said to the children, we need to be thinking about giving more than what we do today, because it is through these things, God blesses others and fulfills these promises too.
Um excellent.
Uh good brother.
Looking at verse 23, uh the steps of a good man.
Um speaking about uh God's sovereignty, God is in control.
The world tells us no one's in control except the elite.
Um, and we just need to trust.
We just need to don't ask questions, just do what you are being told by the by the uh establishment or whatever it is, but actually um we are we are being told by in the Bible all the time.
Actually, my steps are ordered by God.
It's not random wanderings, uh it's not leaping, it's not flight.
I'm not fleeing.
There are steps, it's called every day, every detail, every sorrow, every success, all are ordered, not by fate, not by luck, but by the Lord.
So there's purpose in my life.
Um the word they're ordered in the Hebrew, it means established, it's fixed, it's set in place.
Um God just God doesn't just react to your life, he he has written it.
He is the great sovereign who guides his child through the maze of life with with infinite wisdom.
So um, and who is this good man?
It says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.
Who is it?
Um David isn't saying that he he is ultimately good.
He's not saying if you're morally superior, God will guide you.
Rather, he says the good man is the one made good by the grace of God, the one who has been uh made righteous by faith and in the Lord.
God is the one who makes makes me good.
I can't make myself good.
So there's a lot of Christian um truths in these things, and verse 24 talks about the fall.
Um he says, I I have been uh sorry, though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.
He says, That's that's wonderful.
Um God doesn't say his people will never stumble.
Um he says when they do, he catches them.
Um this is not a promise that they won't sin, they're perfect, but he says God is going to sustain them, help them.
Um, and um there was the man Robert Mary McShane.
If you've again I've mentioned in these names, he was a Scottish Presbyterian minister.
Under him, the city of Dundee, there was a mini revival that took place under his preaching.
He was a weak man, he was only a minister for seven years.
He died as a as a young man, and he wrote so many hymns.
Um McShane's hymns are wonderful, and he wrote a daily reading plan as well.
It's called McShane's Daily Reading.
You read the Bible, uh, we use it at home.
You read the Bible basically once in the year, uh, but the new New Testament Psalms twice.
And um, in the city of Dundee, there was a mini revival of so many people were converted.
And he wrote these journals.
He says, I see a man falling into sin and yet being restored.
The only explanation is this.
God upheld him.
He says, We don't keep ourselves.
The Lord keeps us.
I don't keep myself.
I'm being kept, Peter says, being kept by the power of God.
So the Christian recognizes that only the only reason a Christian doesn't stay down is because God is intervening.
And so furthermore, David says in verse 25, he says, I have been young, and now I'm old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken.
Nor is seed begging bread.
And he's speaking, this is a voice of experience.
David is not saying that the righteous never go through hardship.
He says God never abandons them.
That's what it is.
So they can sink when they have got cancer.
The world can be all around them, collapsing.
The government might be saying this.
They might be thrown into prison.
And this is what I've said.
You know, we do need to resist tyranny.
We do need to do that.
But we do need to also understand the consequences.
Am I willing to pay the consequences?
If I am willing to pay the consequences in the name of God, God will provide for me.
I can still rejoice.
I can I can sing in the presence of my enemies.
And I can I can still be bold and declare the truth in front of police officer, you know, who rang us one time, and he was reprimanding me about things.
And I said to him, excuse me, sir, you sound more like the Iranian uh police who want to shut down churches.
And I said, I came to this country not realizing actually the police would be reprimanding Christian ministers for the preaching of the gospel.
Um this is still a Christian nation, you're supposed to supposedly, and he didn't know what to say.
And um, and I said, you know, English men died in the second world war, in the first world war in its history uh to to keep our freedoms, and and yet you're saying uh that we we only have to say certain things in our own church.
Don't come out and say anything about Allah or about uh other things.
Uh no, I I said no, you you cannot you cannot keep our mouth shut.
Um but I as I am saying this, I have to ask, I have to recognize the consequence of what I am saying.
Uh, that I may have to suffer for it, and that's fine.
