Hallelujah! Let’s appreciate this our God; He’s Champion, the Possessor of the whole universe, He reigns forevermore; He has no beginning, He has no ending, the One who alone is worthy, Almighty God, All-knowing God, All-powerful God, All-Sufficient God, the Ancient of days, the Only One of Israel, hallowed be thy name.
The King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Great I am; the One who alone is worthy, the One who was, the One who is and He is to come. The King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Prince of peace, Father we thank You, Father we bless You, Father we worship You, Father we honor You, Father we adore You, we say there is no other God but You, thank You Lord.
We thank you Lord, we welcome You, thank You for Your presence in our midst, thank You oh Lord for what You have done in our midst before now, thank You for what You are doing already, thank You for what You will yet do, Father we appreciate You, thank You Lord, thank You Father, in Jesus wonderful name we have worshipped.
Father in the mighty name of Jesus, because You are here with us this morning, we trust Father that we will experience open heavens in the mighty name of Jesus. Atmosphere will shift, chains will break in the mighty name of Jesus; and the heaven will open over us in the name of Jesus.
My God my Father, there is no sorrow, there is no burden, there is no challenge, there is no situation that is too big for You to handle; this morning, we are all here before You with different types of burdens, different types of issues, situations and challenges, Father, let no one go back home with them in the mighty name of Jesus.
Thank You heavenly Father; as we go into Your word, Lord please speak to us. Give us understanding in the name of Jesus; let there be the renewing of our minds in the name of Jesus; salvation of souls, healing and deliverances, in Jesus wonderful name we prayed. Praise the Lord! Praise the living Jesus!
Good morning brethren, welcome to the house of the Lord this morning; I would like to start by saying thank You to God for the gift of life (and I think that also applies to everyone of us, it’s because we have life that we are here, it’s because we have life that we have expectations, and our expectations will not be cut short in the mighty name of Jesus).
I’d also like to appreciate our father in the Lord, the Pastor in Charge of Province for the privilege given to me to stand before you this morning, I do not take it for granted and I say the Lord Almighty will continue to enable and empower him in Jesus mighty name. He will be ministering in one of our locations this morning and that’s why daddy and mommy are not here this morning but their spirits are with us, but most importantly, God is in the house with us.
Prayer chain tomorrow evening, the theme is “In Everything”, 1st Thessalonians 5: 18, please come tomorrow, come prepared, invite as many people as you can and you will be surely blessed in the name of Jesus.
Brethren, you will recall that last week Sunday, the PICP announced that on the last Sunday of this month, there would be this food drive – the community palliative that we did the first one in the last Sunday in March, so there is going to be another one at the end of this month; the idea is so as to know if there are people amongst us who have needs for these items.
By the grace of God after the second service on Sunday June 30th, we’ll be sharing food items here, the Lord will bless you in the name of Jesus, and I pray also that as many that are in need today, tomorrow you will be the one giving in Jesus mighty name.
This month has been declared as our month of Open Heavens and the heavens will open over you today in Jesus mighty name. Please turn with me to Deuteronomy 28: 12 & 13, “The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.
13 And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them”, praise the Lord!
Open Heavens, two interesting words; to open (in the context of open heavens) means to allow access, to give passage, not closed or not blocked; and then when we talk about heaven, as we know heaven is the abode of God where God lives, the heavenlies, praise the living Jesus! So when we say Open Heavens, what do we mean? It speaks to unfettered access to God or to the throne of God; so when somebody tells you that you will experience an open heaven, what it means is that there will be no barrier between you and God, and I think if there is anything any man can wish for, this is number one, when you have unfettered access to the Lord Almighty, it is when you have free access to everything that is in the heavenly realm, praise the living Jesus!
Brethren, if there is an open heaven, something tells me then that there is also a closed heaven; and to fully understand the context of an open heaven, we would also be looking side by side what a closed heaven is. By the way, if an open heaven means an unfettered access to the throne of God or to God, then a closed heaven means no access or restricted access to God.
