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  A REVIVAL OF POVERTY
  by Derek Melton
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the need for revival through a revival
of poverty in spirit, highlighting the importance of recognizing our
spiritual poverty, brokenness, and contrition before God. It calls for a
return to sound biblical doctrine that exposes the wickedness of the
human heart and the holiness of God, challenging the modern church's
focus on self-reliance and lack of spiritual prayer. The speaker urges a
revival of humility, contrition, and dependence on God, emphasizing the
necessity of being poor in spirit to experience true revival.

Duration: 53:24

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the need for revival through a revival of poverty
in spirit, highlighting the importance of recognizing our spiritual
poverty, brokenness, and contrition before God. It calls for a return to
sound biblical doctrine that exposes the wickedness of the human heart
and the holiness of God, challenging the modern church's focus on self-
reliance and lack of spiritual prayer. The speaker urges a revival of
humility, contrition, and dependence on God, emphasizing the necessity
of being poor in spirit to experience true revival.

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CONTENT
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Well, let's get our Bibles out and turn with me to the fifth chapter of
Matthew. I'm going to talk tonight about a, about revival. If you put a
title on this sermon, it would be called a revival of poverty.

Matthew chapter five, verse three, this is what the word of God says,
blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Let's pray. Lord, open up the windows of heaven and pour out your spirit
on your sons and daughters.

Lord, let the living word transform our hearts. Father, I pray that the
very grace of a broken and a contrite spirit might seize upon us. Lord,
that you might revive us.

Father, give us teachable hearts and give me the apt to teach, the
ability to instruct. Father, that it would not be me, but Christ in me,
that I'd be hidden, that Christ would be exalted. Father, give us an ear
to what your spirit is saying to the church in this hour.

Lord, not just for this meeting tonight, but Lord, what your spirit is
saying to the church. Father, take these hearts of ours, transform them
that we might be like Christ. Father, take this tongue of mine and use
it in this hour to inscribe truth upon those that hear tonight, whether
in this place, by their physical presence, those that are tuning in live
on the internet, and those that will subsequently hear an archived
sermon.

Lord, speak to us in Jesus' name, amen. Well, when you begin to speak
about revival, you spark certain things. You start talking about true
revival.

And one of those things is curiosity, and the second is controversy.
When I talk about curiosity, I'm talking about a crowd of religious
drifters that seem to live their lives chasing after some type of a
phenomenon. And you've seen them, I've seen them.

It's usually marked by some sense of a hyperactive emotionalism. It has
a quasi-religious tone to it. And these curious people, their idealisms
regarding revival, their ideas are based upon their inordinate desires
that are within them that govern their hearts.

And consequently, their curiosity revival is bent towards the appeasing
of their own inordinate desires and malady-ridden appetite. And I know
that there is a possibility that there are those curious types here
tonight. There's a possibility that there are those curious types that
are tuning in live, webcast, and there will be those that are curious
that pull up archived sermons in the days, weeks, and years to come.

And if it's, if that's you, I pray that the Word of the living God, and
by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the generosity of God's grace, will
seize your heart and break that curiosity and bring you to Christ
himself. Also, I mentioned that the topic of revival, that there's
always controversy. In fact, revival oftentimes a catalyst of
controversy.

And those who are knowledgeable of revival history will concur with me
that there are controversies that have spawned from true revival
movements. And not only were the messages controversial, but the men
that were led of God were controversial. In fact, the whole movement in
itself could have been deemed as controversial.

But I'm not here tonight to give a historical sketch. I'm here tonight
to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to us, that we as God's people
might be raised up and revived to go forth in the power of his might and
in his name. There are a lot of different definitions about revival.

Most of them are accurate and good, in fact, better than what I can do.
But I gave a simple definition of revival, and it is as follows. Revival
is solely an act of God's sovereign goodness, whereby he awakens certain
truths and certain peoples from unresponsive slumber.

And again, I want to reiterate, that's just my feeble interpretation of
revival. I'm conscious of the fact that there are probably more ornate
definitions by men that are greater than I am. Beloved people of God,
across the horizon of modern Christianity, especially here in the
Western Hemisphere, there's a paramount biblical truth that's been
altogether forgotten, or otherwise it's outside of the sphere of
cognizant reality with us.

This is the paramount biblical truth that God revives those who are poor
in spirit, the spiritually impoverished. We've heard throughout this
conference, this is a theme that's been kind of interwoven throughout
the concourse of the speakers. And Brother Yohanan was speaking this to
us last night at the prayer meeting.