Um, as long as I've got my uh Hebrew uh grammar and dictionary, I can carry on with my translation work.
I'll be I'll be quite happy to do that.
Um but uh my wife says I'm very uh selfish for talking like this, you know, to go into prison so that I can finish my old testament translation.
But um but we just need to know the consequence, but God preserves there's a lasting inheritance as well, you know.
What uh the church of Jesus Christ will never die because as long as Jesus Christ is alive, his body will continue, and that's what uh it says in verse 26.
Um lendeth his and his seed, it says, is blessed.
Um it's talking about the seed of the of the Christian, the the offsprings of the Christian.
Um in verse 29, it says the righteous shall inherit the uh the land and dwell therein forever.
So there's a generational blessing.
Um the life of a righteous man affects his children, affects society.
Um blessed, um, and it's not because of wealth, but it's because of who he has become in God, through God.
Uh so he's talking about long-term thinking as well.
Um the wicked are building their own empires that crumble.
Just just think about all these big empires, they become so proud, and um and they ultimately they they crumble.
Um they're not there anymore.
Where is the Persian Empire?
Where's the Roman Empire?
But there was a man called Jonathan Edwards, uh, I don't know if you know of him, he was a man who was the head of Yale University in the 1700s, he was one of the greatest American theologians.
But uh and and he was used in the Great Awakening that took place, I believe, in Massachusetts, and um he he preached a sermon, it is called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
He preached on the fear of God, and and he he couldn't read very well, so he held his um uh his uh script in front a sermon in front of his face and with a candle in the other hand, and he was reading this sermon.
While he would read the sermon, people are falling in front of him, hundreds and hundreds of people are turning to Christ, being converted, and it had nothing to do with music because they didn't play any music or his his amazing gift of preaching, but the power of God came down, and again you can read about this, and and newspapers began writing the the town of Massachusetts is changing, it's like 1859 in um Northern Ireland.
Have you read about the 1859 revival?
The newspapers began writing about it because the prisons were empty, the judges had no cases to to judge in in Northern Ireland.
So the judges and the policemen were coming to England to find work in Northern Ireland from Northern Ireland in 1859.
So at the time that Darwin published his origin of a species in 1859, there was this thing happening in Northern Ireland, and and uh people were being converted.
The the uh prisons were emptying, it's unbelievable, but it happened, and uh still there are the news extracts that you can read news uh the um journalists would go into churches and and they themselves were being converted, and um there was a hymn that was sung at the time it was called What's the News?
What's the news?
Because every day people were going around saying, What's the news?
Where has God come down today?
And uh where is God working today?
And this was happening in this country uh in 1859, but that's the and the legacy of it was all over Northern Ireland there was prosperity because there was little crime.
Um there was the judges used to be given a what was called a white glove to say you have no case today, and that was happening every day.
The judges were given a white glove saying there is nothing for you to do, just go home.
It's unbelievable.
How did it end?
Why did it end?
It it it did go on for for a for a while, but it was a powerful work of the Spirit of God that was happening, it was a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God for a season.
It actually happened in in London as well, at the same time in in London.
There was a it seemed to be in certain locations that God powerfully was visiting.
Um there's a church in London called the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
The minister there at that time was called Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
Uh if you've heard of a Spurgeon, he's called the Prince of Preachers, and under his preaching, just that year, no other time, just that year, there was a massive, massive influx of people coming and were being converted from all kinds of walks of life, and um and uh but it seemed to be just a localized blessing by God.
But what was happening, so this wasn't just people being converted, becoming Christians, and then just waiting to go to heaven.
Uh no, uh Northern Ireland became the most productive place in the whole of Britain.
Um why was that?
Uh because these people were no longer drinking and gambling and uh wasting their time.
They were God-fearing people who were they talked about when I was in Northern Ireland, I lived in Northern Ireland for four years, and they would talk about the Protestant work ethic.
Yes.
And that was it.
So when our grass in front of our house was not cut, this lady used to come and say, Your house is not Protestant looking.
Meaning you need to cut your grass.