You can immediately tell when they say closed heaven – a situation of a closed heaven can be somebody praying and the prayer does not leave where the person is because it doesn’t get to the throne room of God. I pray that you will never operate under a closed heaven in the name of Jesus. If there is anyone who is operating under a closed heaven, today in the name of the Lord Almighty, your heavens will open in the mighty name of Jesus.
Because when the heaven is open over you, everything will work for you, even things that you did not labor for, effortlessly, things will fall in place for you. In the Bible, Luke 5: 4 – 6, we see the story of a man we all know so well, Peter, that verse tells us that before then he had fished all night and he caught nothing, that’s a case of a closed heaven; he toiled all night and there was nothing to show for it, and then something happened, a change came, and as soon as he launched the net again, (verse 5) a bountiful harvest like never before, praise the living Jesus!
So you can see it is possible to have a closed heaven, then it’s possible to have an open heaven; but something happens that transits somebody’s closed heaven to an open heaven, we’ll see it shortly as we proceed in the course of this message.
There are other biblical examples of open heaven; in Joshua 10: 13 – 14, Joshua led Israel in battle and it was getting dark and he needed light because he was in an unknown terrain and if it got dark, the enemy would have the upper hand, what happened? The Bible says the sun remained all through, that is an open heaven – when the heavenlies, when the elements will respond to you. I pray for someone today, the heavenlies – the stars, the moon, every element in the galaxy will respond to you in the mighty name of Jesus.
Another situation of an open heaven, we find in 1st Samuel 16: 13, a shepherd boy who woke up one morning as if he had been condemned to be a shepherd boy all his life, but before the end of that day, he was anointed as king, that’s open heaven.
Is there somebody here struggling, laboring and it appears as if there is no end to struggle, you will enter into your open heaven from today in the mighty name of Jesus.
Brethren let’s look at some realities or some truths or some things that we call nuggets about open heaven;
Number one, there’s no physical location/place called an open heaven. For example, you know when we talk about open heaven, some people, the first thing that comes to mind is our daily devotional, Open Heavens, and if you look at that book, you will see a gate or if you look at the flier for the theme for the month, you’ll see something like a gate and all that, it’s in the imagination of man, there’s no physical location called open heaven, praise the Lord!
For example, if you go out and you look up in the sky, you will see a wide sky but you won’t see any opening. I’ll see the sky, I’ll see it the way you will all see it but we do not experience open heaven in the same way, it tells me therefore that there is no physical location.
For example, in Acts 7: 54 – 56, emphasis on verse 56, the Bible says before Stephen gave up the ghost, he looked up and the heavens opened, but do you know that he was not the only one that was looking up that day, but he was the only one that saw the heaven opened. May you see a heaven open from today in the mighty name of Jesus.
Number two, whether you experience an open heaven or a closed heaven is not determined by the economy of any nation. In Genesis 47: 5 – 6, & 27 – 28, the Bible gives an account of how the children of Israel got to Egypt in the time of famine when everything was hard, the Bible says God packaged a place for them called Goshen.
By the way, Goshen means a place of comfort and peace in the midst of chaos; that is an open heaven when other people are struggling. In the name that’s above every other name brethren, it does not matter where you are located, some people will say the economy of Nigeria is bad, even in this Nigeria you will experience open heaven in the name of Jesus.
To underscore that point, I have an example here; sometime last year I travelled out of the country to a certain location and one day I was at the bus station waiting for a bus in the cold, so I was hiding under a shelter and then suddenly I saw two gentlemen came from somewhere and rushed to a big bin, opened it, brought out their bags and started putting food items from the bin and I said haha, in this country too? In this country people are scavenging food?
Brethren, it does not matter where you are – whether you are in America, whether you are in the UK, whether you are in Nigeria, your open heaven is not a dependent on a location, it is only dependent on God, and because God is your God you will experience open heaven in the mighty name of Jesus.
