Once I heard a beautiful prayer which I can never forget; it was this: 'Lord, take my lips, and speak through them; take my mind, and think through it; take my heart, and set it on fire.' And this is the way the Master keeps the lips of His servants, by so filling their hearts with His love that the outflow cannot be unloving, by so filling their thoughts that the utterance cannot be un-Christ-like. There must be filling before there _can_ be pouring out; and if there is filling, there _must_ be pouring out, for He hath said, 'Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.'
But I think we should look for something more direct and definite than this. We are not all called to be the King's ambassadors, but _all_ who have heard the messages of salvation for themselves are called to be 'the Lord's messengers,' and day by day, as He gives us opportunity, we are to deliver 'the Lord's message unto the people.' That message, as committed to Haggai, was, 'I am with you, saith the Lord.' Is there not work enough for any lifetime in unfolding and distributing that one message to His own people? Then, for those who are still far off, we have that equally full message from our Lord to give out, which He has condensed for us into the one word, 'Come!'
It is a specially sweet part of His dealings with His messengers that He always gives us the message for ourselves first. It is what He has first told us in darkness--that is, in the secrecy of our own rooms, or at least of our own hearts--that He bids us speak in light. And so the more we sit at His feet and watch to see what He has to say to ourselves, the more we shall have to tell to others. He does not send us out with sealed despatches, which we know nothing about, and with which we have no concern.
There seems a seven-fold sequence in His filling the lips of His messengers. First, they must be purified. The live coal from off the altar must be laid upon them, and He must say, 'Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged.' Then He will create the fruit of them, and this seems to be the great message of peace, 'Peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him' (see Isa. lvii. 19). Then comes the prayer, 'O Lord, open Thou my lips,' and its sure fulfilment. For then come in the promises, 'Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth,' and, 'They shall withal be fitted in thy lips.' Then, of course, 'the lips of the righteous feed many,' for the food is the Lord's own giving. Everything leads up to praise, and so we come next to 'My mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips, when I remember Thee.' And lest we should fancy that '_when_' rather implies that it is not, or cannot be, exactly _always_, we find that the meditation of Jesus throws this added light upon it, 'By _Him_, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God _continually_, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to' (margin, confessing) 'His name.'