But that was the attitude that actually there was the Protestants were hard working.
But where did that come from?
It was the ethics coming from the Bible that had affected the people.
And so they were industrious, they were giving.
When there was famine in Scotland, Northern Irish folk were providing help to Scotland and so on.
True Christianity is actually it has legs, it has arms, it has teeth, it actually is very very active, and it's glorious.
I mentioned about Jonathan Edwards with his him reading this sermon.
This is where all of this the rabbit hole we went down of revival.
He was reading this sermon, many were being converted, but he was a man who said we need to pray not just for our own children, but we need to pray for our grandchildren.
We need to pray for their children.
We need to live in such a way that what is going to be my legacy for them.
What am I going to leave behind?
And you know, somebody did a um uh a uh historical sort of investigation into the lives of the children of Jonathan Edwards.
There were so many hundreds of ministers, missionaries, presidents, uh, judges, and uh important people in the United States.
God was answering their prayers, uh his prayers into the future.
Um, and so it says that righteous shall inherit the land and dwell therein forever, and of course, there are gospel truths in all of these things, uh, Christian truths and the marks of the uh if we could maybe uh start winding down, but the marks of the Christian are seen in verses 30 to 34 as well.
Um David there it's um coming to the conclusion of this, and he returns to the theme of the righteous man, and this time he's showing us what a life of a of grace of God looks like in speech, in thought, in conduct.
These are all identifying markers, and not a checklist uh for a person's salvation, but it's a fruit of the work of God's grace.
So it says in verse 30, the mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom.
Um we've got foolish men speaking foolishness in our society today.
Their mouth is not speaking wisdom, uh, they're like children uh who speak in our parliament.
Um they they are pretending that the king has clothes when he is actually naked, um and a child can laugh at these things, uh, but this is the society, so uh the mouth should be affected.
Um wisdom, justice, truth should be spoken.
Uh uh the Lord Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
So again, if I could just turn to something historic, Kidderminster, not far from Gloucester, there's a Puritan pastor called Richard Baxter.
Again, uh it there's a statue of him in the center of Kidaminster.
He was a really godly man, and uh uh he he was said to preach as a dying man to dying men, and uh before his death, it says that the whole of town of Kidminster was converted to Christ, and that it was one of the most successful, productive uh towns of the time, uh, full of life, not misery, not grumbling.
Um The same could be said of there was a man called Richard Hobson of Liverpool.
Again, the area in which he he was a godly um Anglican minister, and through the preaching of the gospel, he said this area where there was full of um uh prostitution and all sorts of evil that was going on, the whole area of Liverpool was was changed, transformed.
That's what the gospel does.
It just doesn't prepare people for heaven.
But for now.
Um so anyhow, I think uh just uh on your point about Kidderminster.
I think that the forces of darkness sometimes take revenge.
And poor old Kidderminster, have you ever been to Kiddemster?
Yes, I know.
I mean it's completely been destroyed by the ring road.
It's that the the church has been separated from the from the rest of the town by this horrible it's really unattractive, and I wonder whether town planning was Satan's revenge.
I'm serious.
The devil doesn't like it when when people are good Christians.
Before anything goes wrong again, let's bring this but I've got to do one of the my favorite my favorite lines, um, which is I myself have seen the ungodly in great power and flourishing like a green bay tree.
I went by and lo he was gone.
I sought his place and he could nowhere be found.
I love the idea of this bay tree.
Do you know what why did they choose the bay tree?
Um can you just remind me of the verse?
Um it's uh it's towards the end.
It's it I myself have seen the ungodly in great power and flourish, it's about ten lines from the end, and flourishing like a green bay tree.
Well, yes, that's it.
So um so the uh bay tree there, it's um is um I'm just looking at the Hebrew to see what uh the wording is um there.
It's it is it is basically a word for a luxurious tree, uh a tree that is extremely um green, uh that is that is in it in its own native soil.
So it is not for in foreign soil, it is in native soil, that's what it's the Hebrew is indicating here.
Um so um so yeah, um that's that's the wording.