Number three, the experience of an open heaven or a closed heaven is mutually exclusive. What do I mean? You cannot experience both at the same time. You know there is a place in Nigeria called Ikogosi, where we have a spring of warm and cold water at the same time, that’s an unusual occurrence.
The way God operates is either light or darkness; it’s either day or night; you are either for Him or against Him; in the same way, you will either be under an open heaven or you are under a closed heaven, you cannot at the same time be under both an open heaven and a closed heaven, praise the living Jesus.
My prayer for you is that you will dwell in the light of God and you will experience an open heaven perpetually in the mighty name of Jesus.
Quickly following from this, the next one is that even though they are not mutually exclusive, it is possible for a man or an individual or a country to experience at different times an open heaven and then a closed heaven, it then depends on the state you are at that time, praise the living Jesus!
I gave earlier the example of Peter; first, the Bible says the heaven was closed over him and he was washing his net, he had given up, he had said nothing else can happen, and then when he encountered Jesus, the closed heaven changed and became an open heaven. So the same Peter, the same season but he experienced first a closed heaven and later an open heaven.
The import of this is that peradventure there is anybody here who is going through a situation of a closed heaven, that’s not where you will end it. In the name that’s above every other name, that closed heaven will give way this day and God will bring you under an open heaven in the mighty name of Jesus.
Next one, that you experience a difficult time now does not necessarily mean you are under a closed heaven; also, that everything is working or appear to be working now does not mean you are under an open heaven. Very soon, we are going to see what determines whether you are under an open heaven or closed heaven.
In John 16: 33, the Bible tells us that in the midst of your tribulation, be of good cheer for I have overcome the world. What that is saying, it is possible for someone to be going through a tough time but God has something great for that person; so in the period where he/she is going through a tough time, let it not be concluded that he/she is experiencing a closed heaven, because if you judge it wrongly, some people will then throw away the towel and then begin to do something wrong, you need to know who you are.
For example, maybe you are going through some unpleasant situations, expectations are cut short, this hardship is too much, past achievement is the only thing you can refer to, nothing has happened in the last five years that you can say this is what God is doing, frustration, confusion, stagnation, somebody with great potentials but little or nothing to show for it, failure at the point of success and the likes. Similarly, that somebody is buying a new car, somebody is building a new house for now does not mean that the person is under an open heaven, praise the living Jesus!
I know questions are being raised in your mind now, Proverbs 13: 22, in the last part of it the Bible says the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just, it means that at a point in time if somebody is a sinner, is a wicked, even though something appears to be working, it’s only for a time because it will pass onto the one for whom God wants it – the just.
In Isaiah 3: 10 – 11, the Bible says say ye to the righteous, it shall be well with thee for they shall eat the fruits of their doing. Verse 11 therefore says woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him. Now, this is the point, what determines whether you will experience or what you are going through will eventually or is an open heaven or a closed heaven is whether you are a righteous person or you are a wicked person.
Maybe those words are harsh, is whether you are on the Lord’s side or you are against Him. So if somebody is on the Lord’s side and things are not working now, brethren be of good cheer for I have overcome the world; brethren be of good cheer because it will not end that way; brethren be of good cheer because God is working out something for you. For I know the thoughts that I have towards you, thoughts of good and not of evil, to bring you to an expected end.
However if somebody is wicked and is launching new series of everything every now and then, it is only a matter of time. So what determines if you will experience an open heaven or a closed heaven is your relationship with God, is where you stand with God.
The story of Job is a classical example here; in Job 1: 7 – 12, the Bible says Job loved God, he feared God, he reverenced God and excluded evil, he shunned evil; despite this description, calamity befell him – he lost his children, he lost his business, he lost possessions, he lost everything, even the people that should support him in his time of his tribulation said he is on his own, curse God and die, praise God!
