GENESIS xvii. 1-8.
"I will establish My covenant." The good promises of God are never
revoked. They are like springs which know no shrinking in times of
drought. Nay, in time of drought they reveal a richer fulness. The
promises are confirmed in the hour of my need, and the greater my need the
greater is my bounty. And so it was that the Apostle Paul came to "rejoice
in his infirmities," for through his infirmities he discovered the riches
of Divine grace. He brought a bigger pitcher to the fountain, and he
always carried it away full. "As thy days so shall thy strength be."
So I need never fear that the promise of yesterday will exhaust itself
before to-morrow. God's covenant goes with us like the ever-fresh waters
of the wilderness. "They drank of that rock which followed them, and that
rock was Christ." Every fulfilment of God's promise is the pledge of one
to come.
God has no road without its springs. If His path stretches across the
waste wilderness the "fountains shall break out in the desert," and "the
wilderness shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."
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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.