So let's look to the Lord in prayer one more time and ask God to speak to us this morning. Let's calm our minds, still our spirits, and just ask God to speak to us this morning.

Father, we thank you that you are here in our midst. You are faithful, Lord. All through the scriptures, we see your heart's longing to dwell among your people. You said, "I am a God who dwells among my people, and my people will never be ashamed." You love to come and dwell among the praises of your people. We believe you're here, and we believe you're going to speak to us. There is life and power in your word, Lord. One word that is spoken, standing at the tomb of Lazarus, to come out of the grave. Lord, his dead body responded to your word and walked out of the grave. Lord, I want to believe this morning as your word comes, many who are in the grave of various kinds will arise and come out, Lord, and shine for you. This morning, Holy Spirit, you take control over this time in Jesus' mighty name, we pray. Amen, amen. Can we give one more round of huge applause unto Jesus? Amen, amen. How many of you are still excited about the promise that we received from the Lord this year? As you all remember the conversation that Jesus had with Nathaniel, "You shall see greater things than these." Amen. I believe in my life and each one of your lives, this church, God will do things that we have never seen in our lives so far, and we will be able to stand and testify, "I experienced the greatest thing of my life in 2024." Amen, you believe that? Hallelujah. And further in His conversation with Nathaniel, God says, "You shall see heavens open and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." You will have heavenly visitations, divine visitations. You will experience God meeting you personally, and you will see things happening in your life like never before. Amen, hallelujah. Are you all really excited about the promise of God? Are you, amen?

So that doesn't mean that in 2024 we will not experience any problems, any challenges, any crisis. I'm not saying that. Even if I were to tell you, you are smart enough not to believe that. However, God gives promises so that we can fight against those things when those things do come. When great challenges, great crisis situations that are beyond our capacity to handle, when such things come, we need not despair, we need not feel weak, we need not panic, but we have the promises of God and the word of God to fight those challenges and have victory over them. Amen, hallelujah.

Today I would like to look at the life of Jacob, from which Jesus quoted the text, "You shall see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." It was actually from the dream that Jacob saw. I would like to share a few powerful truths that God has revealed, how God is able to lead us from a dark night experience to a dawn experience in our life. It's a very powerful incident that happened in the life of Jacob. I want us to look at that and learn how God works in our lives, no matter what experiences, situations in life that we might be going through. You just can't imagine the great God that we have. I want us to look at that from the life of Jacob. Let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 28 and read from verse 10 following.

Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled toward Haran. Now let me stop here, and as we go along, I'll read the old text to just save some time. I want us to look at the background a bit for you to understand what's going on here. Here is Jacob leaving Beersheba, his hometown. That's the place where he lived for a long time. Many Bible scholars say Jacob was 70 years old at this point of time. You all know the story, most of you who read the Bibles. He had just deceived his father, deceived his brother, stolen the blessings that his elder brother Esau deserved, and his brother was mad at him to the point that he wanted to kill him. Since his dad was about the age to die, he didn't want to give more pain to his heart. He was just waiting for his father to die and then take revenge on his younger brother Jacob. Rebecca discovers this master plan that his brother was doing, and she comes up with another master plan. She has very good planning. Some women are very good at planning. I mean it for good, okay? So Rebecca was good at planning, and she came up with another plan to how to get his youngest son escape from the impending danger. So she tells him, "You please run away to my brother's place," a place called Haran. It was almost 900 kilometers away from Beersheba, from the place where they were. So he goes back to his father Isaac, and this time around, first time he stole the blessings, he deceived. But this time around, before he leaves Beersheba, he takes the blessings in a proper way. Isaac, knowing that Jacob is God's choice, willfully, consciously, he blesses Jacob with all his heart. Sometimes we miss that, you know, and we cannot blame Jacob for all of this, okay? Esau had flaws in his character. He sold his birthright just for a bowl of porridge, and that was not something that God approved, God liked about it. So Jacob was God's choice, and I don't want to get into all those details, but I want you to know that the context here is Jacob is fleeing from Beersheba to a place called Haran, which is Rebecca's family's place. Let's go to verse 11.