Fast forward to Job 14: 14 – 15, in the midst of it he said I will not give up, I will wait unto the Lord until my change comes. He was going through problems, they are telling him that something is wrong with you, go and die, he is saying I know my Redeemer liveth, he’s saying I know that this one will change.
Job 42: 10 – 13, the Bible says “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. He had five children before, at the end of the calamity he had ten; if he had ten thousand sheep before, he had twenty thousand, and so what does that mean? For a child of God, tribulation, challenge, difficult situation is a ladder to get up. Job started – five children, all died, but before he died, God gave him ten.
Verse 12, “So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses”; this was somebody who had lost everything . Brethren, it is not over, it does not matter what you are going through now, if you are on the Lord’s side, the heaven will open over you in the mighty name of Jesus.
Let people not call you names, let people not define you by your situation, if you are sure and sure that you are a child of God and you are walking with God, it is only a matter of time; and those who are calling you names today will not die, they will be there with their two eyes, they will see your change, they will celebrate with you, they will dance with you. It is only that when it is happening you will remind them, you thought it was over, hallelujah!
Whether you operate under an open heaven or a closed heaven, why is it linked to God? Why does it have to do with your relationship with God? I thought we could just go out and look at the open sky;
Number one, the Bible tells us that the owner of the heaven we are talking about is God. Genesis 14: 19, the Bible says He’s the possessor of heaven and earth; another translation says that He is the Creator of heaven and earth, praise the living Jesus!
Another reason is that heaven is His throne. There’s a difference, He’s the Creator, He’s the owner but heaven is His throne, it means heaven is His office, He operates from His office in heaven, higher than any other person, He sees and knows what is justifiable to be given to any other person, hallelujah!
I would like us to look at Psalm 115: 3, the Bible says “But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased”, and I add to it, and no one can question Him. Isaiah 66: 1 & 2, “Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? 2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, I will give it to the one as I look at him and say this one needs it, that is operating in His office, His throne in heaven, praise the living Jesus! Nobody can manipulate Him, that’s what that means.
Number three is that whatever is under the heaven belongs to Him and nobody can prevent Him, hallelujah! Job 41: 11, whosoever and whatsoever is under the whole heaven is Mine, nobody can lay claim to anything; if you want to experience an open heaven, you cannot do without God, hallelujah!
Now, two questions, can someone who is under a closed heaven eventually experience an open heaven? I think by now we know the answer; the other one linked to it is that can someone who is under an open heaven ever experience a close heaven? I’ll just take two examples, I heard yes and yes, so let us answer it biblically.
Mordecai and Esther, Esther 4, 8 & 10; Mordecai was a gateman, Haman had concluded how he would finish him, no hope. Esther on the other side was Mordecai’s niece, lost father, lost mother, how much can a gateman give to you? A gateman that was about to die, so both of them were operating under a bleak future but one day in Esther 4, Esther was in the palace and they are saying we want to see the king, she’s saying please hold on, let me call the king for you.
From a bleak future to a glorious future, that will be somebody’s testimony in the mighty name of Jesus.
Then talking about if somebody can move from an open heaven to a closed heaven, we all know very well Judas Iscariot, the Bible says Jesus Christ carefully selected twelve disciples; that Judas made it is an attestation to the fact that he was operating under an open heaven, but how did he die? He was a sorrowful man, he hung himself, even the money that he collected, poisoned money, he threw it away and died shamefully.
What does it mean? Judas moved from being a follower of Jesus Christ and stepped back; Esther and Mordecai, whatever it was they were doing before, they continued to do good and be attached to Jesus Christ. So if somebody is under a closed heaven will move to be operating under an open heaven, it depends on if you step on the Lord’s side; and if somebody who is already operating under an open heaven does not take care to continue to be on the Lord’s side and he steps back, God also will say bye.
Genesis 3, Adam – God would come every day, they would have fellowship in the Garden of Eden – open heaven, then one day sin came and then the heaven over him was shut. I pray for you and I pray for myself, the heaven over us will never be shut in the mighty name of Jesus.
