All right, if you would return
in your Bibles to Psalm 81. Now the verse that attracted
my attention to this psalm is verse 10. I am the Lord your
God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth,
and I will fill it. The title of the message is Open
Mouths Filled. Now the words of the Lord to
us, his people, are always full of grace. The scriptures say
the law came by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace has always been God's attitude
toward his people. It's not as though we are ever, that is God's people,
as though they were ever out of his favor. They have been
in his favor since he first chose them in Christ before the foundation
of the world. Now he would not have chosen
us. He would not have put us in Christ had he not had a gracious
attitude toward us. Now, there are some who believe
a doctrine called conditional election. And what they mean
by that is that God looked down through time and saw who it was
that would believe him, and as they would put it, accept Jesus
as their savior. And based on what he foresaw
that they would do, he chose them. Well, that falls flat based
on this principle, that all of the blessings we receive come
because we were chosen in Christ. All spiritual blessings, are
they not in Christ? And therefore being chosen in
him is that action by God which gave us all those spiritual blessings. Now one of those spiritual blessings
that is given to us in Christ is that blessing of the new birth,
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. And
it's being born again of corruptible seed that enabled us to believe
the gospel and receive Christ. So now, how could God look down
through history and see that we would be believers and therefore
choose us when it was first necessary that we be born again before
we believe? And in order to be born again,
we must be blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places
in Christ, and in order for that to happen, we must be chosen.
So God's choice of us of his people preceded any knowledge
or understanding of what we would do in and of ourselves. And as
someone, one of the early preachers that I listened to in my Sovereign
Grace days, it was clear back when I was still in college,
he was talking about election according to foreseen faith.
He said, well, there was nothing to see. There was nothing to
foresee in us. If God had simply said, all right,
I'm going to look down through time as it would roll out without
my interference, and I'm going to see who would believe on me.
Well, the answer would be nobody. In fact, our Lord Jesus Christ
says, when the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?
There's only going to be one way that faith will be on the
earth in the day our Lord returns, and that is because the Holy
Spirit of God has sought out, found, regenerated, and kept
a people for God. So grace has always been God's
attitude towards his people. And we are assured by Paul that
this grace of God is presently working all things together for
the good of his people. Now we read that scripture a
lot, we say it a lot, and I'm sure we have never fully grasped
what a wonderful thing that is. For what that tells the believer
is this, no matter what is happening at this point in time in his
life, whatever it is, it is God working for his eternal good. Now, not everything that God
brings into our lives is pleasant. Quite a bit of it's unpleasant,
isn't it? Quite a bit of it's difficult. Most of the times
our prayers are taken up with telling the Lord about the troubles
that He's brought in our lives. Of course, He knows they're there,
but we bring them up before Him to show our dependence upon Him
to deliver us from those troubles. We have these troubles, and yet
we do not resist saying this, that those troubles, just as
much as anything else, is a work of God's grace in bringing us
to eternal salvation in Jesus Christ. I know that we think,
well, it just seems to me it'd be better if God did it this
way or that way. I understand that feeling. I've
often had it. I mean, it goes through the mind.
But we also realize that God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts
are not our thoughts. For as the stars or the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are God's ways and thoughts higher
than our ways and thoughts. We may not be able to see how
good is going to come from what we go through. But we don't have
to be able to see how that's going to happen. We trust Him
who brings everything to pass. We trust Him who is the director
of our lives. And we trust Him, according to
His promise, that all of it's being done for our eternal good
and welfare. God is always being gracious
to His people. God's grace can be defined as
the will and work of God to save his people. And there is nothing
that he does which is not according to that will of grace. Paul says
in the book of Ephesians chapter one, in describing God, he said,
he works all things according to the counsel of his own will. Now the ultimate will of God
is this, the glorification of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
But part and parcel of the fulfillment of the glorification of Jesus
Christ is this, the salvation, the full salvation of everyone
that Jesus Christ came to save. Jesus Christ cannot be glorified
apart from all of God's chosen people being saved. Do you realize
if one sinner, one soul for whom Christ came with the intention
of saving, if one of them is lost, The throne of the universe
is forfeited by Christ. The crown of glory is removed
from his head. And he must for eternal days
be considered a failure. For he cannot say, as he said
in John 17, of all that you have given me, I have lost none. Our Lord's glory is this, is
it not? That he did the work the Father sent him to do. And
if some he was sent to save are not saved in the end, that means
he failed to do the work that the Father sent him to do. So
God, in working this will of glorifying Jesus Christ, he's
working all things according to the counsel of that will,
and that will includes the salvation of his people. Now in this psalm,
we see several manifestations of grace. Verse three says, sound
the ram's horn at the new moon, and when the moon is full on
the day of our feast. Now, it is a great grace when
God speaks, and that's what the ram's horn generally indicated.
