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 ExperienceAbout the author (by Peter Wade)
William E. Booth-Clibborn was a powerful evangelist from a powerful Christian family. He was a son of the famed Marechael of France (Booth's eldest daughter, who pioneered the Salvation Army work in France as a teenager -- her exciting life story is still in print) and grandson and namesake of General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. His mother Catherine married Arthur Clibborn, and at the General's insistence, changed their name by deed poll to Booth-Clibborn.
So successful was their work in France, that General Booth instructed them to return to London to help him there, but they decided to remain in Europe and won thousands to Christ in Switzerland and other countries.
William Booth-Clibborn, one of their many children, was converted at the age of 12 and then conducted children's evangelistic campaigns at the age of 15 in Holland, Germany, Poland and Russia while his parent's preached to the adults (read about this in chapter two). He preached in English, German and French (his native language). The family left the Salvation Army to advocate advanced truths and William Booth-Clibborn had a Pentecostal experience.
He later trained at the Moody Bible Institute and evangelized in the U.S. and then worldwide. He spent over two years in Australia in the 1930s, where the legacy of his labors remain. He founded churches in Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States. He later settled in Portland, Oregon, where he founded Immanuel Temple, and died in 1969. His wife died in 1997 at the age of 98. Before she died she gave her permission in writing for this special electronic edition of this out-of-print book. It is taken from the enlarged second edition published in 1944.
As a young minister, this book had a marked effect on my personal understanding of the scriptures, and I am thrilled to have a part in making it available to a new audience.
Preface to the First Edition
Persistently requested by friends and converts of my Gospel labors to
write those messages that have proven so blessed and helpful to them, I have
decided to grant their request in so far as opportunity will afford me the
necessary time and application. These pages are the outgrowth of an address
that has been the means of the reviving and deliverance of thousands who were
locked up within themselves or whose Christian experience had reached a painful
stalemate. For now fourteen years I have preached this sermon under different
titles, in as many countries and in every circumstance. It has grown in power
and scope to great proportions with the telling, as every preacher knows
God-given messages will.
At first in an hour's preaching I could measure its height, now it has become
as high as the heavens! For long in our campaigns this message, under different
titles, did service on our Saturday "no limit on the preaching" night. Often
from 8:30 p.m. to 12 midnight and beyond we have 'rung the changes' on these
beautiful truths, the audience accepting the challenge and remaining attentive
and jubilant to the last.
It is time, therefore, that it should be given wider usefulness, for there is
something about this line of truth that breaks reserve, banishes timidity and
flings formality to the winds. How many, who having sought the chrism of the
Holy Spirit with little success, have found in these words the solution to
their problem. What numbers of believers have been made to see their sinful
smallness, their begrudging niggardliness. What riots of glory and power have
broken upon the meetings as a result. What a transformation in the atmosphere
of the revival. What fling and abandonment followed, what generosity in prayer
and praise.
My pen is palsied, this paper is so pale. How can I convey the glowing life.
the throbbing stimulation of those occasions. Everything seems to lose spirit
and color when confined to the letter! But I have done the best I could with
the notes the stenographers have accumulated from repeated deliveries, always
conscious that there was something I could not transmit -- so before you read
these pages, humbly ask God to grant you the illumination and understanding you need. Besides, I have never discovered the man or woman that could correctly take down in shorthand the torrents of truth when really going full tilt ahead under Heaven's heaviest anointing. I would give much to find that party. These articles appeared in simpler form both in England and in the United States of
America, now enlarged and revised they are published with the confident prayer
that they will prove a key to many a closed heart -- I speak of the believer's
heart -- closed to the fuller, larger, more glorious overflowing Christian
experience, that is his for the taking. I shall be very glad to know that this
work has touched and quickened your spiritual life and ask that you may share
its message with others.
In the bond that will never sever
In the love that will last
forever WILLIAM BOOTH-CLIBBORN
Preface to the Second Edition
The complaint everywhere, as the United Nations were worsted on a score of
battlefronts in the early days of this last world war was: "Too little and too
late." May we all learn from this that in the greater conflict raging against
the Powers of Darkness in which we are all as Christians engaged, our victory
is assured providing we obtain the "Too much and right early."
WILLIAM BOOTH-CLIBBORN
December, 1932, Portland, Oregon
King David's Cup
David, the son of Jesse, said, and the man who was raised upon high to
be the King of Israel, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet
psalmist of Israel said even he who danced before the
Lord:
"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." Psalm 23:5.
When Your Cup Runneth
Over
When your cup runneth over No doubt or fear remains,
For
angels take charge of you,
O'er your path they will hover
As God your
step ordains And prospers the things you do.
Chorus:
When your cup runneth over with joy,
When your cup runneth over with
joy,
You find it easy to pray And to sing all the day
When your cup
runneth over with joy. When your cup runneth over There is no
anxious care
To burden your heart and mind.
Love abundant will
cover
And give you grace to bear The things which are most
unkind.
When your cup runneth over You never will deny,
Nor ever the Christ
betray.
Of your heavenly Lover
Your life will testify, Confirming the
things you say.
When your cup runneth over, It is for others too
That they might your
blessings share.
For you soon will discover
The wine is ever new, And
plenty there is to spare.
William Booth-Clibborn.
  
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