Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1221
“Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” Psalm 81:10.
SOME have considered that our text contains an allusion to a singular custom of showing favor which has been occasionally adopted by Eastern monarchs. It is not a very long time ago that a former Shah of Persia bade an ambassador, who was in great favor with him, open his mouth, and when he had done so the monarch filled it with pearls and gems of great value which, of course, were a present to him. This certainly affords an illustration of the text, even if the passage contains no allusion to it. If we will but open the mouth of our desire, God will give to us mercies infinitely more precious than the rarest gems.
I guarantee you that if any emperor or king should bid us open our mouths that we might have them filled with diamonds, we should be very sure to extend them to their largest possible capacity and, therefore, this custom may serve as a good enforcement of the text. Open your mouth wide, for God will not fill it with secondary things, but will satisfy you with Divine mercies of exceeding preciousness. I think, however, that the illustration which we have mentioned is far fetched and I seldom like an explanation of a passage of Scripture which demands the introduction of a very rare incident. Illustrations are used in Scripture not to perplex us, but to render the teaching more clear.
We will, therefore, look to some more common act of Eastern life for the explanatory allusion. Those who have been at the tables of the Orientals know that there is another very common custom which meets the case. The host, when you are at supper, will take the fattest portions of the lamb, if that happens to be the meat, and he will apportion them to you. He may even take up the fattest and choicest morsels in his hand and, asking you to open your mouth, he will place them in it. This is a common practice of the country and lies at the bottom of many a Scriptural expression. “Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.” “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips,” and a great many other texts which I might quote, all allude to that custom.
A man greatly beloved would be asked to open his mouth wide that he might receive a very large portion of the dainties before him. I confess, however, that I am not much enamored with even this simile. I believe it to be a valuable side light, but I had rather, after all, look to Nature for an illustration than dwell upon a custom which is purely Oriental and is hardly relished by our Western delicacy. Come with me, then, to the woods, where the songsters of the grove have built their habitations. Look at the little birds in the nest, for there you have the text! They are newly hatched and unable to feed themselves and, therefore, they are wholly dependent upon the parent birds.
When I have peered into their abode, they seemed, to me, to be all mouth and beak, with but faint trace of wings! If you put out your finger, or dangle a worm near them, no feature strikes you but those gaping ravenous mouths! When the mother bird brings food she never has to ask the little ones to open their mouths wide—her only difficulty is to fill the great width which they are quite sure to present to her! Appetite and eagerness are never lacking, they are utterly insatiable. If you need my text before your eyes in living realization, only picture a nest of little birds reaching up their mouths and all opening them as wide as they can.
Instead of the poor little mother bird that has been hard at work to gather a scanty portion for one of them, you have an infinite God filling all open mouths and bidding them open again, for He is able to fill them, however many they may be, or however vast their needs! It is that great Lord of ours of whom it is written, “He shall cover you with His feathers and under His wings shall you trust,” who now speaks to us, as little birds, and says, “Open your mouths wide, for I will fill them.” That is, at any rate, a pleasing illustration of the test, even if it is not the exact idea which was in the Psalmist’s mind. The text divides itself into the exhortation and the promise.
I. The exhortation is, “OPEN YOUR MOUTH WIDE.” How are we to do this? The precept relates to prayer and desire and the like. But there is also an exhortation to labor after a great sense of need. For what makes a bird open its mouth wide but its hunger? The young ravens cry because they need food and nobody will ever open his mouth wide for spiritual blessings until he has a very deep and solemn sense of his need before God. You sinners will never pray till you know you need something—why should you? All the prayers offered by people who have no needs are so much vain complimenting of God. If you have no sense of need how can you pray?