Um it's it I find it one of the more reassuring lines, and again it reiterates what the psalm says throughout this theme that look at these baddies, they're doing really well, but don't worry, don't fret not thyself.
They're soon gonna be gone.
But tell me, Pian, uh this is a question I often ask.
What's gonna happen to us Christians at the at the end, when it's where where when all the bad stuff's happened.
Do we do we come back to this earth where when when our when we're sort of resurrected?
Do we do we do we live back on earth or it is uh uh the the way the scripture puts it is that the heaven and the earth will come together, but this earth will be a renewed earth.
Uh it's uh in the book of Revelation it says wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Um it the the elements will burn with fervent heat.
That's the major global warming that God will bring about.
Um but it says the elements will burn with fervent heat, but he renews all things.
So um the the uh so heaven and earth will combine um that men will walk with with God.
And there'll be no sea.
No.
C is a picture of division.
C is a picture of division, it's by sea, men are divided.
So um in uh so it's basically saying that uh the God's people will be together.
There'll be nothing to divide us.
That's the that's the picture there.
So we'll still be able to go swimming and stuff.
Yeah, I I think so.
That's good.
I think so.
Yeah.
Um and I love the idea that when this happens, every single wind turbine will be destroyed and obliterated.
There will be nothing, there'll be no evidence that these monstrosities ever existed.
That's right.
That's right.
No, well it is um it it will be it will be far, far greater.
Uh the uh the glory of the future, it will be far far greater than than Eden.
Um there is there is no other fall.
In Eden, man fell.
But in heaven there is no fall.
Uh there is no pain, there is no death.
And so there is nothing that corrupts.
So the picture of the wind turbines, it's a picture of corruption.
Man's corrupting the earth.
There's nothing that will corrupt heaven.
Um But this it's gonna be great when it happens, but as the Psalm tells us, we've got we've got to be patient, right?
Patient, work, fight, um seek to speak the truth, uh uh be willing to lay down your life, be willing to fight a good fight of faith.
And this is the greatest of fights.
The Christian's fight is better than any fight, because actually we are not fighting a losing battle.
Uh we may uh so there are people who have lost their lives in battles and wars, but they still have won.
The the nation has still won.
Uh so uh and what happens to to us when we suffer, we we taste something that the Lord Jesus Christ experienced as well.
We we enter into his experiences and we can appreciate something of what he went through.
So the Christian's life is a glorious life.
It's it's exciting.
It's um you you so you you were going to say something.
I was well, I wasn't I wasn't complaining that the Christian life wasn't exciting enough.
I I I think that those who characterize Christians as being boring are just basically doing the devil's work, but they're not being accurate, are they?
No, no.
Um so when when uh you just going back to the bay tree, that the green bay tree, it's really uh I've just written down some notes, I couldn't find it earlier on.
But it's it's a picture of prosperity.
That's why literally it it has the meaning of lush, luxurious, um uh v very fruitful tree.
It's flourishing, it is tall, it's strong, it's it draws admiration.
But uh the wicked may seem invincible.
He dominates, he expands, he intimidates.
Um David saw it in his own lifetime.
There was Doeg, the Edomite, there was Saul, there was Hithophel, there was Absalom.
Men who rose quickly, but then they fell suddenly.
Uh and that's happened again and again.
You know, during the French Revolution, atheist men seized power, they mocked the Bible, they they said uh God is dead, uh but they flourished like green tree.
But within a few years, blood, chaos, collapse, all of those things they were gone.
The revolution devoured its own.
It's like the communist.
Uh you know, Karl Marx and uh Lenin and so on.
They devour their own.
Uh their names are become a byword.
Uh they're not seen as good men.
Uh but the the righteous outlive them.
Uh you know, it's still this year is the year of William Tyndale's Bible, the five hundred year anniversary of Tyndale's Bible.
And you know, who would have who would remember us in five hundred years?
But Tyndale did a great thing for the uh for the English speaking world, and we still know him.
We he he did a mighty thing for this country and for for the glory of God, and his name is still outlast.
Those people who who uh killed him.
