The Wide Opened Mouth Filled
Introduction
When God speaks, He speaks with authority and love, offering us promises that are both inviting and powerful. In Psalm 81:10, we find one of the most encouraging invitations in Scripture: "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." These words are not just a command, but a heartfelt promise from the Creator Himself. They call us to prayer, to ask for what we need, and to trust that He will provide.
Over the last several weeks my wife and I have witnessed this promise played out in nature with a family of finches. The mother and father built a nest in the corner of our front porch and after a couple weeks of sitting on the eggs five little chicks hatched. Instinctively they opened their mouths wide trusting they would be fed whenever one of the parents returned to the nest. Over the course of 2 ½ weeks the chicks remained in the nest and grew rapidly until they began the fledging phase, jumping out of the cramped nest and taking refuge in shrubbery, while still depending on their parents for food. Finally after nearly three weeks they become independent and able to care for themselves.
In this post, we’ll look at a summary of a Charles Spurgeon sermon to explore the three significant components of this verse: the command, the promise, and the encouragement. May you be blessed by the depth of God’s beautiful invitation and discover spiritual truths that can transform your heart and your prayers. Amen.
Finch Images by Larry Ricksen
Summary and Excerpts of Charles Spurgeon’s Sermon
”The Wide Opened Mouth Filled”
Psalm 81:10— “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”
Brethren, this is one of the most inviting promises in all of Scripture. God does not merely permit prayer — He urges it.
The text has three parts:
A command — “Open thy mouth wide.”
A promise — “I will fill it.”
An encouragement — “I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt.”
I. The Command: “Open Thy Mouth Wide”
What does it mean to open the mouth wide?
Spurgeon gives the following illustration in his sermon:
“One springtime I discovered a bird’s nest, in which there were a number of little birds. They were not fledged enough to fly, and their judgments were not well developed, and therefore they mistook me for their mother or father. I would not touch them, but I held my fingers over them, and they opened their mouths wide—nay, the little creatures seemed to me as if they were all mouth. I could not see any other part of their bodies, all seemed lost in one great vacuum.
If you have ever seen the mother bird come to the nest with a worm in its mouth, you have noticed that in an instant, all her little ones are up, and eager to swallow that worm. She can only fill the mouth of one, and she can scarcely do that, for no sooner has it swallowed what she gives it than it begins to gape again, so the parent birds have to keep flying very fast all day long, collecting food for their family, but however many times they come, they never have to use the exhortation of our text.
The little birds in their nests are far more sensible than we are. When God hovers over us with His wide spread wings, and covers us with His warm feathers, He has need to say to each one of us, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it,” but the little birds take good care, without any teaching, to open their mouths wide, that their mothers may fill them.”
Yet God must say this to us. The birds do it naturally. We must be taught.
FIRST, opening the mouth wide requires a deep sense of need.
We pray little because we feel little need. But a Christian who understands himself knows he is, as one man said, “a bag of wants.” Our weakness, our temptations, our ignorance, our cold hearts — all cry out for divine help.
Pride shuts the mouth in prayer.
Self-confidence starves the soul.
The man who thinks he is strong will not cry for strength. But the one who feels his poverty prays instinctively. True prayer is simply the soul confessing, “I cannot live without God.”
SECOND, opening the mouth wide means vehement desire.
The psalmist David wrote, “I opened my mouth and panted.” We must learn to desire spiritual blessing intensely — not casually.
Our Lord said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
Cold prayers ask politely. Living prayers wrestle like Jacob and say, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”
THIRD, opening the mouth wide means greater capacity.
God gives large blessings to those prepared to receive them. A small vessel can hold only little mercy — not because God is small, but because we are. Sometimes God delays blessing not to deny us, but to enlarge us. Trials, disappointments, and waiting often stretch the soul so that it can receive God’s greater blessing.
FOURTH, it means asking great things.
Many Christians go to God for trifles — only earthly comfort or small mercies. But God delights in giving meaningful spiritual blessings: holiness, love, joy, usefulness, knowledge of Christ.
Ask to know Christ better.
Ask for God’s help to overcome sin.
Ask for usefulness in His kingdom.
Ask for a heart filled with His love.
You are more certain to receive when you ask great spiritual things than when you ask small earthly things.
AND FINALLY, it means attempting great things for God.
Do not only ask — serve. Speak the gospel. Carry Christ into places where He is not known. The world is not too large for God to bless others through His people.
II. The Promise: “I will fill It”
What a promise! Not “I may,” but “I will.”
God does not mock our prayers. He does not invite us to ask in order to refuse us. When He tells us to open our mouth, He already has the blessing prepared.
He fills us in many ways.
Sometimes He fills our mouths with prayer itself. You have gone to pray and found no words — only groaning. Yet afterward you realized you never prayed more truly. God Himself supplied the prayer.
Sometimes He fills our mouths with His Word. The preacher who seeks God in private will find God opening his mouth in public.
He fills our mouths with spiritual blessings — grace to endure trial, strength against temptation, patience in suffering, love toward others.
He fills our mouths with joy — that deep peace Christ gives which the world cannot give or take away.
He fills our mouths with praise — so that we cannot help but speak well of Him.
And best of all, God satisfies. Earthly things never do. But Christ gives living water: the soul drinks, and a fountain springs up within.
“The stream of mercy seems to run right over some men because there is no place for it to run in, it runs into others in driblets because there is only a little hole into which it can drip, but when the mouth is opened wide to receive the blessing of the Lord, how capacious it is!” (Spurgeon)
III. The Encouragement: “I Am the LORD Thy God”
Why should we expect such answers?
Because of who speaks, and the promises made.
“I am the Lord; that is my name!” (Isaiah 42:8). We are asking not a poor friend, but the infinite God. Our requests can never exceed His power or His generosity.
“I am the LORD your God. (Exodus 20:2). He has given Himself to us. If God is ours, what blessing could be too great to request?
Paul, commissioned by God, argues this way: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)
Further Paul adds: “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20). God’s generosity exceeds our imagination.
Jesus promises answers: “ Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7-11). This promise is made by Jesus who gave up his life to redeem us.
Finally at the Last Supper Jesus tells His disciples: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7)
If God has saved you from sin, justified you, and given you eternal life, will He refuse you grace for daily living? The greater gift guarantees the lesser ones. He who parted the Red Sea and raised Jesus from the dead can certainly guide you through tomorrow.
The deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was by blood. The paschal lamb was slain, and its blood was sprinkled upon the houses of the Israelites, but you have not been redeemed with the blood of earthly lambs, “but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Can it be possible, after such redemption, that anything that is needed to bring you into the promised land, and to enrich you with all temporal and spiritual blessings, should ever be withheld from you? (Spurgeon)
Conclusion
Therefore, Christian, open your mouth wide.
Ask much of God.
Expect much from God.
Attempt much for God.
Do not come to Him with timid requests and unbelieving hearts. You are coming to your Father, your Redeemer, your covenant God.
Go to the mercy seat with a wide-open mouth in prayer and praise — and go to the world with a wide-open mouth also, declaring His gospel.
For the Lord still promises to His people today:
“Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”
Amen.