"At sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep." He arrived at a certain place, and he did not know that place was the very place that Abraham had once built an altar. You know, as Einstein says, "God never plays dice. Everything God does has a reason and a purpose." I want you to believe that everything that you're going through in your life, it might not make sense to you, but God has a plan and purpose in everything that you're going through. So when he came to that place, he had already traveled 100 kilometers. You are soon to call that place Bethel, which we will come to and see about it later. But he has made a three, four days journey. Probably he would have taken a camel or an ass, I don't know. Probably Rebecca would have packed some good food, all the food that he can carry. But he was all alone. By the time he reached this particular place, it was already night, sun had set, it was dark. So I want you to know that it was not only physically, in the natural realm, sun had set and had become dark. Even in his soul, in his life, it was a dark night experience that he was going through. For a few moments, I just want you

to put yourself into the shoes of Jacob and understand all that he was going through. And I believe many of us can relate to what Jacob was going through as we take time to think about what exactly Jacob was going through. Some of the things I would like to highlight what Jacob's experience on that night. I want to stress that word called night, dark night experience. Many of us go through dark night experiences in our life. Let's understand what we go through, what we feel, what we think, what goes on inside our world, even though outside everything might look perfect. But there's so many things that we go inside. Let's understand from the life of Jacob.

First thing is I want to highlight is he was going through loneliness. Probably, this was the first time that he was leaving his family and going away. Can all those of you can go down your memory lane and imagine when the first time you left home and went somewhere, probably to your hostel or to your workplace? Now, what are the feelings that you went through? I had that experience many years back, probably in the year 2002, when I left Bangalore to Hyderabad for ministry. And I didn't know anything about ministry then, but my comfort was taken away. Nobody was giving me food on my table and clothes. I needed to wash vessels. I needed to wash, and I was like homesick. I was feeling like just getting back, feeling so lonely, you know? So that was probably the experience of Jacob. Definitely, he was going through terrible loneliness. He was all alone in the night, 100 kilometers away, far from his people. As far from the people whom he was going to, he was a stranger, he a fugitive. He didn't know what's going to happen. He was lonely. He was all alone. Now, some of us might not be alone in that sense as Jacob was. We might be surrounded by people. We might be surrounded by our own family members, friends, and even church. Yet, we go through terrible loneliness in our hearts to the point that you might think, "I'm a nobody. I'm an orphan. I'm nobody to share my heart with. I have nobody to go and share my experiences with. I am all alone." That could be the experience. Some of us might be going through. Mother Teresa once quoted like this, "The biggest disease today is not leprosy or cancer, it is the feeling of being uncared for. I think that should be there on the court. The biggest disease today is not leprosy or cancer; it's a feeling of being uncared for, unwanted, of being deserted and alone. This is the most terrible pain, more intense than cancer or any other physical trauma that we might be going through in this world." Jacob was going through, of course, deceived his brother and ran away. I don't know whether you had deceived anybody. I hope not, okay? But we might be going through this loneliness for various other reasons. There's a terrible loneliness that Jacob was going through.

The second thing I can imagine Jacob was going through was he was filled with fear. To begin with, he was running because of fear that his brother is going to kill him. Not only that, he was going through various other kinds of fear. Fear of how his life is going to turn out to be in the place called Haran. He had not seen the people. He had not met them before. He didn't know. He might be having the fear of the future, what's going to happen in his life, seated here in this place. Each one of you might be going through various kinds of fears in your life. Untold fear, unspoken fear. It's all in your mind. You're going through. You don't want to talk about it now. I recently discovered, you know, the very things that we don't like to talk about are the very things that you need healing from. Sometimes when you're talking to people, they suddenly want to tell that, "Let's not talk about that," as if you're a stranger. They may not want to talk to you about it, but there are areas in our lives where we are not comfortable talking about it, where you don't want to share with anybody, where you don't want to talk to anybody, where you don't want anybody to know about it. Those are the very areas you need healing. Once you're healed, you'll be set free to talk any, everything, anything about your life. There'll be nothing that you don't like to talk about. So there are areas in our lives, I believe, where we don't want to share with anybody, where you don't want to talk to anybody, where you don't want anybody to know about it. Those are the very areas you need healing. Once you're healed, you'll be free to talk about those things, saying that, "Yes, this is what I went through. This is what I was going through. God healed me." You'll boast about God. That will become your testimonies. So there are fears of various kinds that we might be going through. Fear of life, probably your reports have shown something, your blood reports, your scan reports, your MRI reports have said something. You're fearing death, I don't know. Fear of the future, you don't know how your future is going to be, what your tomorrow is going to be. Don't know about your fear of your career, your profession, your business. Fear about how your family, your marriage, your children are going to turn out. Seated here, we might be going through various fears. Jacob was going through those fears, and if we are going through those fears, it's our dark night experience.

