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A.B. Simpson

Albert Benjamin "A.B." Simpson (1843 - 1919). Canadian-American preacher, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), born in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island. Raised Presbyterian, he experienced conversion at 14 and studied at Knox College, Toronto, graduating in 1865. Ordained, he pastored in Ontario, then Louisville, Kentucky, where his church grew to 1,000 members. In 1881, after a healing experience, he moved to New York, founding the independent Gospel Tabernacle to reach the marginalized. In 1882, he launched The Word, Work, and World magazine, and in 1887, merged two ministries to form the C&MA, emphasizing the "Fourfold Gospel": Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. Simpson authored 101 books, including The Fourfold Gospel, and composed hymns like "Jesus Only." In 1883, he started Nyack College, training 6,000 missionaries. Married to Margaret Henry in 1866, they had six children. His global vision sent 1,500 missionaries to 40 countries by 1919. Simpson’s teachings on holiness and divine healing shaped modern Pentecostalism.
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Sermon Summary
A.B. Simpson emphasizes the importance of relying on Christ as a living Person rather than merely on the experience of holiness. He warns that many believers become disillusioned when they face trials and temptations after initially feeling delivered from sin, leading them to doubt their experiences. This cycle of failure can cause them to abandon their pursuit of holiness, ultimately resulting in a worse state than before. Simpson calls for a deeper understanding of sanctification that centers on a relationship with Jesus, asking for His heart, faith, and life. The message encourages believers to seek Christ continually rather than relying solely on past experiences.
Scriptures
I the Lord, the First, and With the Last
Thousands of people get stranded after they have embarked on the great voyage of holiness because they have depended upon the experience rather than on the Author of it. They had supposed that they were thoroughly and permanently delivered from all sin, and in the ecstasy of their first experience they imagined that they never would be tried and tempted as before. When, therefore, they step out into the actual facts of Christian life and find themselves failing and falling, they are astonished and perplexed, and they conclude that they must have been mistaken in their experience. Then they make a new attempt at the same thing, and again fall, until at last, worn out with the experiment, they conclude that the experience is a delusion, or at least that it was never intended for them. Thus they fall back into the old way, and their last state is worse than the first. Men and women today need to know not sanctification as a state but Christ as a living Person. Lord Jesus, give me Thy heart, Thy faith, Thy life, Thyself.
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Albert Benjamin "A.B." Simpson (1843 - 1919). Canadian-American preacher, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), born in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island. Raised Presbyterian, he experienced conversion at 14 and studied at Knox College, Toronto, graduating in 1865. Ordained, he pastored in Ontario, then Louisville, Kentucky, where his church grew to 1,000 members. In 1881, after a healing experience, he moved to New York, founding the independent Gospel Tabernacle to reach the marginalized. In 1882, he launched The Word, Work, and World magazine, and in 1887, merged two ministries to form the C&MA, emphasizing the "Fourfold Gospel": Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. Simpson authored 101 books, including The Fourfold Gospel, and composed hymns like "Jesus Only." In 1883, he started Nyack College, training 6,000 missionaries. Married to Margaret Henry in 1866, they had six children. His global vision sent 1,500 missionaries to 40 countries by 1919. Simpson’s teachings on holiness and divine healing shaped modern Pentecostalism.