When they'd sound that ram's horn, it was an indication of
God speaking. Now, it sounded at various times
in the Jewish religious calendar. We see here it was sounded at
the new moon and at the full moon. It indicated the beginning
of various feasts. One of them that I find particularly
delightful is that that year of Jubilee, once every 50 years,
and I don't know that they ever observed it, but it was part
of the law given to them that they were supposed to do, once
every 50 years, they were to observe a sabbatical year. That is, for a year, they did
not work. They did not till the land. In
fact, they were supposed to do that every seven years. which
means on the 49th year, they would have been resting, and
then the 50th year comes, and they were supposed to do that
again. But there was more to the year of Jubilee than there
was to any of those sabbatical years, because the every seven-year
sabbatical year was just to give the land rest. But you know what
happened on the year of Jubilee? Well, the land was given rest,
and every Hebrew slave was set free. anyone who had lost their inheritance,
their allotment in the land, because that was important to
the Jews. Each generation passed the land
on down, and if anybody had lost their allotment in the land,
it was to be given back to them. If anybody was in debt, their
debt was cleared. Oh, what a picture of the gospel.
Because that's what we were, friends. We were slaves. We were bankrupt. We had lost
our inheritance. Through sin, through the sin
of Adam, and through our own sin, we had been deprived of
all blessings. But everything is given back
and more, just as was to the Jews in the year of Jubilee.
And to announce the beginning of that year, They would sound
that ram's horn. Now the old, I think the King
James Version says trumpet. And when we think of a trumpet,
we think of that brass instrument that is the modern trumpet. They didn't have any such thing.
Now modern trumpets can be made to sound pretty. And especially
when they put valves on them, you know, and you could play
all the notes in the scale, and they could make pretty music
with them. The ram's horn was not a melodic
instrument. It was just a noisy thing. It
sounded like a trumpet with a cold. There wasn't anything pretty
about it. And you know, that's what the gospel's like. To the
natural ear, there is nothing beautiful in the gospel, is there? Because the gospel has not one
note of glory for man in it. And so men find the gospel, that
ram's horn of God, find that gospel to be just a noisy thing. But imagine on the day, or the
beginning of the year of Jubilee, or on any of these cases when
the ram's horn was blown to indicate freedom and liberty, who do you
think thought that sound was pretty? The slave. that Hebrew slave who was toiling
away in his master's house and got nothing for it except the
bare necessities. Now, the master of the house,
he'd hear that and he'd say, well, those noisy ram's horns
again, the shofar. But that man who was out in his
field working because he was under legal bondage, he heard
that sound. Down went the hoe, and he turned
back. He got his wife, he got his kids,
and he says, come on, we're going home. And they might say, but
we don't have a home. We lost it. Oh, we got a home
now. Didn't you hear that beautiful
sound of the ram's horn? It's jubilee. But we've got all these debts
to pay. Not anymore. The trumpet has sounded. Grace in the sound of the gospel. And then there's grace in this.
Look at verse 4. This is a decree for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob. Now, the people of Israel, which
is how we most often refer to them, that group made up of the
12 tribes or the 12 families descending from Jacob. Well,
Jacob himself, was given two names. He was given a name by
birth. When he was born, he was one
of twins, and Esau came out first. So what's that mean? That means
that Esau is the firstborn, and that therefore Esau was the heir
of the household. The heir of Isaac's household.