And again this morning, spiritual poverty, brokenness, nothingness, in
our own estimation, is imperative to revival. It's imperative. And it's
altogether fallen asleep in Western Christendom.

But it's the axis of all spiritual life. Beloved, I don't believe that
in our modern Christianity and Western Hemisphere Christianity that
we're correlating our lack of spiritual life and our lack of spiritual
power to our lack of spiritual poverty. What does this mean, poverty of
spirit? How do you define it? I was reading through some notes by Dr. D.
Martin Lloyd-Jones, and he defined being poor in spirit as this.

He says, being poor in spirit means a complete absence of pride, a
complete absence of self-assurance, an absence of self-reliance. It
means a consciousness that we are nothing in the presence of God. It's
nothing then that we can produce.

It's nothing that we can do in ourselves. It's just this tremendous
awareness of our utter nothingness as we come face to face with God to
be impoverished spiritually. Beloved, being poor in spirit is how I
truly feel about myself.

It's about how I perceive myself to be. The Bible says in Isaiah chapter
57, verse 15, this. For thus sayeth the high and the lofty one that
inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy.

I dwell in a high and a holy place with him also that is of a contrite
and a humble spirit. To revive the spirit of the humble and to revive
the heart of the contrite ones. Beloved, this is revival.

There's no other way. And this is why we're not experiencing revival in
America. You want to know why revival, Terry, is in America? It's
because we are filled with self-assurance, self-reliance, self-
sufficiency, and God is nowhere to be found.

We're the broken men of God that preach with a broken heart, with no
assurance and no reliance other than upon the King of all kings. I'm
convinced that powerless and lifeless religions, systems that are in
America and in Western Christianity and European Christianity, has
failed altogether to link their lack of power and their spiritual
virility to their estimation or their evaluation of their hearts before
God. Modern churchianity, beloved, has failed to rightfully discern
their own hearts.

And the barrenness and the infertility are simply evidences of a
horrific intrinsic breakdown. And only a revival of poverty will rescue
this untoward generation of churchgoers. An indicting evidence, beloved,
that the modern church has failed to discern her spiritual lack in
poverty is her lack of true spiritual prayer.

And by this, I am not speaking of the spasmodic and whimsical begging of
God for more resources to make our sloppy lives more convenient and
pleasurable. But I am speaking of that awareness of our insufficiency,
that awareness of our inability and our absolute dependence upon Him,
and broken contrition before Him, reverently approaching the throne of
His grace for the supply of our very lack and our deficiencies. People
of God, modern and contemporary Christianity, the contemporary church's
lack of prayer is an indictment against her, revealing that the
sufficiency to promote her cause is solely within herself, within her
futile knowledge, and within her own innate strength.

She relies upon her own ornate beauty, her own relevant programs, her
popular entertainment, her flamboyant personality, to sustain her
heavenly calling until God opens up her eyes to see this system that is
bankrupt, a system of debauchery, to its true state before God as the
inordinate system of flesh that it is, there will be no revival. There
will be no revival. True spiritual prayer has always been a God-ordained
means whereby God revives the lowly, because true spiritual prayer is
the vocal and the non-vocal expression of our impoverished and our weak
condition before a holy God.

It's the carrying of our weakness before the throne of God's strength.
It's the carrying of our lack before the throne of God's provision. It's
the carrying of our sinfully barren hearts before the throne of God's
omnipotence and holiness.

True spiritual prayer, beloved, is an evidence of the contrite. It's an
evidence of the poor in spirit. And where is this kind of prayer found
today in the contemporary church? Where is it found today? Where is this
kind of prayer found today in our mass-marketed Christendom? Beloved,
where are the Rachels that in their barrenness cry out, give me children
or else I die? Where are the Hannahs that can't even utter a word, but
weeping in brokenness for the barrenness and infertility, crying out to
God, O God, if you'll give me a child, I'll set this child apart for
your glory.

He will be yours. Where is this in Christianity today? This type of true
spiritual prayer where we're broken before God, crying out, beloved, not
in the corporate prayer meeting alone, but in the closet before God, in
the night hours, in the night watches. The psalmist emanated this
impoverished heart in Psalm 80, verse 14 to 19.

Listen to the Holy Ghost-inspired word. Return, we beseech thee, O God
of hosts. Look down from heaven and behold this vine and visit it.

The vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, the branch that thou
hast made strong for thyself. It is burned with fire and it is cut down.
They perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.

Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom
thou hast made strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee?
Quicken us, quicken us, revive us. And we will call upon thy name.

Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts. Cause thy face to shine and we shall
be saved. Samuel Chadwick said that prayer is the acid test of devotion.

It might also rightfully be said that true spiritual prayer is the acid
test of the impoverished heart, the poor in spirit. True spiritual
prayer. And the lack thereof, beloved, is the evidence that we are
content to depend upon our own strength and upon our own wisdom and upon
our own personality and upon our own innate determination.

And it's an abomination before God. An abomination. There's a very
familiar text.

All of you are quite familiar with it. The Lord was handing out an
indictment against one of the seven churches of Asia. It's found in
Revelation.

It shoots a laser beam of accuracy at the diagnoses of the fatal wound
of today's contemporary church. In Revelation chapter 3, verse 14 to 19.
And unto the angel of the church of Laodicea write, These things saith
the amen, the faithful, the true witness, the beginning of the creation.

From the beginning of creation, I know your works, that thou art neither
cold nor hot. I would that thou were cold or hot, but because you're
lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I'll spew thee out of thy mouth. But
listen to this, that because thou sayest, I am rich, I am increased with
goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched,
miserable, poor, blind and naked.

The church of America has never been more financially endowed than it is
today, but it's never been more spiritually bankrupt. It's just like the
woman with the issue of blood, spending all that we have and we're
getting worse. We're spending all that we have and we are getting worse.

We build multi-million dollar megaplexes and fill them up with goats.
The church has never been larger in physical stature, but never been
smaller in spiritual stature. The church has never had more sending
ability or resources than it has today, but fewer sent.

The church has never had more of a robust image in the eyes of men, but
it's never had more of a marred image in the eyes of God in his eyes of
perfection and raw holiness. And what's the cause? We're no longer
insignificant in our own eyes, no longer foolish in our own eyes. We're
no longer weak in our own eyes.

We're no longer poor in our own eyes. And we've thought more highly of
ourselves than we ought to have thought. And the apostle Paul in the
12th chapter of Romans said, for I say to the grace given unto me and to
every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he
ought to think, but to think soberly.

Accordingly, as God has given unto every man, the measure of faith. This
is the holiest man at the time that walked on earth. It says, don't
think more highly of yourself than you ought.

And the consequences of this very malady are numerous. The most grievous
is this. We quite possibly in America have been given over to our own
innate desires.

And the modern church with all of its human force is altogether empty of
divine power. And it's altogether empty of supernatural experience.
Lord, open up our eyes.

Open up our eyes. Lord, revive a sense of reality in our hearts. The
reality of our nakedness, the reality of our grievous shame, anoint our
eyes with the eyes of humble estimations within our own hearts, whereby
we acknowledge that apart from you dwell no good thing.

The apostle Paul in the seventh chapter of Romans gave that very
indictment for I know. Again, this is the holiest man walking the ground
at this time. He says, for I know.

He says, that is in my flesh. There dwelleth no good thing. The next
evidence that's raising up to testify against our generation of
contemporary churchgoers is the lack of pure biblical doctrine that
would expose the feebleness of our frame.

I know that we don't like to hear that word doctrine. The beloved of the
church is suffocating for the lack of it. Suffocating, and I'm not
giving any inference that we don't need the Holy Spirit.

We need the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit breathes upon pure biblical
doctrine. The old Puritan fathers would give such prolific exhortations
upon biblical themes that unravel us at the very core, expose our
weakness, expose our folly, expose our sinfulness, and leave us crying
out, woe is me for I am undone. That is the curse upon our generation.

No one is undone. Pure biblical doctrine, beloved, will always give an
accurate diagnosis of the human heart, and that diagnosis is gravely
grim. And in our world of positive glee club thinking and mood, the
realities of our desperate inward corruption are not only ignored from
the pulpits in America, they are radically denounced.

As a young man, my pastor told me to quit reading the Puritans. You'll
never be able to be happy and read the Puritans. They only have that old
negative mood, that old depressive air about them.

God forbid, and God challenged my heart when I was truly and soundly
converted to Jesus Christ in a near Damascus road experience that I was
to read the Puritans and to learn about the wickedness of my heart and
the holiness of God and the doctrines of grace and the doctrines of
justification. I bless the Lord Jesus Christ for that unspeakable gift
that he's given. I'm thankful.

