I haven't said anything yet. 21 days of fasting and prayer. We will wrap it up this morning, huh? Aren't you glad that we are wrapping up the emphasis on fast? You know, we fasted and prayed for 21 days, 3 weeks. The purpose was not weight loss, but the purpose was to create hunger for God. How did you do that, huh? Now, today's message is not my sermon. About 25, 27 years ago, I saw John Maxwell preach this sermon. As he was preaching this sermon, he said, I saw a young preacher preaching this sermon, and it was so powerful, so I decided I'll preach that sermon myself. When he said that, I'm going, I am going to do the same. Today is that day. Now, as you can see, there are three chairs right here. Each chair has its own names. Now, all of us worshiping together, sitting at our church is sitting in one of these chairs. Well, as a matter of fact, the eight billion people living on this earth is sitting in one of these chairs. It is my desire that throughout this message, you will figure out in which chair you are sitting. In fact, the title of this message is, In Which Chair Are You Sitting? Better yet, by the time I give an invitation towards the end of this sermon, realizing in which chair you are sitting, you will most reverently get up out of your seat and move to the chair where you should sit as a committed Christian. Now, chair number one has its name. The name of the chair is the chair for the committed. This is very comfortable. Wow, wow. Even committed people can sit in the chair comfortably. Now, the scripture reading comes from Judges chapter two, verse seven. See the screen? The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel. Now, the theme of these guys' life was this, the people serve the Lord. Who are these people? These are the first generation Israelites that settled in Canaan, in the promised land. Now, these people saw God do miracles as they were escaping Egypt, and they saw God's miracles as God was guiding them in the wilderness. So they experienced God, they had God's word. Look at Joshua, Joshua was with Moses at Mount Sinai when Moses received God's word. So they experienced God's word, they knew God's word, better yet, they lived God's word. They were wholeheartedly committed to the cause of God. Their prayer has been, have your way in me. Not my will, but your will be done. If we liken these people to Christians, they are not only born-again Christians, but Jesus Christ was not only their Savior, but the Master and the Lord of their everyday living. In 1 Corinthians 2, the Apostle Paul refers to these people, the spiritual man. God does not have favorites, but God has some intimate followers, the spiritual man. This is the second tier, the compromise. Do you feel like you've compromised God? Let's see what it takes to compromise God. Here we find ourselves as Israelites had passed through all of their troubled life, going through the Red Sea, being blessed. Now Joshua and the elders have taken charge, got them through the land as God had promised, promised land. Now it's time. What's next? What they decided to do was to compromise. See, in this generation that my brother was talking about, it's the first generation. Now I'm talking about the second generation. The second generation. It seems to be like it ought to be easier to do when you're a second generation child or a third generation child, your parents have expressed their failures to you and told you about how to succeed and what to do and what to practice in God. It seems like you could get better. I know my desire from my father and my mother was always you gotta do better than us. We want you to do better than us. We taught that to our kids. We mentioned that. But I just want you to know they did not know the Lord. I want to introduce myself as I spoke earlier, but speaking first. My name is Mike, Mike Hill. I'm one of the elders here. I'm married. I'm a businessman. And my wife, I have a wife. Oh, yeah. Got a wife. Oh, yeah. And my wife has a way, she knows me. The Hebrew word, know. has a different connotation. It's not about knowing my name, it's not knowing my job, my position as an elder, it's not, when you're dealing with God, it goes beyond that. But I do wanna mention that I know my wife and my wife knows me. She knows me and I know her. This know, K-N-O-W, and you can make it capitalized if you want to, all cats. It's because she knows me from, we've been married for quite some time. Sometime I get mixed up with my anniversary date, but I know at least we've been married 35 plus years. Amen. And she knows certain things, hot sauce. I like hot sauce and I know that she likes jalapenos and oh boy. So we know each other. We are familiar with each other. The experience that I've had, I share with her. The experience that she has, she shares with me. Have you ever shared your experience that you've had with God to your children? Second generation, third generation. We had a problem here, there was a problem. And that was, they did not know the Lord as the first chair. They drifted away from God. And as they drifted away from God, the parents tried their best to tell them about the miracles, how we came through the Red Sea, and how God gave us victory, put us in the promised land, and all