Uh so yes, the wicked often may flour flourish, but it's um the flourish of leaves, not fruit.
It's all for show.
That's what it is.
So and verse 36 it says, yet he passed away, and lo he was not.
Yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.
It's uh so it's gone.
Uh they will be erased.
Uh not just dead, they'll be erased.
No legacy uh worth remembering.
Their memory stinks.
Um so Can I just just say uh a brief word in favor of bay trees though?
I mean, it's not fair to just blame them as just being a leaf, because they're actually they're quite useful for making stocks and things.
I like a baby.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But didn't want you to give being a fair on the bay tree.
No, I was looking at the Hebrew um text.
Um, but but it says, mark the perfect man in verse 37, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.
So and uh it says it's the perfect man.
It doesn't mean he's sinless, that he doesn't make mistakes, but it means he's wholehearted.
That's the wording in the Hebrew.
It means he's sincere, he's upright.
Um he's walking with God, he's walking with power, and it says, Mark Him, watch his life, track it.
Observe Him in his youth, in his middle age, in his old age, at his death.
You look at him, his life is not chaotic, uh his death isn't um terrifying, his end is peace, it says.
And I mentioned to you about the dying saints, um, dying Christians, they are dying as victorious.
Um one old believer said to me, I'm not afraid to die, because I'm I'm going to the one I have known and loved all my life.
I'm going home.
I'm not going somewhere I don't know.
I've been I've been looking forward to it.
Um and can we all say that with all honesty?
And uh uh verse 38 it says, but the transgressors shall be destroyed together, it says the end of the witch shall be cut off.
So that's final, there's no escape from it.
People can't run away.
And and on that day when Jesus comes, the scripture says, men will run to the mountains, and they say fall on us.
They would rather be killed by a rock falling on them than having to face Jesus Christ.
And there's no appeal, there's no second chances cut off, it says.
Um God is very patient, of course, but he's not indefinitely patient.
The axe is laid to the root of the tree, John the Baptist said, for Israelites.
Uh the judgment may be delayed, but it's not cancelled.
So it is there was Felix, wasn't he?
That's a good illustration.
In the book of Acts, there were two wicked rulers who hated the gospel, but they heard the gospel.
There was Felix who trembled, and Agrippa was it says was almost persuaded.
And both of them rejected Christ ultimately.
Both of them rejected truth, and both of them were cut off.
And history doesn't remember them as kings, but as fools.
So and then verses 39 and 40, it's it speaks about the final assurance of the Christian.
Um, and so it's ending, it's coming to an end.
The conclusion is, but the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord.
He says, I can't save myself, I can't make myself to be a Christian, but it is God who saves me, keeps me, and ultimately saves me.
He is their strength in time of trouble, and the Lord shall help them, deliver them, he shall deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in him.
So that's again not poetry, it's promise, it's a prophetic declaration.
It's it's a wonderful call that we could say it's a gospel call.
Um the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord.
Um that's amazing.
Uh no no power, no government is going to save us.
Um it's just so full of country.
That's right.
And um so but and the only nation that will be exalted uh right is righteousness, righteousness exalts a nation.
Uh that's what the Bible says.
Um so you know, the key stormers of this world, they will not be remembered.
So those who are bowing their knee to to our parliament today, and they don't hold them uh uh you know answerable to God and to the word of God, um the parliament will will perish one day, it will collapse.
They're so proud and arrogant, like the empires of the old, and they'll they'll proud uh and they'll perish.
So uh so it destroys this this thising, all self-righteousness, all all man-made stuff.
um yeah, it's it's really saying what Jonah said.
Jonah he confessed in the belly of the fish in Jonah chapter two and verse nine.
He says, Salvation is of the Lord.
Um so and that that's the psalmist ends.
He says, He will help you, he will deliver you.
The Lord shall help them and deliver them.
Verse 40, this the last verse now.
He shall deliver them, uh, he says from the wicked and save them because they trust in him.
Uh it's so it ends on a high note.
Your help comes from God, your deliverance, God will pull out his people out of danger.
Um, and it's just because they trust in him.