And the contemporary pulpit is radically denouncing to a generation of
churchgoers that they're natively evil at heart. And the true doctrines
of Jesus Christ, the true doctrines of the gospel reveal how grossly
sinful and wicked that we are. But in our positive glee club world,
nobody wants to hear about it.

No one wants to go through the divine reduction process in the local
church because we're cowards and we're lovers of money more than we're
lovers of God. And we don't want the crowd to shrink because the money
will shrink and we won't be able to crank the wheel and to make the mega
money like we're used to. We won't be able to keep up the jet airplanes
and the facials and the surgery on our faces.

God forbid. Why do we come to church? Why do we come to? When those
standing behind pulpits are flying in in million dollar aircrafts and we
hear about millions of people that have never heard the gospel. Beloved,
I maintain and will vainly do so.

Revival does begin in the pulpit, but also so does judgment. Beloved,
vast multitudes of pulpiteers have wrongfully discerned the conditions
and the spiritual heartbeat of their flock. Jeremiah lamented this.

And if Jeremiah lamented it in his day, how much more should we be
lamenting this in the year of our Lord, 2010? Listen to Jeremiah 8
verses 10 through 13. Yes, even my prophets and priests are like that.
They offer superficial treatments for my people's mortal wound.

They give assurances of peace when all's war. Are they ashamed when they
do these disgusting things? No, not at all. They don't even blush.

Therefore, they will lie among the slaughtered. They will be humbled
when they are punished, says the Lord. They offer superficial treatments
for the mortal wound of God's people.

I have a dear brother, and he will probably listen to this, but he had
people in his church got angry and quit the church because he quit
serving donuts. Today's modern church looks more like Starbucks than it
does the house of the living God. No reverence at all.

Sloppily coming in, sloppily singing a few songs that are absolutely
unbiblical with no biblical foundation nor merit. It does not glorify
God in his holiness. These songs glorify man in his wickedness, making
this earth, this temporal plight, our eternal home.

Come on, sipping on cappuccino while we listen to some motivational
speech on a PowerPoint presentation with three slides and a hiccup
because it's relevant. You need to come here because the football team
is here and we're serving hot dogs after the service. It's un-Christian.

It's un-Christian. And I know that there will be those that get angry
with me and probably write me nasty letters, but it's un-Christian.
We're the people of God that tremble before his words, whose heart long
after the doctrines of Christ.

The truth, we say we love Jesus, we don't desire the doctrines of Jesus.
We're double-minded, we're unstable. The church has never been in, but
I'm talking about Western Americana, party time, Oprah-anity that's
calling itself a church has never been at a more despicable and
grotesque level as an abomination that it is, that it is in this hour.

Beloved, what about bringing back the old doctrines of sin, the
doctrines of man's depravity, what about the justice of God, the
holiness of God? Beloved, I'm telling you, they've been cast into the
vaults of old time doctrines of negativity. They've become locked and
they have been sealed by glossy-coated men that cannot see the shame of
their people or their flocks or their own shame. And they're not men of
God, they're professional men.

They're professional men of this temporary world that are making a
merchandise of God's people. They're building a wall and they're daubing
it with untempered mortar, according to Ezekiel. This infers that
they're building something, but they're putting it together by frivolous
means.

Is this not indicative of today's religious mood? Is this not indicative
of today's religious mood? And it's heartbreaking. The hands of worldly
wise men are building empires upon which their name sets as emperor. The
whole content of their ministry is given to feed the illicit appetites
of religiously intoxicated purveyors.

They've laid foundations upon which they have built walls that are
frivolous, frivolous with untempered mortar. The entirety of their
kingdom is built and manufactured by the power of personality, wit,
human engineering. And it's bent upon success and success that's defined
by money.

It's defined by architecture and earthly preeminence and by church
growth. Beloved, the most foul devil to hit the Western Hemisphere has a
name, and it's called emergent. For the absolutes, the objective truths
of the word of God have been cast into the vaults of yesterday's
theology.

We all sit around in groups, drink a cup of java, smoke a cigarette or a
joint, whichever you please, and talk about quasi-religious things and
justify it in the name of relevance. Where is the true gospel of Jesus
Christ that is confronting wicked hearts, that's commanding all men
everywhere to repent and to believe the gospel? No, we have untempered
mortar, and we're hearing peace, peace, all is peace. But beloved, all
of it is frivolous, it's frivolous.

