PSALM cv. 23-36.
That is the wonder of wonders, that the Almighty God will use frail
humanity as the vehicles of His power, and will make Moses and Aaron shine
with reflected glory. Man can send an electric current into a fragile
carbon film and make it incandescent. He can send his voice across a
continent, and make it speak on a distant shore. And the Lord God can do
wonders compared with which these are only as the dimmest dreams. He can
send His holy power into human speech, and the words can wake the dead. He
can send His virtue into the human will, and its strength can shake the
thrones of iniquity. He can send His love into the human heart, and the
power of its affection can capture the bitterest foe.
And so the word "impossible" becomes itself impossible when the soul of
man is in fellowship with the Lord of Hosts. The pliant will becomes an
iron pillar. The weak heart becomes "as a defended city" when it is the
home of God. Dumb lips become the thrones of mysterious eloquence when
touched with divine inspiration.
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.