[Genesis 28:10-11] Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.

Jacob found himself in a situation of uncertainty and fear. He had just fled from his hometown after deceiving his father and brother. Now, alone in the wilderness, he experienced loneliness and fear.

Jacob's journey from Beersheba to Harran was not just a physical one but also a spiritual and emotional journey. He was grappling with the consequences of his actions, facing the unknown, and feeling the weight of his loneliness.

Like Jacob, many of us can relate to experiences of loneliness and fear in our own lives. Whether it's leaving home for the first time, facing uncertainty about the future, or dealing with the consequences of our actions, we all encounter moments of darkness and doubt.

But just as God was with Jacob in his darkest hour, so too is He with us in ours. Even when we feel alone and afraid, God is present, guiding us through the darkness and leading us toward the dawn.

Jacob's story reminds us that even in our darkest moments, God is at work, shaping and transforming us for His purposes. And as we trust in Him and lean on His strength, we can find hope and courage to face whatever challenges lie ahead. Let us take comfort in the promise that God is with us always, leading us from darkness to light, from despair to hope, and from fear to faith.

Today, I want to share a story about a young boy from our Junior Church, or what we prefer to call Kids Church. This boy had been asked to recite Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd," for a special occasion. Throughout the week, he diligently practiced, but when the moment arrived, standing before a crowd, his nerves got the best of him. He began, "The Lord is my shepherd," and then froze.

In moments of fear, uncertainty, and hopelessness, sometimes all we need to hold onto is that fragment of faith. We're often too rational, seeking answers for everything, but faith isn't about having all the answers; it's about trusting despite the unknown. It's what sustained the men and women of faith in scripture, defying logic as they followed God's call.

Now, let's talk about Jacob. He faced loneliness, fear, hopelessness, and guilt. Have you ever been in a place where hope seemed nonexistent? Where guilt weighed heavily on your conscience for past mistakes? Jacob certainly felt that way. He was at his lowest point, with only a stone for a pillow as he lay down to sleep.

But his story didn't end there. Despite the darkness of that night, dawn was coming. Genesis 29:1 tells us that Jacob hurried on with renewed vigor. His encounter with God transformed him. It wasn't an instant fix; it took years for the promises to be fulfilled. But that encounter gave him the courage, motivation, and hope to move forward.

So, what can we learn from Jacob? Even in our darkest moments, when hope seems lost, we can encounter God. Our disappointments can become divine appointments. Trust in God, even when you can't see the way forward. His light can pierce through the darkest night and lead you to dawn.

So, I want us to look at what happened in the open experience Genesis 28:1, 12-22. Let's read that. "As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, 'I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father Isaac. The ground you're lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the Earth. They'll spread out in all directions—to the west and the East, to the North and the South. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. What's more, I am with you, and I'll protect you wherever you go. One day I'll bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I've finished giving you everything I promised you.'" Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn't even aware of it." But he was also afraid and said, "What an awesome place this is! This is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven." The next morning, Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he had rested his head against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured oil over it. He named that place Bethel, which means House of God, although it was previously called Luz. Then Jacob made this vow: "If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father's home, then the Lord will certainly be my God. And this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God, and I'll present to God a tenth of everything he gives me."

The Lord who met Jacob in his dark night experience is the very same God who is meeting us this morning. The Lord who stood at the top of the ladder and spoke to Jacob, even this morning, is speaking to us through his word. Now, we need not look for that open heavens in dreams and visions. What you are having right now is the very word of God. God's word is what is coming to you. I want us to go deeper into what was happening here in this open experience that Jacob had.

The first thing Jacob realizes is that God is close to you. Many times, because of the circumstances—pleasure, pain, situation, failure, humiliation, adversities—that you go through in life, you might feel God is far away from you. But the truth is that God is always where he was, and he'll always be where he will be. For he is an unchanging God, as close to you as you wish him to be, by your side. Your feelings might make you feel that God is far from you. Your circumstances may make you feel that God is far from you. People around you may make you feel that God is far from you. But the truth is, God is always by your side. He'll never leave you nor forsake you. All that you need to do is just open up to him, call upon him, "God help me." Sometimes, the only prayer that we can make is, "God help me." Cry out in your pain, cry out in your situation, instead of being clueless and helpless, not knowing where to go. Just call out to God in a situation, and you will see God manifesting in your life, God moving in your life. Jacob understood that God is by his side. He's right where he is. Amen. A child of God can never feel lonely because God is always with them, every child of God.

