From the out-of-print book Too Much: The Filled to Overflowing Experience by William Booth-Clibborn. Used by permission.
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Too Much: The Filled to Overflowing Experience1. Life in Abundance
"I have come that they may have Life, and may have it in abundance." John 10:10 -- Weymouth's Translation.
Christ in this text was speaking of another life, a greater
even spiritual life, but there is so much to natural life which illustrates the
larger spiritual, that the first serves as a picture of the second -- "Howbeit
that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and
afterward that which is spiritual." I Cor. 15:46. So in Paul's order we
shall consider them both.
The Value of Natural Life
Notice how highly men esteem life. Recall tragic disasters, such as the sinking
of a liner, a destructive earthquake, a devastating tornado, a hurricane and
tidal wave combined, or some serious public calamity, like the breaking of a
dam, a fearful fire -- and visualize thousands struggling to the last to retain
life, ready to surrender all they possess so as to cling to it. Walk with me
through the wards of any large private hospital and I can point to wealthy men
and women thinking nothing of pouring out tens of thousands of dollars to
effect a cure in order to prolong their lives. Satan sometimes speaks the
truth, "Yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life" Job 2:4. God did
not deny this statement.
Life is inestimably precious. That is why self-preservation is our strongest
instinct. We are here but once and among the teeming millions of the human race
there never has been a perfect double. No person was ever born in your mold.
Your parentage, characteristics, your face and form are original and there
never has been nor ever will be a duplicate of them. This is apparent in the
lower creation. Every blade of grass, every leaf and flower has its individual
shape and design. It is easy to understand then why all natural life is so
highly prized by animals as well as man since it is so diverse, so distinctive
and original. All creation is filled with life's struggle for existence. Once
forfeited life can never be restored. How much greater, therefore, should be
the value placed by us on that eternal life which is the Gift of God. All
things we possess should be utterly contemned in comparison to its acquisition.
Besides, should not all our powers be engaged in procuring its more abundant
quality. With what zeal we should appreciate and encourage whatever divine life
is manifest about us. How quick we should be to commend it, how eager to
protect the least spark and fan it to flame. But remember Jesus came not only
to give us life -- He came to give us life in abundance and this is the
truth that must grip your soul. I hope you shall never rest till you are able
to enjoy that particular full measure of life Christ died to give you... For
here is the secret of happy and victorious Christianity in these darkening days of spiritual declension.
The Wisdom of the World
It is the abounding physical life of youth the world glories in most. What
adoration it evokes from the writer, the artist, and the sculptor. How they
delight in portraying the perfections of beauty and strength at the zenith of
their powers. Death, disease and dotage may awaken interest and sympathy, but
never admiration. The decline and decay of age is a travesty, a contradiction
of life. There, life becomes a cost instead of a contribution, a debit instead
of a credit! It is the supple body, the robust physique, the elastic step of
the athlete that expresses life in its most generous and bountiful physical
aspect.
It rightly receives the adulation and devotion of all. There is a fascination
about the race that tempts you to strip and run too. When I see a lot of lads
kicking a football about a field I have all I can do to keep out of the thick
of it. Notice this -- that natural life is always at its best when it shows
a surplus of energy, a prodigality of strength or skill. Is it any wonder
that the philosophers wearied themselves to find that fabled fountain of youth?
Can you marvel that the resources of science are at work night and day on the
hypothesis that life may be extended without limit? That is why the physical
culturists are joining in the hue and cry for longevity. Natural life is all
that this world has and it is out to make the most of it. Can you blame
them? No! Our Lord said rightly, "... the children of this world are in their
generation (sphere) wiser than the sons of Light" Lu. 16:8. Weymouth
renders it, "... the men of this world are shrewder than the sons of Light." It
is a fact that the world glorifies and esteems the exuberant, lavish vigor of
healthy youth above all other expressions of life, whereas Christendom
invariably honors and extols a hundred forms of professional Christianity,
decadent, dull and dead.
