No mortal tongue can e’er describe

This morning, the last 4 lines of stanza 3 welled up in my spirit. This precious hymn has been increasingly meaningful and dear to me for years, as the Lord has gradually shepherded me into the reality of it, but especially since being in the hospital 2 years ago. It seemed during that very difficult time, another layer of self effort and strength (from doubt and fear) ended, making way for "a boundless life in Him". The more of Him I experience and learn of others' experiences, the more convinced I am of the "unplumbed depths and unscaled heights" (from another hymn) that call us forward. I'm encouraged to press on every day to know Him more.

AS THE LORD’S, LIVING TO HIM

Hymns, #473 is wonderful. When I went back to Taiwan in October of 1984, this hymn was so sweet. We could not stop the singing of this hymn, and it stirred up many hearts. I like every line except for the last one, so we can replace “Whence doubt and fear are gone” with “And kingdom yet to come. ” Stanza 3 refers to the holy bargain, the fragment for the whole. When we sacrifice a fragment to the Lord, we gain the whole earth. When we serve Him, everyone and everything serve us—“All men and all events alike / Must serve the ransomed soul” (stanza 3). We all need to speak and sing this hymn again and again.

The verses in the Scripture Reading can be considered as a cluster of the divine Word, a cluster of grapes, so precious and so sweet. First Corinthians 3:21b-23 indicates that Christ is ours. Since Christ is ours, all things are ours. Even death is ours. Death serves a purpose for us, so death works for us. Verse 23 concludes with the fact that we are Christ’s. He is ours, and we are His. He belongs to us, and we belong to Him ( S. S. 2:16 ). This is marvelous! First Corinthians 7 tells us that we all have been bought by Him to be His slaves. We are His slaves bought by Him with a price, so He is our Master, our Owner. He is our Lord, and we are His slaves.

Romans 14 tells us that “we live to the Lord” ( v. 8 ). To live for Him is somewhat easy to understand. To live with Him, in Him, by Him, and even to live Him are still not too hard to understand. But to live to Him probably is a matter that we have never considered and do not understand. What is it to live to Him? This is the main point of this chapter.

Elders' Training, Book 8:

Chapter 8 The Life Pulse of the
Lord's Present Move
CWWL, 1986, vol. 1 (LSM)

THE REAL MEANING OF BEING FULL TIME

The real meaning of being full time is to live to Him. To go full time does not mean to drop your job and become a preacher. It does not mean that you give up your business and become one who preaches the gospel or who labors in the word all the time. A full-timer is one who lives to the Lord. Every believer, without one exception, should be such a one. As long as you are a believer, you have to realize that you should be one living to Him. We have to live to Him because He is ours and we are His. To live to Him is based upon the fact that we are His. Not only is He ours, but we also are His.

To be full time means that you live to the Lord. You do not live for Him but to Him. This is a great privilege. A full-timer does not mean what we may think. A full-timer is one who lives to the Lord; every believer, as one bought by the Lord with a price, should be a person living to the Lord. He is yours, and you are His. He and you are one. He is to you, and you are to Him. There is no distinction in anything. He does not need your permission to use you, nor do you need His permission to use Him. He is ready to be like this to you, but you may not be ready. You may be quite reserving and hesitating. The husband may have the confidence in the wife to be one with her and to be everything to her, but the wife may still be doubting. She may be thinking, “If I tell him I am to him, he may take away everything I have. Then what shall I do? Do I have the security? ” This mostly illustrates the present situation among us. Most of us in the Lord’s recovery do love the Lord, and we would say that whatever we are and whatever we have are all for the Lord. We do not realize, however, how subtle it is when we say that we are for the Lord.

Elders' Training, Book 8:

The Life Pulse of the Lord's
Present Move Chapter 8
CWWL, 1986, vol. 1 (LSM)

All things are yours when you are His,
And He and you are one;
A boundless life in Him there is,
And kingdom yet to come.

