EZEKIEL xxxiv. 11-19.
And now, again, I am bidden to contemplate the gracious ministries of the
Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd searches the "far country" for His lost sheep. "_I will
bring them ... out of all places where they have been scattered._" He goes
into the hard wilderness of cold indifference, and wasteful pride, and
desolating sin, searching "high and low" for His foolish sheep. And no
place is unvisited by the Great Seeker! Every perilous ravine, where a
sheep can be lost, knows the footprints of the Shepherd. And He knows my
far-country, and He is seeking me!
And the Good Shepherd brings His wandering sheep back home. "_I will bring
them ... to their own land._" We return from the land of pride to the home
of lowliness, from hard indifference to gracious sympathy, from the
barrenness of sin to the beauty of holiness. We come back to God's
beautiful "lily-land" of eternal light and peace.
And what nutriment the Good Shepherd provides for the home-coming sheep!
"_I will feed them in a good pasture._" Our wasted powers shall be renewed
and strengthened by the fattening diet of grace. Love shall be both host
and meat! "He will satisfy thy mouth with good things."
Be the first to react on this!
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.