The complicated ceremonialism of a long defunct faith is thought more of than
the marvelous scenes of a Welsh revival. The more stylish, stilted and
stereotyped the service, the greater the approval and impression. That is why a thousand churches sink into lifeless formalism. The most spiritual and
promising revivals die down and are finally 'capped' and their stifled flow
turned into the regular channels of organized religion without protest.
Spiritual life is placed in Paris plaster and divine energy made to perish
serving our monotonous church machinery. Whereas, the world wisely puts the
emphasis where it should be on natural life in its prime, most of the children
of God do the reverse, they are too easily satisfied and soon cease to strive
for the expression of the fullest measure of that more abundant life Christ
came to give us. This is why the best reformations, the most virile revival
movements have always been fought and persecuted in the days of their greatest
promise and power. A little life hates much life because its very
reckless extravagance, its excessive liberality is a continual rebuke and
challenge to the penury, the miserliness of spiritual senility. "Too much" life
can afford to be prodigal, whereas "just enough" can not! It has no reserve to
fall back on, no surplus to support it.
Life at a Standstill
Large bodies of believers remain totally blinded to their crying need of
awakening and revival because they are conscious of a little life in
their worship. Christians in groups of large congregations can be so easily
misled as to their true condition because in the aggregate -- in the large
number meeting together -- there is bound to be some genuine spiritual life
manifested. So it comes to pass that very often the churches that have least
life, that are really decrepit, half hearted and worldly, are taken to be
representative of true Christianity and held forth as models. What little life
is present is made the excuse for not obtaining the "life more abundant," and
instead of their seeking a fuller blessing, a rejuvenation, a pentecostal
visitation, they sit in self-complacency, immobile and sterile.
What is true of Christians collectively, is certainly true of each one
individually. Too often that limited life a Christian has acquired is played
against his necessity of securing more! Why, I have seen them indignant at the
suggestion that they stood in need of the overflowing life. They were
immediately on the defensive and strongly resented preaching that rooted them
up and faced them squarely with their lack and dire spiritual destitution.
Instead of being thankful that someone was taking pains to arouse them, they
walked off insulted! If the truth were known whatever degree of life they once
enjoyed in Christ had long ago petered out; and since they have not sought a
new lease, a fresh chrism of power, they have but a vestige of it left and just
manage to survive. Multitudes, more honest, cease to make any pretense or
profession whatever and fall away to the ways and walk of the world.
Now the very reason why tens of thousands have failed to see their need of the
Baptism of the Holy Spirit is that they pit their past Christian experience
against the promise and prospect of a greater one. If you are that kind you
remind me of the man who refuses to sell his old car and turn it in on a new
one when offered an astounding bargain. He thinks that with a touch of paint
and a tinker or two, the old bus will run a long while yet, forgetting that it
is continually depreciating in value. This scripture should be shouted aloud to
such as you, "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have MORE ABUNDANCE: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even
that he hath" Matt. 13:12. There is the problem in a nutshell! Shut
yourself up in self-sufficiency, declare your experience adequate and you will
begin to decline from that moment.
Backsliding starts generally in the church pew when a soul refuses to seek God
afresh, when it deceives itself into thinking it need no longer "hunger and
thirst after righteousness." Perpetual hunger is a sign of normal health as
well in natural as in spiritual life. We stand in constant danger of losing
what we have received if we fail to press on until we attain the MORE
ABUNDANCE. It is a law of nature also, that nothing is truly at a standstill
for if we do not advance we really retrograde. The Spirit-filled Christian also
better take heed and go on from abundance to abundance, for he may not lean on
his past blessings and anointings or spiritual attainments without seriously
retarding his progress.
Mere Existence
Things spiritual are not so easily discerned as things natural. That is why it
is with difficulty we recognize the multitudes of Christians who are half alive
about us, whereas, in regards to natural life we easily perceive such as are
sickly and therefore do not enjoy life to the full. So many children at a
delicate age have survived a violent malady that has atrophied their
development and stunted their growth. They are dead weights on their loved
ones, unable to take their normal place in life and shift for themselves.
Various diseases and plagues ravage the human race and in their wake leave a
lot of wreckage. Deformity and hereditary weaknesses also add to the number of
derelicts that manage nevertheless to keep afloat. They are physically alive
and yet as good as dead. Many of them would greatly prefer death to such
a tame and tiresome existence.