But listen, beloved, upon these hirelings will befall a recompense of
strict judgment and greater condemnation. Beloved churches that are
preaching the truth in America look like that. A small assembly of
Christ's precious sheep that are losing their lives for Christ, that are
shouldering a cross.

They're not popular. You're not famous, nor are you ever going to be.
Thank you, Jesus.

But beloved, you're a child of God because you love truth, and you love
Christ. You're inseparable. You love the people of God.

And as your body and as your mind are shrieking with the torments of
cross bearing, your heart is rejoicing alongside the brethren as you
look one into another going forward, losing your life for the glory of
God. The true church, beloved, is still a Gideon's army undergoing
divine reduction. Men are being chased away from their pulpits.

Meeting in open fields, meeting in homes. The structured church will
have nothing to do with repentance. They don't want to hear the old time
doctrines of negativity.

They don't want to hear about their depravity. They don't need to hear
about being justified from the wrath of God. And men of God are being
chased into the streets.

The righteous are still being persecuted. The child of the flesh is
still persecuting the child of the spirit. And it will be so until the
return of Christ.

It will be so. And beloved, I would not be staggered, nor would I be
shocked if some in you, some of you in this very room. If you do not
lose your lives in the United States of America for the gospel of Jesus
Christ, because of your bold witness and stance.

I was reading. I missed a brother's meeting where we go, forgive me. I
felt a burning need to go get alone with God and pray alone.

I felt a burning need to go and look again at a great little sheet of
paper written quite some time ago by a man by the name of Charles
Stinney, whether you like him or not, doesn't faze me. But he preached
upon how to preach so as to convert nobody. And he said this, avoid
preaching doctrines that are offensive to the carnal mind lest they
should say of you as they did Christ.

This is a hard saying who can hear it and that you're injuring your
influence. God has ordained means unto ends, has he not? And the
preaching of true biblical doctrine is purposed of God to reveal to our
hearts that we're nothing. And until your heart is laid bare, until you
flatline in the presence of God, there will be no revival.

As revival is in the strict and pure sense of the word, there are places
that you can go that claim to be revival. You can jump up and down, you
can scream, you can cut yourself with knives and run to the front and
fall to the floor as the hot shot in the suit puts his hand on you and
you can kick around like a dying mule, but it will not be revival. It'll
not be revival.

God revives the lowly. The lowly Christ is calling us into himself. This
is the Christ that's been crucified.

And in the eyes of this wretched world that we live in, Jesus Christ is
still distasteful. They hated him and they're gonna hate you and they're
gonna hate me. The beloved God has given us a holy command to go and to
preach the gospel.

Beloved, that's preach, to preach pure, unadulterated biblical doctrine.
And they'll hate you because it exposes man for what man is. Jeremiah
14, verses 14 and 15.

Let me read this to you. And the Lord said to me, the prophets, they
prophesy lies in my name and I sent them not. Neither have I commanded
thee and neither spake unto them.

They prophesy unto you a false vision and divination and a thing of not
and the deceit of their heart. Therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning
the prophets that prophesy in my name and I sent them not. Yet they say
sword and famine shall not be in the land.

By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. And I realize the
indicting and confrontational nature of the prophets. The beloved in a
land that's filled with a tremendous hierarchy of estimation about
itself.

We need to be brought low. We need to be brought low. And God has given
to the church great means through doctrinal truth to revive and to
arouse a godly sense of spiritual poverty and then subsequent spiritual
power.

Spiritual power. Let me give you just a couple examples from the New
Testament Acts chapter two. Hallelujah.

So we'll give you a little bit of background here. Just this shortly on
the day of Pentecost. We see the apostle Peter was addressing the Jews,
giving a powerful dissertation upon the great doctrine of their
depravity.

And in chapter two, verse 22, he says, you men of Israel, hear these
words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles
and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as you
yourselves also know him being delivered by the determinant counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by what kind of hands? Wicked
hands. Crucified both Lord and Christ.

You've crucified and slain him. Drop on down to verse 36. Therefore, let
all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that some
Jesus, that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ, the
same Jesus whom ye have crucified.

He has made him both Lord and Christ beloved. Listen, the unspeakable
power of anointed doctrinal truth. But beloved, where is it today in the
American church? We see the apostle expounding here upon the wickedness
of their hearts by wicked hands.

