Psalm 81:10 I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt: open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. I. THE EXHORTATION. 1. Labour after a great sense of need. You are weakness itself, and emptiness itself, and a mass of sin and misery, apart from God your Father, and Christ your Redeemer, and the Spirit the indweller; and when you know this, then you will open your mouth wide. 2. Seek after an intense and vehement desire. "He that prays to God without fervour asks to be denied." 3. Ask for large things, remembering the greatness and goodness of God, and the great pleas you have to urge when you come before Him. 4. Ask for enlarged capacities. If we had more room for the Lord's gifts, we should receive more. II. THE PROMISE. "I will fill it." You might expect such a promise as that. You could not think it possible for the Lord to say, "Open your mouths for nothing." It would not be according to His usual way of procedure. He does not set His servants praying and then say somewhere behind their backs, "they shall seek My face in vain." Tantalus belongs to the heathen mythology, not to the Christian's experience. "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." 1. It is a promise only made to those who do open their mouths wide. 2. It is a promise given by One who can fulfil it, and will. How? (1) With prayers. (2) With the actual blessings. (3) With praises. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. |