PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Days of Heaven Upon Earth
Simpson, A. B. (Albert B.), 1843-1919 · 76,963 words · 368 reading sections
Part 1
Days of Heaven Upon Earth A Year Book of Scripture Texts And Living Truths By Rev. A. B. Simpson Christian Alliance Pub. Co. 3611 Fourteenth Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y. Copyright, December, 1897…
32 wordsSECTION 2CONTENTS
The Days Of Heaven January 1. January 2. January 3. January 4. January 5. January 6. January 7. January 8. January 9. January 10. January 11. January 12. January 13. January 14. January 15. January 16. January 17. January 18. January 19. January 20. January 21. January 22. January 23. January 24. January 25. January 26…
734 wordsSECTION 3THE DAYS OF HEAVEN
The days of heaven are peaceful days, Still as yon glassy sea; So calm, so still in God, our days, As the days of heaven would be. The days of heaven are holy days, From sin forever free; So cleansed and kept our days, O Lord, As the days of heaven would be. The days of heaven are happy days. Sorrow they never see; S…
132 wordsSECTION 4JANUARY 1.
“Redeeming the time” (Eph. v. 16). Two little words are found in the Greek version here. They are translated “_ton kairon_” in the revised version, “Buying up for yourselves the opportunity.” The two words _ton kairon_ mean, literally, the opportunity. They do not refer to time in general, but to a special point of t…
204 wordsSECTION 5JANUARY 2.
“I will cause you to walk in My statutes” (Eze. xxxvi. 27). The highest spiritual condition is one where life is spontaneous and flows without effort, like the deep floods of Ezekiel’s river, where the struggles of the swimmer ceased, and he was borne by the current’s resistless force. So God leads us into spiritual …
206 wordsSECTION 6JANUARY 3.
“Watch and pray” (Matt. xxvi. 41). We need to watch for prayers as well as for the answers to our prayers. It needs as much wisdom to pray rightly as it does faith to receive the answers to our prayers. We met a friend the other day, who had been in years of darkness because God had failed to answer certain prayers, …
193 wordsSECTION 7JANUARY 4.
“Blessed is the man that walketh not” (Ps. i. 1). Three things are notable about this man: 1. His company. “He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” 2. His reading and thinking. “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law d…
190 wordsSECTION 8JANUARY 5.
“I know him that he will do the law” (Gen. xviii. 19). God wants people that He can depend upon. He could say of Abraham, “I know him, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham all that He hath spoken.” God can be depended upon; He wants us to be just as decided, as reliable, as stable. This is just what faith means. God i…
214 wordsSECTION 9JANUARY 6.
“The body is not one member, but many” (I. Cor. xii. 14). We have a friend who has a phonograph for his correspondence. It consists of two parts. One is a simple and wonderful apparatus, whose sensitive cylinders receive the tones and then give them out again, word for word, through the hearing tube. The other part is…
201 wordsSECTION 10JANUARY 7.
“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from stumbling” (Jude 24). This is a most precious promise. The revised translation is both accurate and suggestive. It is not merely from falling that He wants to keep us, but from even the slightest stumbling. We are told of Abraham that he staggered not at the promise. God wa…
208 wordsSECTION 11JANUARY 8.
“It is I, be not afraid” (Mark vi. 50). Someone tells of a little child with some big story of sorrow upon its little heart, flying to its mother’s arms for comfort, and intending to tell her the story of its trouble; but as that mother presses it to her bosom and pours out her love, it soon becomes so occupied with h…
207 wordsSECTION 12JANUARY 9.
“Not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matt. xxvi. 39). “To will and do of His good pleasure” (Phil. ii. 13). There are two attitudes in which our will should be given to God. First. We should have the surrendered will. This is where we must all begin, by yielding up to God our natural will, and having Him possess it. …
195 wordsSECTION 13JANUARY 10.
“Charity doth not behave itself unseemly” (I. Cor. xiii. 5). In the dress of a Hindu woman, her graceful robe is fastened upon her person entirely by means of a single knot. The long strip of cloth is wound around her person so as to fall in graceful folds like a made garment, and the end is fastened by a little knot,…
213 wordsSECTION 14JANUARY 11.
“Hold fast till I come” (Rev. ii. 25). The other day we asked a Hebrew friend how it was that his countrymen were so successful in acquiring wealth. “Ah,” said he, “we do not make more money than other people, but we keep more.” Beloved, let us look out this day for spiritual pickpockets and spiritual leakage. Let us …
208 wordsSECTION 15JANUARY 12.