You have crucified and slain him. And then he drives it home personally,
making it to them to where they own it. You have done it.

And we know the familiar outcome. Those same men were pricked in their
hearts. What does this mean? They were brought low.

They were brought into a godly contrition. Unfamiliar word today needs
to come back. Contrition, a contrite, lowly estimation of our hearts and
our lives.

What did he do? He brought an indictment against them. The doctrine
revealing their wickedness innately in their hearts, evil. What about
whenever Paul was on trial before Felix? He used sound biblical doctrine
to address this governor's heart and the evils of his heart.

Even though he was in chains, he didn't retract from it. He didn't
retract from the confrontational nature of it. Listen to his use of
doctrine.

Verse 24 of chapter 24. Listen to this in Acts. And after certain days,
when Felix came with his wife, Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for
Paul, dealing with a religious person.

And he heard him concerning the faith in Christ. And as he reasoned of
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled. Paul
reasoned of righteousness.

Paul reasoned of temperance. Paul reasoned of judgment to come. Has
there ever been a reasoning upon righteousness in the biblical sense and
in the biblical nature of it without a corresponding treatise upon
depravity and wickedness? This is the very same Paul that in Romans
chapter 3, verse 10, he says, as it's written, there's none righteous.

No, not one. And I can see him before Felix and his wife reasoning upon
righteousness and saying that you are not righteous. Your heart is bent
towards wickedness, expounding on the doctrines of Christ fearlessly,
boldly.

But today's preachers are pygmies compared to this man. Slaves to their
people's ears and the tickle tendency of their ears. Slaves to the
wallets of wicked men's pockets.

We will not bring up these truths that are an indictment against their
sinfully wicked hearts that are slaves because we don't want to lose the
resources. Are you in the same America that I'm in? Because I know this
is true in your realm as well. My intention here, beloved, is to reveal
to us that we have forsaken the old paths we're in as the good and the
right way.

We have forsaken the old paths we're in as the good and the right way.
And we have forfeited the use of pure biblical doctrine solely because
of the indicting nature of it. We've bent our knees toward the favor of
man.

We've bent our knees towards the recognition of man, the comfort of man,
the pleasing of man. And doctrinal truth doesn't bend its knee to any
man nor will ever become the servant of man or man's wicked desires. But
much on the contrary, much on the contrary, biblical doctrine unveils a
man's blinded heart to his own innate wickedness, showing him to be an
object of God's wrath because of his sinfully wicked and selfish heart.

Biblical doctrine exalts the holiness of God, but it also unveils the
debased condition of all of mankind. The pure and undefiled preaching of
true biblical doctrine is the handing down of a heavenly indictment
against man that flatlines his estimation of himself and it magnifies in
his estimation God and God's holiness. But today we see such folly in
what professes to be the church, such sin both in the pulpit and in the
pew.

Weekly gatherings have become altogether unprofitable whereby the
congregation and both the leadership have been lulled into a toxic sleep
by the prophecy of smooth and deceitful words. The pulpit has morphed
from a heart-rending and sin-indicting doctrinal faucet into an illicit
crew of gibberish that gathers a crowd of carnal reprobates that are
yearning to have their ears appeased with sweet and pleasant lies. And
it's wealthy, financially.

It's wealthy. It's politically powerful that friends, until we submit
ourselves into the means that God's appointed to humble man, namely the
gospel of Jesus Christ, we will continue in our self-asserting,
prideful, hypersensitive, human-powered religious realms that are
absence of the holy presence of God. When preachers said this, the basic
church or the basic task of the church is to teach sound doctrine.

It's not to give one pastor's opinion, to recite tear-jerking
illustrations that play on our emotions, to raise funds, to present
programs and entertainment, or to give weekly devotions. In Titus 2, 1,
Paul writes, but as for you, speak the things which are fitting for
sound doctrine. The old Puritan John Owens said, the foundation of true
holiness and true Christian worship is the doctrine of the gospel.

That's what we are to believe. So when Christian doctrine is neglected,
forsaken, and corrupted, true holiness and worship will also be
neglected, forsaken, and corrupted. I'm going to say something, and I'm
going to repeat it twice.

Please listen. There will be no revival while we are yet reigning from
the throne of our own design. Let me reiterate, there will be no revival
while we are reigning from the throne of our own design.