Heir of the promises. Heir of the promises made to
Abraham, passed on down to Isaac, and now they would belong to
Esau. But you know what happened? Right after Esau came out of
his mother, here come Jacob and he came out with his hand first. And he came out and the first
thing he did was grab Esau by the heel. And so he was given a name to
indicate the heel. He's the heel grabber. Now, if
you're walking down the road and somebody is hiding along
the side in the bushes, and just as you go by, he grabs your heel,
what's going to happen? He's tripped you up. And that's
what Jacob did all of his life. He was the heel grabber. He was
the one that would trip you up and take what you have. He was the deal maker and the
deals always came out to his benefit and your loss. And in
the end, he took the birthright and the blessing from Esau. And Esau was left with nothing. Jacob is not a good name in that
regard. We use that name because we don't
think of what its meaning is anymore. and we don't give any
significance to the meaning of it anymore. But in that day,
it was given to Jacob to indicate his dishonesty. In fact, once
Jacob had taken the blessing from Esau, Esau said, was he
not rightly named Jacob? And yet, that was the name given
to this blessed people. God calls himself here in verse
four, the God of Jacob. Now he also mentions the second
name given to Jacob. Jacob spent most of his life
just going by that name, but God had blessed designs for him,
therefore God met him and they wrestled, God met him in the
form of a man and they wrestled And finally, as daybreak was
coming, God said to Jacob, let me go. And Jacob said, I won't
let you go until you bless me. Now, it looked as though Jacob
was going to win the wrestling match, but that's because God
was simply toying with him. But the time came when it was
time to do spiritual business with Jacob, and God got a hold
of Jacob in the hollow of his thigh, and I guess it was some
kind of pressure point or something like that. It was painful. And he said, let me go, and Jacob
says, I'm not going to let you go, though it pains me. Though
I'm in agony right now, I'm not gonna let you go till you bless
me. Because I must have your blessing. And God's question
to him was, what is your name? Why would God ask Jacob a question
like that? To make Jacob confess what he
was. So now he's not only hurting
in his thigh, he's hurting in his conscience. My name is Jacob.
And it's a well-earned name. For a Jacob is what I am. And God let go of me and said,
henceforth your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,
a prince, a prevailer with God. And so the Jews went on calling
themselves Israel. And so God says to them in verse
4, this is a decree for Israel, but it's an ordinance of or from
the God of Jacob. He didn't say the God of Israel.
Why? Because Israel doesn't always
act like Israel. They generally act like Jacob.
I'm so glad this is what God calls himself because I may by
faith believe that I am an Israel, an Israelite, but I actually
know that in my nature and in my conduct and in so much of
the way I think, I'm just Jacob. That's all I am. I'm just a sinner. But God calls himself the God
of Jacob, not the God of Israel, at least in this psalm. And so
there's grace in the way he speaks to them. He says it's a decree
for Israel, but it's an ordinance of the God of Jacob. In verse 6, we see more grace. He says, I removed the burden
from their shoulders. Their hands were set free from
the basket. speaking there of God's deliverance
of the household of Jacob out of the land of bondage in Egypt.
He removed the burden from their shoulders, from the basket, that
word just simply means a container in which you carry things, and
what they were under such a, they had to make bricks, and
they had to carry the bricks to where they were supposed to
be used, They were being used just like beasts of burden. And
he said, I removed that burden from their shoulders. And then
in verse seven, he talks more in terms of grace. He says, in
your distress, you called and I rescued you. I rescued you. I like the word rescue because
it indicates someone not in need of help. Rescuing is not helping. Rescuing is delivering someone
from a trouble from which they could do nothing to deliver themselves. That's a rescue. Now if you're
down kind of in a hole and you're trying to climb up the sides
of it and it's a little bit steep and you can't quite get up to
the top and you might say could you give me a hand and so you
reach down there and that person takes a big run and he gets almost
to the top and you're able to grab his hand and help him up
the rest a little bit. Well that's help but that's not
a rescue. A rescue would be a man down
in a pit like that but also he's unconscious. He can't do anything. And someone
goes down into that pit and fully by his own strength and power
and abilities brings him out. Now he said, I rescued you. Those
Jews could not get themselves out of Egypt. They could not
throw off the yoke of Pharaoh. But the Lord Jesus Christ could. God could. In your distress you called.
and I rescued you. And he said, I answered you out
of the thundercloud. Most commentators believe that
the reference there is to the pillar of fire by night and the
pillar of cloud by day. But when they came to the Red
Sea, God revealed himself as both. He was a pillar of fire
toward the Israelites. a source of light so that they
might see their way across the Red Sea there that he had opened
up for them. But it was a pillar of cloud toward the Egyptians
that were chasing them, a frightening, thundering, roiling cloud that
made them stay back until all the people had gone across. I
rescued, I answered, and then he says, I tested. And we don't
like to think of testing in terms of grace, but that's exactly
what it was. And he says, I tested you at the waters of Meribah.