“Ask and it shall be given you” (Matt. vii. 7). We must receive, as well as ask. We must take the place of believing, and recognize ourselves as in it. A friend was saying, “I want to get into the will of God,” and this was the answer: “Will you step into the will of God? And now, are you in the will of God?” The ques…
190 wordsSECTION 16JANUARY 13.
“Thou shalt be to him instead of God” (Ex. iv. 16). Such was God’s promise to Moses, and such the high character that Moses was to assume toward Aaron, his brother. May it not suggest a high and glorious place that each of us may occupy toward all whom we meet, instead of God? What a dignity and glory it would give o…
193 wordsSECTION 17JANUARY 14.
“Unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. iv. 13). God loves us so well that He will not suffer us to take less than His highest will. Some day we shall bless our faithful teacher, who kept the standard inflexibly rigid, and then gave us the strength and grace to reach it, and would not excuse u…
202 wordsSECTION 18JANUARY 15.
“As ye have received Christ Jesus so walk in Him” (Col. ii. 6). It is much easier to keep the fire burning than to rekindle it after it has gone out. Let us abide in Him. Let us not have to remove the cinders and ashes from our hearthstones every day and kindle a new flame; but let us keep it burning and never let it …
212 wordsSECTION 19JANUARY 16.
“Prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. xii. 2). There are three conditions in which the water in that engine may be. First, the boiler may be full and the water clean and clear; or, secondly, the boiler may not only be full but the water may be hot, very hot, hot enough to scald you, a…
209 wordsSECTION 20JANUARY 17.
“It is God which worketh in you” (Phil. ii. 13). God has not two ways for any of us; but one; not two things for us to do which we may choose between; but one best and highest choice. It is a blessed thing to find and fill the perfect will of God. It is a blessed thing to have our life laid out and our Christian work …
212 wordsSECTION 21JANUARY 18.
“That take and give for Me and thee” (Matt. xvii. 27). There is a beautiful touch of loving thoughtfulness in the account of Christ’s miracle at Capernaum in providing the tribute money. After the reference to Peter’s interview with the tax collector, it is added, “When he came into the house Jesus prevented him,” tha…
200 wordsSECTION 22JANUARY 19.
“Prove me now herewith” (Mal. iii. 10). We once heard a simple old colored man say something that we have never forgotten. “When God tests You it is a good time for you to test Him by putting His promises to the proof, and claiming from Him just as much as your trials have rendered necessary.” There are two ways of g…
197 wordsSECTION 23JANUARY 20.
“Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of” (Luke ix. 55). Some one has said that the most spiritual people are the easiest to get along with. When one has a little of the Holy Ghost it is like “a little learning, a dangerous thing”; but a full baptism of the Holy Spirit, and a really disciplined, stablished and tes…
196 wordsSECTION 24JANUARY 21.
“Pray without ceasing” (I. Thess. v. 17). An important help in the life of prayer is the habit of bringing everything to God, moment by moment, as it comes to us in life. This may be established as a habit on the principle on which all habits are formed, of repeated and constant attention, moment by moment, until that…
195 wordsSECTION 25JANUARY 22.
“His wife hath made herself ready” (Rev. xix. 7). There is danger in becoming morbid even in preparing for the Lord’s coming. We remember a time in our life when we had devoted ourselves to spend a month in waiting upon the Lord for a baptism of the Holy Ghost, and before the end of the month, the Lord shook us out of…
208 wordsSECTION 26JANUARY 23.
“I know a man in Christ” (II. Cor. xii. 2). It is a great deliverance to lose one’s self. There is no heavier millstone that one can be compelled to carry than self-consciousness. It is so easy to get introverted and coiled round one’s self in our spiritual consciousness. There is nothing that is so easy to fasten on …
215 wordsSECTION 27JANUARY 24.
“Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matt. x. 8). When God does anything marked and special for our souls, or bodies, He intends it as a sacred trust for us to communicate to others. “Freely ye have received, freely give.” It has pleased the Master in these closing days of the dispensation to reveal Himself in pec…
198 wordsSECTION 28JANUARY 25.
“Hold fast that which is good” (I. Thess. v. 21). It is a great thing to be able to receive new truth and blessing without sacrificing the truths already proved, and abandoning foundations already laid. Some persons are always laying the foundations, and they present at last, the appearance of a lot of abandoned site…
194 wordsSECTION 29JANUARY 26.
“I called him alone and blessed him” (Isa. li. 2). When we were in the East we noticed the beautiful process of raising rice. The rice is sown on a morass of mud and water, ploughed up by great buffaloes, and after a few weeks it springs up and appears above the water with its beautiful pale green shoots. The seed has…
218 wordsSECTION 30JANUARY 27.