Old age takes its toll also, it bows down the strongest and depresses and
conquers the happiest spirit. Emaciated and broken, how miserable it must be to
be led by the hand, to hardly have strength left to drag one foot after
another. Others seem born with an incurable melancholia, inert in disposition,
the thought of the least endeavor fills them with fear and apprehension. They
are a burden to themselves and to all those about them. Still another sort who
are only half alive are the bloodless, the anaemlc. Any exertion exhausts them,
life is one prolonged effort for which they have no stamina, no reserve
strength. Insipid of face, flabby of muscle or bloated with fat, they present a
pitiful sight. These dispeptics are morbid, quarrelsome, become diet devotees
and eat herbs. All such represent life at its low ebb. But is this really
living? Is this what life was originally intended to be? No! A thousand times,
No! It is mere existence! Such are cheated out of the best in life. For them it
is not complete, not well rounded nor satisfying. They alone know the acute
suffering that such keen disappointment and deprivation causes, it exasperates
and irritates them. It writes itself into the deep lines of their faces.
But, it might be objected, it is the entrance of sin into the world that has
brought all this about. True, and it is the evil influences of the powers of
darkness that are continually depriving the majority of Christians of the
satisfying life abundant that Christ promises. For let us remember that every
type we have described has its counterpart in spiritual life. We have
spiritually deformed and atrophied Christians needing constant care and
kindness and every degree and sort of sick saint to deal with. We have them
underfed and ill-fed, dispeptics and fadists, unsteady and unstable. We have
delicate hot-house plants that can not stand any opposition or persecution. We
have those whose varied ailments and complaints are chronic. They seek comfort,
flounder about and go from one leaning post to another, incurably relying on
props and crutches.
So Many "Hospital" Cases
The bloodless anaemic believer can not cope with the onslaught of Satan and
sin, he is forever downed and needs to be resuscitated and nursed. The malborn
child of God who inherits queer and questionable viewpoints and ideas from his
mother-church, who in her turn had hardly strength enough to launch her
spiritual child into the Kingdom, must be continually coddled, namby-pambied,
tucked in bed and spoon fed. He has no spiritual hearth or happiness for his
heritage. Like a hand-hatched chicken he cannot stand on his own legs. What an
ordeal Christian life must be for all such. What an effort it must be for them
to testify or work for God at all. If they speak of their experiences, it is an
endless repetition of trials and troubles. What do they know of vibrant,
jubilant faith? Of welling, rapturous joy? If they ever felt it, if ever
experienced, it was temporary and now but a memory. Legions of Christians are
'hospital cases', and indeed like patients must be humored and petted, have
their temperatures taken and be waited on hand and foot!
We may divide present-day Christians into two main classes: The first are in
the majority and consist of those who have just enough life to keep their noses
above the waters of sin. With what struggling and fighting and panting do they
succeed! What a commotion they make! They splash and plunge about. They are
always in a state of exhaustion. But, thank God, there is another class. The
second consists of those who have such an abundance of divine strength that
they not only keep afloat, never in the danger of sinking, but valiantly swim
the waters of sin with buoyant delight, and expend their extra, their "too
much" life, saving others and pulling them out of its waters.
Now, except we get God's "too much," we will be useless. It is only as we
overflow with the life and glory of Christ, that we may be able to bless those
about us and convince the world of the reality of the Christian religion.
Who saves his life, Or cross doth shun,
Loses a hundred, holding
one;
And he who fain his life would spare
Keeps from the multitudes their
share.
Oh, who can hear starvation's cry
And still refuse in love to die!
Thus dying daily do we live;
Thus, poor, we richest gifts do give;
Thus,
having nothing, we have all;
And being down we fear no fall.
When from
their works our souls do cease
God is our rest, and power, and peace.
Love knows not how to grasp or hoard
'Tis faith that ever spreads it's
board
From sharing all it never quails,
And hence it's barrel never
fails.
Love ever gives it's life and dies,
In richer harvests to arise.
-- Arthur S. Booth-Clibborn.
  
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