Praise the Lord! Our life is by faith, our living is to the Lord, and our service is by trusting in Him; He may allow us to suffer lack, but He will never leave us or forsake us. Hallelujah 😀

This hymn touches many things, not the least is our mortality. I was in sales much of my life. I always wanted the best deal for me in a transaction. Verse three caught my attention. “Arise the holy bargain strike the fragment for the whole”. We just agree to believe in Him with a little faith, a fragment of our heart, and we get Him the eternal life. “All things are yours when you are His and He and you are one. A boundless life in Him there is…”. I was saved as a child and I’m now beginning to realize God’s riches and what a bargain I got. Knowing this how can we choose anything less than Him alone?

This hymn gave me pause to consider my level of consecration,"Have I given ALL of my being?"

He gave all of HIS....... Now what is my reasonable service...... Realizing the oness and being in the Body, really helps center my wandering thoughts and the lyrics in this hymn gave me perspective......... Praise theLord! Praise the Ministry......

No mortal tongue can ever describe the freedom of the soul, when passed beyond all earthly bribe to God’s complete control.

All things are his, yes, life, and death, things present or to come; in Christ he draws in peace each breath, in Christ he finds his home.

When such as we the King can choose, to share with Him His throne, it's passing strange that we refuse to be our Lord’s alone.

All things are yours when you are His, and He and you are one; a boundless life in Him there is, when doubt and fear are gone.

Amen

In 1888, Catherine Booth, The Army Mother, made her last public address at City Temple in London, England on June 21, 1888. Here is a quote from her speech that day:

“Perhaps on no point has the Salvation Army suffered persecution more than this one point of its teaching—that it teaches a Savior not only willing to pardon but who does pardon absolutely and who communicates a sense of that pardon by his Holy Spirit to the ears of those who truly repent and sincerely believe, with a living faith, in Him, and not only washes their past sins away but has the power to keep them from their sins, and will, if they trust in Him, enable them to live in righteousness and holiness all their lives, walking in obedience to His commandments, keeping that inner law of which we have just heard—the law of Christ—which is the most perfect law and fulfills all others—loving the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. ”

She was the mother of Catherine Booth – Clibborn, the writer of this hymn and the wife of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. She was instrumental in helping her husband establish the Salvation Army. Catherine was a prolific writer and fiery preacher of the gospel. She denied an operation they could have saved her life and died two years after this sermon was preached on October 4,1890.

Catherine Booth-Clibborn was born September 18, 1858 in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England and died May 9, 1955 (aged 96) in Newton Abbot, Devon, England. She is buried in Highgate Cemetery East in Highgate, Greater London, England.

Booth-Clibborn was a social reformer. She was the eldest daughter of William Booth, pastor in Gateshead and Salvation Army founder. She began preaching at the age of 15 and later held the rank of Captain of the Salvation Army. Catherine was sent to Paris in March 1881 with her sisters-in-law to preach the Gospel. They wore sandwich boards after they were forbidden to hand out leaflets, and often had mud and stones slung at them as they preached on street corners. They rented apartments in buildings with prostitutes and were frequently criticized by French newspapers for evangelizing. After eight months in France, when a few persons were converted to Christ, her brother gave her the nickname of “La Maréchale, ” French for “The Marshal. ”

In October, an Irish Quaker, Arthur Clibborn, joined the Salvation Army and became the Chief of Staff. They moved from France into Switzerland and faced more opposition. The authorities refused to allow them to rent halls to preach, and were arrested after holding an open-air meeting in a forest outside Neufchâtel. They were tried, acquitted and deported back to France. In February 1887, the two were married. They were transferred to Holland in 1896, a move that was difficult for her given that she did not speak Dutch.

After the birth of their tenth child and conflicts with her father, they resigned from the Salvation Army in January 1902, this move estranged her from her family. They moved to America, living for a time in Zion City, Illinois, outside Chicago. They became Pentecostals in 1906 and traveled as evangelists in the United States, Europe, and Australia. During WWI, she crossed the Atlantic six times under dangerous conditions. Still in exile, she returned to Switzerland at the age of 70 where her sermons were well received. She died of double pneumonia in 1955 and was buried in a separate cemetery from her parents and siblings.

The Kate Booth House in Vancouver, British Columbia, a residential house for domestic violence victims, was named in her honor.