Not because they earned it, not because they were flawless, but because that it's not our trust that saves us, is in whom the object of our trust.
Uh that's that's the thing that saves us.
So it is when I take a spoonful of I don't know, uh some wonderful meal, it's not the spoon that saves me.
It's what I put in my mouth uh that is I find delicious, it's not the spoon.
Um and that's why you know it is Jehovah, it is God, it is Jesus Christ, um who is our savior, he's and uh so the Christian can apply these things to themselves, but um uh I I'm I hope that these these thoughts will make us to realize actually the righteous man ultimately is Jesus Christ.
He was forsaken that we we might never be forsaken, he was condemned that we might be delivered.
These are the applications of I think this song, but with New Testament eyes.
He died that we might live, uh he he rose that we might be saved forever, like that dying thief on the cross, he could turn to the Lord Jesus with praith and say, Lord, remember me, and today uh the Lord said, Today shall thou be with with me in paradise.
So uh it's it's wonderful, I think this and if if people get a little appetite of studying it and memorizing it, that would do them good, not just um for now, but into their life, uh into the future.
Um there is a better day coming.
The the the media will say, the establishment would say, No, you need to be in the state of fear all the time.
The psalmist here says fret not.
The establishment says there's worse days coming, and we are causing it.
And God is saying, No, it's actually the wicked are causing it, and they'll be gone.
Uh so don't be part of the wicked world.
Don't be part of the ones who are actually um putting more fuel on the fire.
Uh don't be amongst them, but uh we need humility to turn to the word of God and turn to Christ.
Well, I'll I'll leave it there.
Thank you.
You've been an absolute joy of a guest, and I'm so I know it was it's really sweet that you told me before we set this thing up.
You said that you were familiar with my podcast, and and you thought yeah, um you you you're quite a fan, you quite liked it.
Um but you but you didn't sort of dare put well, you didn't think of putting yourself forward because you're too you're too modest and and humble and stuff.
But you were quite pleased when I when I contacted you, because surely surely it must have been it must have been God is what made it happen.
I was surprised, yes.
My my wife said to me, You can't believe who just rank.
And uh funny.
She said I I could I knew his voice, and uh when he said it was James Stelling Paul, I um uh he she she knew you and um because we both have listened, and uh so I I was quite surprised.
But no, it's so glad.
You you were absolutely fantastic.
People are gonna be dying to know.
Oh, by the way, thank you for coming from the land of Cyrus the Great to preach the word.
I I think Cyrus was quite a was quite a goodie in a way, wasn't he?
He was.
He's actually referred to as the savior.
He's referred to in the Bible as the Saviour, and he's a picture of Christ as well.
But yeah, he what he was he did good.
Yeah, God used him mightily.
So um people are gonna be dying to know that they're gonna come and want to want to want to see you and uh and hear you hear you preach.
So where can they find you?
So our our church is in Cheltenham.
It is called Providence Baptist Chapel.
And um people can look us up online, it's simply Cheltenham.church is the website.
Uh but Providence Baptist Chapel, if you put my name in uh in a search engine, uh there isn't many Puyan Mer Shahis out there, um so they can find me in that way.
But um Yeah.
Well, thank you for being fantastic, and thank you to the um I can't remember what which one of your congregation it was that that recommended you, but thank you to him.
What's his name?
Uh well it's actually uh her Jamie O'Connor.
Jamie O'Connor.
Jamie, thank you.
You were right.
Uh he was brilliant, and and and I I hope to be able to pop down someday and and hear you as well and meet you because you've been great.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you, James.
Thank you.
Um yeah, that's it.
Until next time.
I I hope the gap won't be so so long before the next, but thank you for.
I'll be glad.
Uh and uh yeah, thank you so much for uh being willing to do this and um and I hope that the glitch that we had um you'll be able to do.
Yeah, you can bring it together.
We'll smooth it out, and people and anyway, people are used to to slightly slightly disasters happening in my podcast.
It's probably it's it's on brand.
Okay.
If you have any problem if the um if you do have problem with the video thing, I'm I'm happy to fix it.