The second thing Jacob was about to understand is that God is determined to bless you. One of my favorite verses is that verse when God told Jacob, "I will never leave you until I've finished performing everything that I promised for you." Can you hear God saying that to each one of you, that "I will not leave you, whether you leave me or not, that's secondary, but I will not leave you." The beauty of the Christian life is not that we are holding the hands of God; we will be encouraged to know that it is God who is holding our hands. There are many times we might leave the hands of God, but God is so faithful that he will never leave his hands from the grip of his hands; we'll never go out of his grip. And what more, God says, "I will not leave you until I have finished doing everything that God I have promised for you." Amen. It's interesting actually to understand that what would you expect? I want you to think with me. What would you expect God to speak to a person who was lied, deceived, cheated? What do you expect God to speak to such a person? You know, God, we could have found some scriptures like God saying, "Jacob, Jacob, I've seen everything you did. I heard everything you did. You might be escaping from your brother, but you cannot escape from me. Your brother, your father, your mother might forgive you, but I'm not going to forgive you. I'm going to hold you responsible." Those are the words we expect God to say, right? But do you see any mention of anything Jacob did there? Absolutely nothing. Because God sees the things that we did or we're going through very differently from the way you see and others see your circumstances. The way you see is completely different from where God looks at those circumstances. You might be painted as a perpetrator of a crime, but in actuality, you might be the victim. Nobody would know that you're a victim, but God sees that, you know? So we cannot blame Jacob fully for what he had done, you know? But that's not the point that where I'm going to want to go. But here, I want to know that, you know, here was God determined, mind, to bless. I want you all to know, God is not here to punish us, not to condemn us, not to judge us, even though he has seen everything, heard everything that we have done. He is here to forgive us, here to restore us. He is here to give us hope to move on, Amen. We can move on, no matter what has happened till yesterday. We can have a fresh day today in our life. We can have a new day in our life. We can have a new season in our life. God is able to do that, Amen, Hallelujah. So, actually, as I already said, it's not that the situation is going to change immediately. It took 20 years for all that happened, you know, in Jacob's life. But God was giving him, you know, the strength that is needed. He was reestablishing him till then.

The third thing, let me go with you, God is interested in having a personal relationship with you. Jacob was about to understand that God is having a personal relationship with him. Till then, Jacob had heard about God from Abraham, his grandfather, his father Isaac.

He had heard about all the stories, all the miracles from them. But he had never had a personal relationship with God, a personal experience with God. So, some of us might be second generation and third generation believers. Here, you are brought up in a good Christian family. Your parents were very spiritual. They prayed for you every day. They taught you how to pray. They taught you Bible. You know it in your mind. Many stories are familiar to you. But you might lack personal experience. Do you have a story of experiencing God in your life? Do you have a testimony? Do you have something you prayed about, and God did it? Do you know that you have a personal relationship with God? So, there are times that you go through your own crisis. Abraham experienced God in his own crisis. Isaac experienced God in his own crisis. Now, in your crisis, it's time for you to experience God in your life. It's not time for those crises to finish you off. Those moments of crisis are not to destroy you. These very moments are all happening in the watchful eye of God. That's the beauty. Anything that's happening to a child of God is perfectly happening in the watchful eye of God. God is carefully working, delicately working in your life. He sees every step you take, every move you make, every thought you think, every word you utter. Everything, he's watching. It's the careful, watchful eyes of God. You cannot go away from the watchful eyes of God. So, there is nothing that will go beyond God's control out of your life. There's nothing that God will allow into your life that which you cannot bear. There is nothing that's going to happen in your life for which God does not have a plan and a purpose. God is watching over your life. So, this was the moment. Till now, God was God of Abraham. Till now, God was God of Isaac. It is now time for God to become the God of Jacob. The question is, will Jacob accept it? So, in a crisis moment, you have this opportunity, whether you're going to trust the God of your fathers and mothers or you're going to go your own way, thinking that all that my father said, mother said, all the stories are good for them, it's not good for me. There are children who walked away like that, many children of believer families walked away from God, thinking that does work for us. But those are the moments whether you will trust God and move in faith. It was the experience of Jacob coming to experience God personally in his life. So, I believe this year, we're going to have an open-down experience, and in this open experience could happen your dark night experience. In this dark night experience, the heavens open over you. You will realize God is close to you.