And this, the Jews had gotten thirsty. And they'd gotten so
thirsty, they began to grumble. They grumbled against Moses.
And they said to Moses, why'd you bring us out here in this
desert to die of thirst? It doesn't make any sense. What
kind of salvation is this? Yes, we're out of Egypt, but
now we're in the wilderness and got no water. What kind of Savior
are you? God tested them. Why? Well, for
one thing, to show them what they were. That despite all that
God did for them, they were still the same kind of people that
they were in Egypt. They were a grumbling, complaining
people. And does that not picture us quite often? Look at how much
we've been given by God. He has delivered us out of the
house of bondage. He has redeemed us and brought
us safe through the Red Sea and delivered us from the army that
would destroy us. And yet we find it so easy to
complain of His providence, least little trouble, and we
begin to have Thoughts that are less than believing
thoughts. But God tests us, and it does
two things. It reminds us of our own helplessness. Left to ourselves, we are as
lost as we ever were. But then he tested them, and
they proved what kind of people they were once again, and yet
that did not keep God from providing them with water, because he told
Moses, you take your rod, the very same rod that you used when
you divided the Red Sea, that rod of salvation, that rod that
pictured God's sovereign salvation, And you take that and you go
to such and such a rock, you take the elders with you, and
in their presence you strike that rock with that rod. And
he did, and water came out that supplied the need of all of the
house of Jacob. So what did the test do? And
this is so good when God proves this to us. The testing proves
to us we are still what we were. Helpless, needy people. And it also proves to us once
again, our God provides for us in the very face of our helplessness
and neediness. And then in verse eight, he says
this, Here, O my people, and I will warn you, if you would
but listen to me, O Israel. We don't like warnings. And the
reason we don't like warnings is they are given to us to stop
us from doing what we naturally want to do. God warns us when
we are heading down a path that will bring us, well, it won't
bring us good, it'll bring us evil. And he warns us against
it. And we don't like the warning
because we just want to go our own way. But he says, I warn you. And
what a grace of God to warn us and not just leave us to ourselves.
And then he says this, and I love the kindness and patience of
God shown in this. He says, if you would just listen
to me, O Israel, It is written in all their distresses, he,
that is God, was distressed. In all the troubles that Israel
brought on themselves, even those troubles which God sent them
in discipline for their sin, yet in all of their troubles,
he too was troubled. We do not have a high priest
who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,
but was tried on every point just like we are. Verse nine, you shall have no
foreign God among you. You shall not bow down to an
alien God. I am the Lord your God who brought
you out of Egypt. It's interesting when he said,
if you will but listen to me, he did not then give them a long
list of things that they had to do in order to have a blessed
life. He really just set one thing
before them. Worship me and only me. That's all. That's it. And it comes to us in the gospel
this way, trust Christ and only Christ. Come to God through Christ
and only through Christ. Have no other way before you.
There are people that will do that. They'll say, oh yes, I'm
a Christian, I believe Christ. But they're also, and probably
secretly because they know it wouldn't be approved of by real
Christians, they're also doing a little bit of works here, a
little something there, something going on in their hearts. They
have another God, another Savior in their hearts. No wonder they're
miserable. And the Lord says to such as
claim to be of the house of Israel and yet worship these foreign
gods in their hearts. He said, if you'd just listen
to me, just listen. Now, the last part of verse 10,
he says, I am the Lord, I mean, open wide your mouth and I will
fill it. Now to whom is this promise given? Here is a promise of everything
that is needed. The mouth is the organ by which
we take in what we need to sustain life. And God says, you open
it wide, I will fill it. I will give you what you need.
I will bless you to the full. Now to whom is this promise made?
Well it's made to those who have, as it says in the first part
of verse 10, I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of
Egypt. Now that is a picture of salvation from law, sin, and
death. Salvation from the house of bondage.