of that. But yet still, that second generation, this chair, did not know the Lord. What's wrong today with people who do not know the Lord? What's wrong with people who do know the Lord? People who do know the Lord, there's nothing wrong with them. People who do not know the Lord fall short in utilizing their wisdom, in making a good living for God, or making a good living for their families. They keep bumping their heads over and over, and the Israelites were doing that, knocking their heads up against the wall over and over. And I've come to learn since I've moved to Seattle, when you do the same thing over and over, bump your head over and over, what is that word called? Insanity. No changes, no nothing new, just the same, over and over and over. And the Israelites, they participated in insanity. Now, they served, their parents served, but the second generation served not God, but they served the world. We got it made. We can make more money than our parents. So since we make more money than our parents, we can splurge a little bit on the extreme expensive side of life. The Israelites did it. They walked after their flesh. They did not follow God. Today, we have, I was doing a study and saw in America today, 52% of Americans are switching their religion. 56% say that Christ, my Redeemer, is my Savior. That means that 50% of this world, in America rather, is unsaved. I hope while you were fasting that you prayed for the lost. Amen? How many are here? You just raised your hand. Remember that old time religion? You heard that song? Give me that old time religion. Give me that old time religion. Give me that old time religion. It's good enough for me. Huh? The Israelites couldn't do that. I see you pointing. I'm not getting on the praise team. No, I would just, I would just jump and shout right with you guys. Okay. All right. But my grandmother, my mother, my aunts and uncles would say, son, you cannot go out and play cause it's Sunday until you go to church. So guess what we did? We put on our Sunday school clothes and went to church. Got home and then played and got dirty and everything else. Had fun, fun, fun. But they instilled in me and in the rest of my family members that God, Christ, must be first. I'm here to tell you, church, you and I cannot make it without God being first in our lives. We can't make it. oh yeah oh yeah we try hard we we try hard we give it a good shot we look at our neighbors they don't go to church They got all those expensive cars. They getting promoted. Look, they don't give it to God. And I'm going to God every Sunday or Wednesday. I'm praying hard for God to work in my life. And I'm just not getting that same kind of movement that my neighbors who do not go to church got. Don't compare yourself. Don't fool yourself. Don't fool yourself. God is not mocked. He sees all of the efforts that you have, everything that you put in. I want to say this. God is never going to twist your arm. He's never going to make you move forward. He's not going to push you. But if we keep wavering as believers in and out, off and on one minute, We're there in Christ, the next minute we going over this side to the world, the worldly goods. There's a name for that. And that name is carnal, carnal Christian. In and out, off and on. Well, as David talked about the committed, and Mike talked about the compromised, this third chair represents the cold, those that have turned from God. And it starts out, and God has some words around this. In Leviticus, if we can bring that one up. Perhaps not, that's all right. In Leviticus, it says that they forgot their God. They left him. But later in Leviticus, it actually comes forward and it says, they didn't just forget their God, they forsook him. It's not like I forgot these guys are here. It's like, talk to the hand. I am not interested. That's where they went. And in fact, what it says is, they pursued the Baals, the Asherahs. Now, some of you may not know what the Baals and the Asherahs are. Let me just give you a quick background. Those were the gods in Canaan. Canaan, the land that God gave to the Israelites when they came over and conquered, the land of milk and honey. They had gods there that they celebrated. Baal happened to be the god of fertility and rain, which is always fascinating for me because as you remember on Mount Carmel where Elijah's there and it has a drought, he's literally challenging the god of rain. And he couldn't bring rain. Asherah, and by the way, Baal is called the Lord God, was actually the son of Asherah. And Asherah was a god of fertility, and fertility to have many children, to many flocks, to be able to really grow your herd. Interesting though, the practices for the Baals and the Asherahs was ritual prostitution. They'd go up to the temple and have sex, both male and female prostitutes. God despised this. God absolutely despised this. But separately then, there's another verse and there's another God that's there, and this one happened to be from the Ammonites, and this is Molech. Do you have that verse? We'll go without it. Oh, there we go, okay. Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for he must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. Sacrifice your children, what's that talk about? Molech was a God that would provide financial prosperity. You would have wealth, and you would also have many, many more children if you sacrificed your firstborn to Molech. In vision, they had a image of Molech. It was hollow. They had a fire burning inside. Molech's arms were outstretched, and you would walk up with your firstborn, and set them in the arms and it would roll into the fire to kill your child. That's Molech. God despised that. Again, this is not a group that simply forgot God. They embraced the gods of the world. You had the committed, that saw God's promises, you had the compromised that were aware of it, but you know, they kind of lean towards the world and here we hit the third generation that's clearly dedicated and planted firmly in the world. The second law of thermodynamics is an interesting one. For those of you that geek out, it generally says that with any system, as the system exists, without an external energy that's put in, it will decay. Things don't get better, they decay, okay? They fall apart, they get older. I think we all know this empirically. Think of our own United States of America. Our founding fathers founded this great nation on the biblical beliefs, biblical foundations, freedom of religion, human rights, honoring God. The forefathers, our founding fathers had many, many challenges that they experienced and they turned to God and they sought God's favor and they sought God's wisdom. And God helped build, honestly, the greatest nation under heaven with the greatest opportunities right here in the US of A. Amen. But then under the heading of human rights around 1960, we took God out of school. Okay, so you take God out of school and you start moving from committed to compromise to forgetting about where is your place in this world. We moved to a situation where We've gone from being a Christian nation to a nation with Christians to becoming a nation that is anti-Christian. And that's a harsh reality on where we are. In the same way, the Israelites rejected God. They walked away, they adopted the gods of this land, they rejected them. And in Paul's term, they were the cold. But as Paul termed them, they were the non-believers. Now, let's look at a biblical example of three generations. King David. You know, he was not a perfect man. He had sins, struggles, and problems just like you and me. You know, if there is any single man or woman in our church and the reason why you're single is because you're looking for the perfect man or woman, chances are, wake up, there is no perfect person. I mean, if you ever find a perfect person, don't you marry that person because your imperfect perfection will kill that person. So, but David was just a common man just like you and us with imperfection, but the Bible says that he was a man after God's own heart. He pursued God throughout his entire life. The Bible describes his pursuance of God when David had served God's purpose in his own generation. The biggest struggle, the toughest struggle was already laid out. The first generation, they went through it, set the pace, listened to God. Once they got in, we have Joshua, the elders, all of them died. After that, the second generation, Turned up the party lights, strobe lights. Hanging out on Fifth Avenue all day long. Just did it their way. And on top of that, they did evil in the eyesight of the Lord. Look at David's son, Solomon. The Bible says that Solomon grew old, his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord. Just as his father's heart was. Do you find yourself sometimes losing that desire, that zing, that pep to want to get up in the morning and pray, get down on your knees before you do anything else? Or do we try to catch God in the rush hour? God needs his personal time with us. The Israelites failed to acknowledge that second generation did. The Bible continues to say Solomon did not follow the Lord completely as his father had done. Have you struggled? Have you walked away from God and find that struggle right there? and you're trying to shake it loose, but you can't. Remember, the Israelites too went through that, but that can be overcome. You and I can overcome our struggles in the flesh carnality. So you're walking through a couple of different generations here. You've got David, a man after God's own heart. They're passionate, they're on fire for the Lord. You've got Solomon, who know about God, but he did tend to stray away. Now you get to his son, Rehoboam. And Rehoboam, it's not a great story. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. Rehoboam started picking up some of the old idols. And again, understand, our battle is not against man. It is not against flesh and blood. It is against the principalities, the forces of evil in the heavenly realms, amen? But they are at work through these generations, through our generations as well. What winds up happening, because Rehoboam could have turned to the wise counselors, the royal advisors that he had. I mean, he had access to these royal advisors that were solid in scripture, but he didn't do that. He chose to go to the young advisors, the new ideas. Perhaps if he wasn't today, he'd go after the Ivy League folks to perhaps help him understand where he should head, what he should do, what's right, what's wrong. What wound up happening? Israel was split as a nation, divided in two, North and South. Israel and Judah, completely separated. Why? Rehoboam did evil in the sight of the Lord. He had turned fully cold. Now, look at the values of the first generation. They're totally committed to God. They love God. They dwell in God's word. Their values were at odds with the values of the world. The world hates their values. At the same time, the world cannot hate them because they're living such clean, exemplary lives. Looking at the values of the compromise, we say today, boy, if this thing keeps going the way these people are acting up and believers are acting up and getting lost and doing things, we'll start saying, here comes the apocalypse. Just wanted you to know, though, that it's not yet. Isn't it said that Jesus had to say to the Ephesian church, I hold this against you. You have forsaken your first love. Isn't that sad? He says, look at the church of Lausita. It is used to be a vibrant church. It used to be a church that you could depend on. Can God depend on you? If you feel like in your heart that you say, God, you used to could depend on me, but you can't now, you'll have an opportunity today to straighten that out. I just like to say this. He said, but because you are no longer vibrant and on fire, you're no longer serving me like second, like the first generation, you're the second generation. I got something that's gonna happen to you. I'm reminded before I tell you what's gonna happen, he said to them, I'm reminded of this lady who was washing her dishes in the morning. And she had a window where she could just look out, and she washed the dishes and watched the birds. She could see her neighbor's backyard. And her neighbor would always wash clothes and hang the clothes out on the clothesline. And the lady was washing her dishes, and she looked, and she stopped. And she said to herself, I thought she'd washed her clothes. Look how dingy they look hanging on that line. She shook her head. Time passed. The next couple of days, she'd washed the neighbor, washed her clothes again. I'm sorry, but washed her dishes again. And she peeped out of the window again and say, This woman has a problem. She needs some new detergent because her clothes are dirty and filthy. Why is she hanging them out on the clothesline? She said, I'm not gonna say it. Third time she was washing the dishes and she looked out of the window again, those clothes were filthy looking. 30 of them before. She called her daughter, come, come, look, look, what's wrong with that lady? She's washing dirty clothes and the clothes are still dirty. Mama, let's go, maybe we can yell across the fence and ask her does she need some detergent powder. So they went outside the back door into the yard facing the clothesline, and then, you know, they kind of look, and then, these clothes are clean. And the daughter said, Mom, your kitchen window is filthy, it's dirty. You know what God said? Same thing for lukewarm Christians. He says, you're not like being on fire. Look, what may have gone wrong, Jesus said, you are neither hot nor cold. Because you're lukewarm, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth. I didn't realize that. But God's stomach get upset when he look at believers that's lukewarm in and out. He gets an upset stomach and wants to throw up. How you like to drive your car today with a bumper sticker attached to your car that says, I have been puked out by God? So with the cold, as they've, again, completely turned from God, fascinating as you look at the differences in the value of the world and the value of the cold and the values in the Bible. In the world, do you know that the number one cause of death across the world is abortion? Number two isn't even close, not even close. The world will call that pro-choice. The Bible calls it murder. The world looks and says, there's 81 different genders. God says he created man and woman in his image. The cold has completely lost their way. It's gonna take some committed to get them to recognize where they're at. The Church of Jesus Christ was born in the first chair. They started hot when the Holy Spirit came down and they were totally committed. All that they were thinking about was how shall we pursue God through our entire life? The Church of Ephesians, the apostle Paul writes in his book, the epistle to the church of Ephesians, and he mentions love 14 times. Obviously, the church of Ephesus was a church of love, genuine love for God and genuine love for one another. But what's wrong with this church? As time passed by, in Revelations, Jesus is yet I hold this against you, you have forsaken your first love. Mike so adequately mentioned that you have become lukewarm. Church, there ain't no church. Do you see how spiritual apathy comes in? Those that are sitting in the committed chair. The next generation, they slips to the chair of compromise. And then years later, they slip into the cold chair. I don't care. Actually, this slipping away doesn't have to take three generations. It can happen in one generation. Last night, you could have been sitting here and you're going, hallelujah, I'm so hot. And then for whatever might have gone a week later, you could sit here. You're coming to church. You are saved. But your values are not at odds with the world's values. You are perfectly in line with the values of the world. And the world feels very comfortable with you, and you feel very comfortable with the world. But those of us who are sitting here, hi. I come to church and I love my church's music and yet I do not like that preaching because the values is weird. Let me wrap up my message. 