“This one thing I do” (Phil. iii. 13). One of Satan’s favorite employees is the switchman. He likes nothing better than to side-track one of God’s express trains, sent on some blessed mission and filled with the fire of a holy purpose. Something will come up in the pathway of the earnest soul, to attract its attentio…
176 wordsSECTION 31JANUARY 28.
“That my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John xv. 11). There is a joy that springs spontaneously in the heart without external or even rational cause. It is an artesian fountain. It rejoices because it cannot help it. It is the glory of God; it is the heart of Christ, it is the joy divine of…
199 wordsSECTION 32JANUARY 29.
“Send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared” (Neh. viii. 10). That was a fine picture in the days of Nehemiah, when they were celebrating their glorious Feast of Tabernacles. “Neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to th…
199 wordsSECTION 33JANUARY 30.
“Cast down but not destroyed” (II. Cor. iv. 9). How did God bring about the miracle of the Red Sea? By shutting His people in on every side, so that there was no way out but the divine way. The Egyptians were behind them, the sea was in front of them, the mountains were on every side of them. There was no escape but f…
213 wordsSECTION 34JANUARY 31.
“Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (I. Cor. i. 30). More and more we are coming to see the supreme importance of getting the right conception of sanctification, not as a blessing, but as a personal union with the personal Saviour and the indwelling Holy Spir…
196 wordsSECTION 35FEBRUARY 1.
“A well of water springing up” (John iv. 14). In the life overflowing in service for others, we find the deep fountain of life running over the spring and finding vent in rivers of living water that go out to bless and save the world around us. It is beautiful to notice that as the blessing grows unselfish it grows la…
203 wordsSECTION 36FEBRUARY 2.
“And whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matt. xx. 26, 27). Slave is the literal meaning of the word, _doulos_. The first word used for service is _diakanos_, which means a minister to others in any usual way or work: but the wo…
201 wordsSECTION 37FEBRUARY 3.
“He went out, not knowing whither He went” (Heb. xi. 8). It is faith without sight. When we can see, it is not faith but reasoning. In crossing the Atlantic we observed this very principle of faith. We saw no path upon the sea nor sign of the shore. And yet day by day we were marking our path upon the chart as exactly…
208 wordsSECTION 38FEBRUARY 4.
“Lo, I am with you alway” (Matt. xxviii. 20). This living Christ is not the person that was, but the person that still is, your living Lord. At Preston Pans, near Edinburgh, I looked on the field where in the olden days armies were engaged in contest. In the crisis of the battle the chieftain fell wounded. His men wer…
212 wordsSECTION 39FEBRUARY 5.
“Rest in the Lord” (Ps. xxxvii.). In the old creation the week began with work and ended with Sabbath rest. The resurrection week begins with the first day—first rest, then labor. So we must first cease from our own works as God did from His, and enter into His rest, and then we will work, with rested hearts, His wor…
218 wordsSECTION 40FEBRUARY 6.
“Praying always for all saints” (Eph. vi. 18). One good counsel will suffice just now. Stop praying so much for yourself; begin to ask unselfish things, and see if God won’t give you faith. See how much easier it will be to believe for another than for your own petty self. Try the effect of praying for the world, for …
205 wordsSECTION 41FEBRUARY 7.
“Faithful in that which is least” (Luke xvi. 10). The man that missed his opportunity and met the doom of the faithless servant was not the man with five talents, or the man with two, but the man who had only one. The people who are in danger of missing life’s great meaning are the people of ordinary capacity and oppo…
207 wordsSECTION 42FEBRUARY 8.
“We are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves” (II. Cor. iii. 5). Insufficient, “All sufficient.” These two words form the complement of each other and together give the key to an efficient Christian life. The discovery and full conviction of our utter helplessness is the constant condition of …
210 wordsSECTION 43FEBRUARY 9.
“None of these things move me” (Acts xx. 24). The best evidence of God’s presence is the devil’s growl. So wrote good Mr. Spurgeon once in “The Sword and the Trowel,” and that little sentence has helped many a tried and tired child Of God to stand fast and even rejoice under the fiercest attacks of the foe. We read i…
189 wordsSECTION 44FEBRUARY 10.
“I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live” (Gal. ii. 20). Christ life is in harmony with our nature. A lady asked me the other day—a thoughtful, intelligent woman who was not a Christian, but who had the deepest hunger for that which is right: “How can this be so, and we not lose our individuality! This will de…
197 wordsSECTION 45FEBRUARY 11.
