EXODUS vi. 2-8.
"I appeared unto Abraham.... I will be to you a God." The covenant made
with the father was renewed to the children. The father's death did not
disannul the promise of the Lord. Death has no power in the realms of
grace. His moth and his rust can never destroy the ministries of Divine
love. Abraham died and was laid to rest, but the river of life flowed on,
and the bounties of the Lord never failed. The village well quenches the
thirst of many generations: and so is it through the generations with the
wells of grace and salvation. The villagers have not to dig a new well
when the patriarch dies: "the river of God is full of water."
And thus I am privileged to share the spiritual resources of Abraham, and
the still richer resources of the Apostle Paul. Nothing was given to him
that is withheld from me. He is like a great mountaineer, and he has
climbed to lofty heights; but I need not be dismayed. All the strength
that was given to him, in which he reached those lofty places, is mine
also. I may share his elevation and his triumph. "For the promise is
unto you and your children, and to all that are afar off."
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John Henry Jowett was born in Halifax, England in 1864. Jowett's father had arranged for him to begin working as a clerk for a lawyer in Halifax, but the encouragement of his Sunday school teacher, Mr. Dewhirst, turned Jowett's heart toward the ministry.
After theological training at Edinburgh and Oxford, Jowett assumed the pastorate of the Saint James Congregational Church. His six effective years of ministry brought him to the attention of the Carr's Lane Church in Birmingham, England, on the death of their pastor. For the next fifteen years the church grew and prospered. Their pastor's vision led them to increase their efforts to bring people to Christ. In 1917, the mayor of Birmingham said the church had changed the town with "crime and drunkenness having decreased."
Jowett came to America for the first time in 1909 to address the Northfield Conference founded by D. L. Moody. While in America he preached twice at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. The church immediately asked him to come as its pastor. Jowett refused, having received a petition, signed by more than 1,400 members of his church in England, begging him to stay. The Fifth Avenue Church called him again, and then a third time. Finally Jowett concluded that this was God's leading for his life. He assumed the pastorate in 1911.
Although his preaching style was not dynamic (he read all of his sermons), the depth of his knowledge, the clarity of his language, and the power of his life commanded respect. Attendance at the church which had dropped to 600 on Sunday morning rose to 1,500. Lines up to half a block long formed, waiting for unclaimed seats. Jowett began preparing his Sunday sermons on Tuesday, following a meticulously detailed schedule.
When G. Campbell Morgan resigned the Westminster Chapel in London in 1917, Dr. Jowett once again crossed the ocean to take a new church. This would be his final pastorate. Declining health forced him to give up preaching in 1922, and his death in 1923 took from the world one of its most gifted and dedicated preachers.