So what must you do to activate your open heaven? The first is be on the Lord’s side; the first qualification for operating under an open heaven is to be on the Lord’s side. So for as many people who are in our midst, you are not on the Lord’s side, soon enough I will call, please don’t hesitate to come forward and step to identify with God, and from that moment your heavens will open in the mighty name of Jesus.
If you are already under open heaven, how do you sustain it, to continue to activate that open heaven? Continue to praise God, Psalm 67: 5 – 7, “Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. 6 Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. 7 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him”. They are saying it’s too much what you are doing for Him, we have never seen this before – open heaven.
Obey God’s commandments. Our Bible text, we should have read from Deuteronomy 28: 1 – 13, but let’s see 1 & 2, “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently (that is to obey) unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: (it is then and then that these blessings shall come, it is then and there that the heavens shall open) 2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.
Brethren, keep the Lord’s commandments, take the word of God, bind it to your heart, run with it forever and do what He says you should do, run away from what He says you should abstain from and you will forever operate under an open heaven.
If you ever get into sin, confess your sins unto Him and sin no more, 1st Kings 8: 35 – 40, “When heaven is shut up (that’s when there is a closed heaven), and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee; if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou afflictest them: 36 Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, that thou teach them the good way wherein they should walk, and give rain upon thy land (that’s open heaven), which thou hast given to thy people for an inheritance”.
You want to sustain your open heaven, shun sins, praise the living Jesus!
As I summarize brethren, open heaven is the best thing anyone can wish for because there is this saying, one day of favor is much better than a thousand years of labor. Those who are under a closed heaven are operating under labor, they are in labor room; but those of us by God’s grace who are under open heaven are operating under favor.
This is a word for somebody: you’ll get somewhere from tomorrow by God’s grace, they will say yes, we’ve been waiting for you; you’ll get somewhere, they’ll say yes, we have reviewed your file again, you actually qualified – open heaven.
As much as we’ll like to avoid closed heaven, not all unpleasant situations confirm that there’s a closed heaven; and also that somebody is enjoying now does not mean that he’s under open heaven.
You can imagine Job, we must therefore check our ways and ensure that we are always in right standing with God. If you are on God’s side, even if things are not looking good for now, it’s only a matter of time, your heavens will open. And if you are not on God’s sides, if everything is rosy now, it’s only for a short time, it will fly away as wind.
It doesn’t matter where the close heaven or what’s the source of your closed heaven, all you need to do is to identify with God and He will stand and fight for you. If you confess your sins today according to Matthew 11: 28, come all ye that labor and heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Some people will be saying is it true or is it not true? The story of Lazarus and the rich man, the rich man had a closed heaven, he said let me cross over, they said there is no way for you, blocked access to God, but where was Lazarus? They said he was lying under the bosom of Abraham – open heaven.
Brethren, it’s your choice, would you rather continue to suffer here on earth and also transit to continue, I invite you to be part of the open heaven this morning, if you don’t have a good relationship with God, if you are not on God’s side, please come and surrender your life.
[Altar call]
Let’s give thanks to God for the gift of life, let’s give thanks to the Almighty, let us thank Him for the promise of open heavens, let us thank Him. Father we thank You, Father we thank You for the heaven that is open over us, thank You Lord, thank You for life, thank You for everything, glory be to Your name forevermore, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Romans 8: 38 – 39, the Bible says for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. What is the import of this? When somebody is operating under an open heaven and there’s a separation from God, the open heaven becomes a closed heaven, may your open heaven never become a closed heaven in the name of Jesus.
So we’re going to pray and say Father, please don’t allow anything, any difficult time, any challenging situation, any principality, any power, anything whatsoever, don’t allow it to separate me from You, don’t allow it to separate me from Your love in the mighty name of Jesus. Thank You heavenly Father, in Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Just to be double sure we’ll take this next prayer point and say Father, please open the heavens over me and let it remain opened.
