The dove is in the cleft of the rock-the riven side of our Lord. There is comfort and security there. It is also in the secret places of the stairs. It loves to build its nest in the high towers to which men mount by winding stairs for hundreds of feet above the ground. What a glorious vision is there obtained of the surrounding scenery. It is a picture of ascending life. To reach our highest altitudes we must find the secret places of the stairs. That is the only way to rise above the natural plane. Our lives should be ones of quiet mounting with occasional resting places; but we should be mounting higher, step by step. Not everyone finds this way of secret ascent. It is only for God's chosen. The world may think we are going down. We may not have as much public work to do as formerly. Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). It is a secret, hidden life. We may be hardly aware that we are growing, until one day a test comes and we find we are established. Have you arrived at the place where Christ is keeping you from willful disobedience? Does the consciousness of sin make you shudder? Are you lifted above the world?
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A.B. Simpson (1843 - 1919)
Simpson is the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance Movement that began in Canada with a desire to promote missions and global evangelism. He was used powerfully of the Lord to unify many brothers and sisters in a common purpose of fulfilling the great commission.A.W. Tozer joined with the Missionary Alliance denomination because of the teachings of A.B. Simpson and specific his writings on holiness: "A Larger Christian Life." He wrote many hymns and added a great emphasis on the person of Jesus Christ in church-life.
FOUNDER OF THE Christian and Missionary Alliance, Albert Benjamin Simpson was born in Canada of Scottish parents. He became a Presbyterian minister and pastored several churches in Ontario. Later, he accepted the call to serve as pastor of the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. It was there that his life and ministry were completely changed in that, during a revival meeting, he experienced the fullness of the Spirit.He continued in the Presbyterian Church until 1881, when he founded an independent Gospel Tabernacle in New York. There he published the Alliance Weekly and wrote 70 books on Christian living. He organized two missionary societies which later merged to become the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Albert Benjamin Simpson was a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), an evangelical protestant denomination with an emphasis on global evangelism.
In December 1873, at age 30, Simpson left Canada and assumed the pulpit of the largest Presbyterian church in Louisville, Kentucky, the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church. It was in Louisville that he first conceived of preaching the gospel to the common man by building a simple tabernacle structure for that purpose. Despite his success at the Chestnut Street Church, Simpson was frustrated by their reluctance to embrace this burden for wider evangelistic endeavor.
Simpson’s heart for evangelism was to become the driving force behind the creation of the C&MA. Initially, the Christian and Missionary Alliance was not founded as a denomination, but as an organized movement of world evangelism. Today, the C&MA denomination plays a leadership role in global evangelism.