Those who are yet in bondage to their own works, in bondage
to the law, still trying to gain blessing from God by the works
of their own hands, this promise is not for them. You know, it's
something folks who have never truly trusted Christ, folks who
have no interest in God, until something bad happens, they have
some reversal in life, and suddenly they begin to pray to God about
healing, you know, I'm sick, God, would you heal me? I'm poor,
would you give me some money? I'm homeless, would you give
me a house? And they start praying for all these things, and they
have never sought the Lord for that most serious blessing, the
initial thing we need from Him, and that's deliverance from our
sins. There's no use seeking any other blessing from God until
you've gotten that one. That would be like the Jews saying,
God, I'm perfectly content to stay right here in Egypt as a
slave as long as you make sure the pantry's full. Lord, I don't mind living in
Egypt and having to live according to Egypt's way so long as you
give me a house to live in and food to eat. No, these other blessings, they
all are given to those who've already been delivered from the
house of bondage. If you are yet under bondage,
there is only one thing you should be asking for, deliverance from
that bondage. If you are yet in your hearts
under that system that says, do this and you will have eternal
life, perform this ritual, act this sort of morality, perform
this ceremony, go to this show, whatever it is, if you're still
under that system, then there is nothing for you until you
have been delivered from that. Now, you say, well, then what
should I do? Well, up here, It says that they
cried out, these people, when they were in Egypt, they cried
out and the Lord delivered them. He says in verse seven, in your
distress, you called. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord, says the scriptures, shall be saved. Now there are
people in distress who never call. What a sad thing that is. In
their distress, they just try to work harder. In their distress,
they just try to find relief from the emotional aspects of
that distress. Some find some relief in some
of the pop psychology that goes around that says, oh, I know
you do some wrong things, but that's okay, because everybody
does stuff that's wrong. And you know something, if a
person can be satisfied with regard to his sin, if his conscience
can be appeased by such psychobabble as that, then they will never
find God's salvation. But if in our distress we call
upon the name of the Lord, we will find and receive and experience
his deliverance. And as such as that, he says,
open wide your mouth and I will fill it. Now a couple of years
ago, our grandson Carter, Mary's oldest boy, he was with his aunt. Mary was
still working, and so while she was working, Mary's, huh, Christy,
yes Christy's her name, she is Mary's sister-in-law, and she
would provide daycare for Carter. And she had some cake or something,
I can't remember what it was, but she says, do you want some?
And you know, he's about two, two and a half at this point.
And he just stood there and he put his head back and he opened
his mouth as wide as he could open his mouth. And when she
saw that, she quick took a picture of it. And then I saw it, you
know, so I took it and kind of made a poster out of it and put
this text of scripture there. Open wide your mouth and I will
fill it. But I love what that picture
communicated, because I think that that's something of what's
being communicated here. That little fella, when his aunt
told him, open your mouth, he did so without hesitation. What
was that a picture of? Trust. Trust. He opened his mouth, and when
he did, he opened it so big his eyes were shut, as I recall. What trust? You open your mouth
wide. You don't want stuff in your mouth that tastes bad. You
don't want stuff in your mouth that's gonna kill you. But he
had no worry about it. What is it he calls her? It begins
with a T. Oh well, I can't think of what
it was, but Christie's her name, but he calls her something else.
But he trusts her. And so he just threw back his
head and opened his mouth wide for her to put whatever in there. Oh, that we had such confidence
in our God. We should have much more confidence
in our God. Will we open our mouths wide
to Him and then Him put something in there awful? Will He fill it with something
bad for us? Oh, we can open our mouths wide
in complete trust. Open our mouths wide, that's
receptive. It means acknowledging our need. A little picture of Carter, he
had no cake of his own. He couldn't put cake in his mouth,
but he knew someone who could. And so he just did the one thing
he could do, open his mouth to receive. In opening the mouth,
one thing it proved was that the mouth was otherwise empty. It says, open wide your mouth
and I will fill it. You know, here's the problem.
Most of us, our mouths are already full. And even if we opened it,
there's no room for God to put anything else in there. We have
filled it up with all of our own agenda, we've filled it up
with our own righteousness, we've filled it up with our own blessings
and our own thoughts and all of that, and the first thing
God would have to do if He was going to give us anything is
turn us upside down and empty our mouths out. Oh, for an empty mouth. Blessed
are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. And one
thing about hungry people, you can be sure they have an empty
mouth. Because if they didn't, they'd be chewing and swallowing,
and their hunger would be over. Open wide your mouth. I like
this, he says, open it wide. What's that tell us about God?