“Strengthened with all might unto all patience” (Col. i. 11). The apostle prays for the Colossians, that they may be “strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.” It is one thing to endure and show the strain on every muscle of your face, and seem…
194 wordsSECTION 46FEBRUARY 12.
“But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. vi. 33). For every heart that is seeking anything from the Lord this is a good watchword. That very thing, or the desire for it, may unconsciously separate you from the Lord, or at least from the singlene…
222 wordsSECTION 47FEBRUARY 13.
“Thy prayers are come up for a memorial before God” (Acts x. 4). What a beautiful expression the angel used to Cornelius, “Thy prayers are come up for a memorial.” It would almost seem as if supplications of years had accumulated before the Throne, and at last the answer broke in blessings on the head of Cornelius, ev…
192 wordsSECTION 48FEBRUARY 14.
“He shall baptize you with fire” (Matt. iii. 11). Fire is strangely intense and intrinsic. It goes into the very substance of things. It somehow blends with every particle of the thing it touches. There are the severe trials that come to minds more sensitive, to the minds that have more points of contact with what hu…
213 wordsSECTION 49FEBRUARY 15.
“Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (II. Tim. ii. 1). How to enjoy this day. This will never come by trying to be happy and yet we are responsible for the conditions of real joy. 1. Be right with God; for “Gladness is sown for the upright in heart.” “It is His joy that remains in us that makes our joy to…
190 wordsSECTION 50FEBRUARY 16.
“We will give ourselves continually to prayer” (Acts vi. 4). In the consecrated believer the Holy Spirit is pre-eminently a Spirit of prayer. If our whole being is committed to Him, and our thoughts are at His bidding, He will occupy every moment in communion and we shall bring every thing to Him as it comes, and pray…
201 wordsSECTION 51FEBRUARY 17.
“Your life is hid” (Col. iii. 3). Some Christians loom up in larger proportion than is becoming. They can tell, and others can tell, how many souls they bring to Christ. Their labor seems to crystallize and become its own memorial. Others again seem to blend so wholly with other workers that their own individuality ca…
225 wordsSECTION 52FEBRUARY 18.
“Christ in you” (Col. i. 27). How great the difference between the old and the new way of deliverance! One touch of Christ is worth a lifetime of struggling. A sufferer in one of our hospitals was in danger of losing his sight from a small piece of broken needle that had entered his eye. Operation after operation had…
191 wordsSECTION 53FEBRUARY 19.
“As much as in me is I am ready” (Rom. i. 15). Be earnest. Intense earnestness, a whole heart for Christ, the passion sign of the cross, the enthusiasm of our whole being for our Master and humanity—this is what the Lord expects, this is what His cross deserves, this is what the world needs, this is what the age has a…
188 wordsSECTION 54FEBRUARY 20.
“Fear thou not, for I am with thee” (Isa. xli. 10). Satan is always trying to weaken our faith by fear. He is a great metaphysician and knows the paralyzing effect of fear, that it is the great enemy of faith, and that faith is the great secret of help. If he can get us fearing he will stop our trusting and hinder the…
219 wordsSECTION 55FEBRUARY 21.
“Be not dismayed, for I am thy God” (Isa. xli. 10). How tenderly God is always comforting our fears! How sweetly He says in Isaiah xli. 10, “Fear not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness.” And yet again with still tenderer thoughtfulness, “I…
233 wordsSECTION 56FEBRUARY 22.
“He that hath entered into His rest hath ceased from his own works even as God did from His” (Heb. iv. 10). What a rest it would be to many of us if we could but exchange burdens with Christ, and so utterly and forever transfer to Him all our cares and needs that we would not feel henceforth responsible for our burden…
215 wordsSECTION 57FEBRUARY 23.
“For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. i. 21). The secret of a sound body is a sound heart, and the prayer of the Holy Ghost for us is, that we “may be in health and prosper even as our soul prospers.” We find Paul in the Epistles to the Philippians expressing a sublime and holy indifference to the ques…
221 wordsSECTION 58FEBRUARY 24.
“Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. vi. 14). The secret of Moses’ failures was this: “The law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did.” And this was why his life work also came short of full realization. He saw but entered not the Promised …
220 wordsSECTION 59FEBRUARY 25.
“I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John xv. 5). How can I take Christ as my Sanctifier, or Healer? is a question that we are constantly asked. It is necessary first of all that we get into the posture of faith. This has to be done by a definite and voluntary act, and then maintained by a uniform habit. It is just t…
233 wordsSECTION 60FEBRUARY 26.
“Make you perfect in every good work” (Heb. xiii. 21). In that beautiful prayer at the close of the Epistle to the Hebrews, “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good wor…
216 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.