21 days of spiritual hunger, enhancement of our spiritual commitment. some of you, after 21 days of prayer and fasting, some of you may feel like, wow, David, I'm sitting in the first chair. I am very comfortable sitting here and I'm set on fire. If that's where you are sitting, hooray, good job, kudos to you. My appeal for you is this, would you sit still in that chair no matter what? Put your anchor right here and stand firm. Better yet, sit firm and cozy. Having heard the message, if you feel like, well, David, somehow I'm a born again Christian, but I'm no more than just a church member. My values are no different from the values of the world. Somehow I come to church on Sunday morning and yet Monday through Saturday, yay, I live my own life. For whatever reason, worship service is not really exciting me anymore. Chances are you're sitting in the second chair. I appeal to you based on what Jesus says to those people. Jesus says, here I am, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me. Unlike what you think, this passage is not for unbelievers. This passage is for Laodicean church. Believers who has Jesus standing outside their hearts. Jesus, you are my Savior, but I am the master and Lord of my life. I yield myself to you Sunday mornings from 9 to 10.30. Otherwise, leave me alone. I'm in charge. Would you be willing to quietly stand up from where you're sitting. By faith, move to the first chair, the chair of commitment, and humbly ask God, Lord, would you bless me? Would you keep me in this chair? I want to stand strong for the cause of your kingdom. What about those of you who are sitting in the chair of the cold, the non-believer's chair? Two days ago, in my Quiet Time book, I read this, something a psychologist wrote. This is what he wrote. The human heart has an innate hunger for God. After 20 years of listening to the yearnings of people's hearts, I am convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. I heard a sociologist say if your income is less than $2,000 a month, meaning if you're struggling with food, you'll be so satisfied and happy as long as you can put food on your table. But once you go over that, food will not satisfy you anymore. I heard about the wealthiest man in Hong Kong. At the time, he was the fourth wealthiest man in the world. Come home one day from work, and he says to his wife, honey, this coming Sunday, can we go to church? The wife was shocked. Honey, that's all that I wanted to ask you for years, but I had no guts to tell you that. What makes you say that? This man says, all this time, I'm a wealthy man, we're wealthy people, but I was void. There was an empty spot on my heart that wealth alone could not fill it. I need something bigger. Westminster Catechism says, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him. Jesus says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting You saw my nephew being baptized today. He thought that he was a believer, but then he wasn't sure if he was a believer. I share John 1 12. What does it mean to believe? Yet to all who did receive him to those who believe in his name. BK, have you ever accepted Christ into your heart? Not that you've been going to church, not that you prayed from time to time, not that you worshiped God, but have you ever accepted Christ into your heart? He says, well, Uncle David, I don't think so. I just assumed that I was a Christian because I was going to church for years. To those who believe in His name, God gave the right to become children of God. After this service is over, we're gonna have a prayer team standing on that side of the wall, and the three speakers, the three of us will stand here in the front. We'll be praying with you, we'll be praying for you. If you are sitting in the third chair, but if you wanna talk with us, and if you wanna make a decision to accept Jesus Christ, I tell you, you will never regret it. Christ will change your life, totally transform your life, and the transformed people will transform our country. Stand up where you are and go to the chair of commitment and sit here firm for the glory of God. Shall we pray? Father, we thank you for the message you gave us. We open our hearts. In whatever chair we may be sitting, we open our hearts. And we want to stand up wherever we are and go to the chair of commitment. Would you touch each and every one of us as we worship you here today? Now this worship service is over, and as we pray for one another, would you give us courage to come forward and receive prayer? And as they receive their prayer, may they give their lives. From chair number three, chair number two, but go to chair number one, and truly, genuinely, commit their lives to the call of Jesus, who will use them to transform this nation. In Jesus' mighty name, we pray.