Well, it's telling us that He plans on pouring out a tremendous
amount of blessing. He's not feeding us through a
straw. He's not giving us little nibbles. He says, open your mouth
wide because what I've got to give you is big. Open your mouth wide, that is
an act of submission. Ready to receive whatever it
is God intends to put in there. Open your mouth wide. And then he says, and I will
fill it. Our Lord said, did not say open
your mouth wide and I'll give you a little nibble. Every time
I eat something, my dog is right there pestering me for some of
it. And it's my fault because long
ago I used to give him some, so now he expects it all the
time. So what do I do? Well, my sister here, she likes
graham crackers, so I've been eating a lot of graham crackers
too. And he comes up and I'm eating those graham crackers.
Do you think I give him a lot of it? No, I break off a little
corner of one of those and give it to him so he'll be occupied
long enough I can take a bite. I give him just enough to make
him quit pestering me. God says, I'll fill it. I'll
fill it. Now, what does it mean to fill
the mouth? Well, certainly it does not mean that I will fill
it to the brim. Why? Well, that wouldn't be good for
us either. You gotta have some room to chew. To fill your mouth
with food simply means to be given that which is good for
us. To be given plenty, but not so
much that it makes us choke. Open your mouth and I will fill
it. I will fill it with good things in good amount. Now, we
probably would see things differently than God about what constitutes
a good thing or what constitutes a good amount. I don't know about
you, but I think ice cream is a good thing, and I think a good
amount is a whole lot of it. I go, you know, when I go to
the store and buy ice cream, which is kind of a rare thing,
but you know, I usually buy one of those, I don't know whether
it's a pint or a quart, I don't know what it is, but it's a small
container. You know why? Because I know
when I get home, I'm going to keep eating until it's empty.
And if I bought a big container, I'd probably make myself sick. Yes, ice cream tastes good, but
there's limits to how much of it can be good for you. And even
in those blessings that come from God, God knows what is the
good blessing and what is the good amount of it. God also has
good recipes. You know, good food is not usually
made of one thing. A good meal, generally speaking,
has multiple things, and even as it's being cooked, there may
be spices and stuff added to it. It's a nice complex taste
and aroma to make it good. And God blends all the things
of providence together to give us that which is truly delightful. Now some of the things that we
eat, or some of the things we put in our recipes, if you were
to take them by themselves, they wouldn't taste very good. You
know, virtually everything that I really, really like starts
with flour, because I like bread and I like cake, and I like toast,
I like all those things. But have you ever just taken
a spoonful of flour and eaten it? It's just really not a pleasant
experience. And what about all those spices?
There's a lot of spices. If you were to just stick out
your tongue and put some on there, you'd go, yeah. But in right
measure, they make for a tasty meal. Most people like cinnamon. Try eating a teaspoonful of it. I've been told it can't be done. and I'm not gonna test it. I
know though that I like a certain amount of cinnamon. All I'm pointing
out is when the Lord says he'll fill it, he's gonna fill it with
the right things in the right proportion and the right amount.
To make that spiritual food for us, it is necessary to sustain
us, to keep us. Open wide your mouth. Open wide
your mouth in faith. Open wide your mouth with a receptive
attitude. Open wide an empty mouth. Open
your mouth in submission to the provision of God. And God says,
I will fill it. Verse 13. If my people would
but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways. I like it that
he says, if Israel would follow my ways. You know why I think
he put it that way? Because Jacob always follows
God's ways. He who is broken in heart, knows
he's a sinner, knows his name is Jacob, he follows God. But
there are so many who get so full of this name Israel, who
think of themselves, I'm a Christian. I'm one of those that prevail
with God, I'm a prince with God. And they take that glorious name
to themselves and think that that means they're a glorious
person. And they tend to be rebels. But he who is a Jacob at heart,
who knows what kind of person he is, he'll follow, he'll listen. If my people would but listen
to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I
subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes? What lesson is there in this
for us then? Let us learn to rejoice that God calls us
Israel. But let us always confess before
him that we are Jacob. And let us Jacobs open our mouths
wide that the Lord may fill it. For
he has said to the house of Jacob, to those who've been delivered
from the bondage of the law of sin and death, who have turned
their hearts toward God, he has said to them in promise, open
wide your mouth, I will fill it.