So, the situation for Jacob had not changed at all, but he was worshiping God out of faith. Many times we wait for situations to change to worship God, but Jacob was worshiping God out of faith. Soon, he was about to realize that God is more important than anything else in his life. He was soon about to recognize that God's presence is more important than anything else.

Let me stop and ask you a question here. We all know God called Abraham when he was 75 years old and promised him great things: "I'll make you a great nation, I'll make you great, I'll make your descendants as innumerable as stars, I'll bless the nations of the world through your descendants," all of that, right? But which did God bless Abraham with first: wealth and possessions or a son? Why not the other way? God blessed him with wealth—so much wealth, so much possessions, so much prosperity in the places that he used to go. He was richer than the rulers of those places, the kings of those places. Why couldn't God bless Abraham first with a son and then all the wealth? Have you thought about it?

As I was thinking about it, you know, God wanted Abraham to come to a place where he could say, "Lord, what's the point of all this wealth? What's the point of all this money and servants and oxen and camels? What's the point? I don't have a son." If God would have given him a son first, he would have said, "What's the point of a son? I don't have wealth and possessions." Lord, there are times that God intentionally delays some of the blessings in our lives so that we realize the value of it when it comes.

Many of us might have money, wealth, possessions, and when we realize that it all doesn't make any sense, "Lord, the love that you can bring, the peace that you can bring, the hope, the strength, the joy that your presence brings cannot come from any of these things," that's when God begins to work in your life. Amen. God will bring that to every person in whom He is at work. He'll bring you to a point where you say, "Lord, you've given me everything, but I don't have what I thought I'd have. You thought by having a house, your life would become happy. You thought by getting married, you'd be happy. You thought by getting a job, you'd be happy. You thought by buying a dream car, you'd be happy. You thought the success you are chasing after is going to make you happy. But when you come to the point of realization, even though I have all of those things, God, your presence, without your presence, all this is nothing," that's when God begins to work in your life.

Jacob was about to experience that in his life. He worships God, and then God works in him. For 20 years, he had to fix Laban to work in his life, and then he was coming back to his place to worship. Thirdly, we see Jacob dedicating his life to God. His response to open heavens is Jacob dedicating. He's saying, "Lord, actually, you should not read that as a bargaining, 'Lord, if you bless me, I'll give you.' If you do this, I will do that." The text appears like that, but in the original Hebrew translation, if you read it, it says, "Since you're going to do this for me, I'm going to give you the tithes of all the blessings." See, did God say, "You give me tithes, then I'll bless you?" No, God never wanted his tithes. God never wanted his offering. God has already determined to bless him. But the tithe that Jacob offered voluntarily was to express his devotion unto God and to his service. So, that should be the motive of our offerings and tithes that we give to God. It's not that if you give, God will bless you. You cannot manipulate God. You cannot bargain with God. You are already God's choice. God is going to bless you. But your giving should not be by compulsion, by forcefulness. There are some preachers who daily do extortion. It's not extortion. It's a joyful, willing giving unto the Lord, acknowledging that all that I received is from God and it's an act of devotion unto God. It's an act of our commitment unto God.

So, what I'm seeing this morning is, as we wait for open heavens experience to happen this year, we might be going through dark night experiences—dark night experiences of hopelessness, guilt, fear, uncertainty, various kinds of things. But an open heavens experience happens, the dark experiences of our life will turn to dawn experiences of our life. So, let us all arise in God's presence.

I want to pray for all those people who think they're going through what Jacob would be going through. Yes, the new year has begun and so many things might be happening around. It's a busy life, the days are passing by. But in your inner world, there is pain, there is hopelessness, there is fear. You know, I want you to understand that these are the moments for you to experience God. Jacob thought he was running away, but it was only to run into God's presence. Some of you might be feeling like running away from everything, but brothers and sisters, you'll only be running into the arms of God. Open heavens experience is going to change everything, and that's what we're believing for this year over your life, over this.