We must become vehemently aware of our indwelling lack, of our
indwelling deficiency, of our sinfulness, of our falling, of our
wretchedness, and of our condemnation before we can be revived from this
revelation of our deplorableness. My last scripture to you tonight is in
Psalms chapter 34, verse 18. The Lord is nigh unto them that is of the
broken.

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and he saveth
such as be of the contrite spirit. Oh, that the Lord might revive this
truth in our generation. He revives the contrite, those who are poor in
spirit.

And this is as much asleep in our generation as justification by faith
was in pre-reformation years. This great truth, blessed are the poor in
spirit. God revives those that are of a lowly heart, those that are
broken inwardly.

He saves those that are of a contrite spirit. Lord, awaken us in our
present generation to our impoverished condition, that we are wretched,
poor, miserable, blind, and naked. Lord, bring us down that you might
and you alone might revive us and raise us up by the power of thy might.

Do close your eyes. It would delight me to be able to read a hymn by
Faber about our selfish nature. Let's close our eyes and meditate upon
these words.

Oh, that I could go through all of life's troubles singing, turning
earth's night today, if self were not so fast around me clinging to all
that I do or say. My very thoughts are selfish, always building mean
castles in the air. I use my love of others for a gilding to make myself
look fair.

I fancy all the world engrossed with judging my merit or my blame. Its
warmest praise seems ungracious grudging of praise which I might claim.
In youth or age, by city, wood, or mountain, self is never or forgot to
never.

Where we tread, it gushes like a fountain and its waters flow forever.
Alas, no speed in life can snatch us wholly out of self's hateful sight.
It keeps step whenever we travel slowly and then it sleeps with us at
night.

No grief's sharp knife, no pain's most cruel sawing, self and the soul
can sever. The surface that enjoys sometimes seems thawing, it soon
freezes worse than ever. Thus, we are never men, self-wretched,
swathing, not letting virtue swell.

Thus is our whole life numbered, forever bathing within this frozen
well. Oh, miserable omnipresent, stretching over all time and space, how
have I run from thee, yet found thee reaching the goal of every race?
Inevitable self, vile imitation of universal light, within our hearts a
dreadful usurpation of God's exclusive right. The opiate balms of grace
may happily still thee, deep in my nature lying, for I may hardly hope,
alas, to kill thee, save by the act of dying.

Oh, Lord, that I could waste my life for others with no ends of my own,
that I could pour my life into my brothers and live for them alone. Such
was the life that thou livest, self-abjuring, thy own pains never
easing, our burdens bearing, our just doom ending, a life without self-
pleasing. Let us pray.

Father, break us, bring us low in our estimation of ourselves, in our
own hearts. The Lord, don't leave us in the groveling valleys of
darkness. Lord, by your promise, raise us up, revive us, revive our
hearts, revive our churches, revive our children, and revive our nation,
oh God, revive our nation.

Father, I pray that in this late hour that you would raise up more men
of God like my brethren sitting here in this audience, those that are
being rejected, chased away from the formality of their pulpit
experience, chased into the wild, chased into the open air, chased into
the streets, chased into the homes. But my father, I pray that their
mouth will not keep silent until the praise of our God is being
resounded to the streets, oh God. Raise up a generation of men of God
that are strong in the Lord and in the power of your might that will not
back down in the face of confrontation, in the face of a vile, ugly
religious face, in a vile, ugly religious system.

Raise up men of God that will stand true to you and stand firm speaking
the truth in love. Lord, not men that are self-aggressive, the Lord, men
that are Holy Ghost empowered, men of God that are righteous by the
righteousness of Christ and that walk in the straight and the narrow
way, that are aliens, that are pilgrims, that are in a plight here on
earth that have not made this world their home. Men that live
sacrificially, men that crucify their inordinate desires and bring them
to the cross, men that bear a cross, men that preach a cross, men that
love the cross.

Lord, I pray that these simple words that have been spoken will produce
fruit. Lord, I know there are men that are much more noble than I that
could have stood behind this pulpit tonight. But Lord, you have saw fit
to use a man that is foolish to speak a word that needs to go to our
nation.

Lord, bring us low again. Bring us low again. Lord, bless these brethren
and my sisters in Christ with the touch of your almighty hand.

Let their hearts be strangely warmed and use them to burn out for you.
In the name of Christ, I pray.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/l2YGIQahyEA.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/derek-melton/a-revival-of-poverty/
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