"_He read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings._"
--JOSHUA viii. 30-35.
We are inclined to read only what pleases us, to hug the blessings and to
ignore the warnings. We bask in the light, we close our eyes to the
lightning. We recount the promises, we shut our ears to the rebukes. We
love the passages which speak of our Master's gentleness, we turn away
from those which reveal His severity. And all this is unwise, and
therefore unhealthy. We become spiritually soft and anæmic. We lack moral
stamina. We are incapable of noble hatred and of holy scorn. We are
invertebrate, and on the evil day we are not able to stand.
We must read "all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings."
We must let the Lord brace us with His severities. We must gaze steadily
upon the appalling fearfulness of sin, and upon its terrific issues. At
all costs we must get rid of the spurious gentleness that holds compromise
with uncleanness, that effeminate affection which is destitute of holy
fire. We must seek the love which burns everlastingly against all sin; we
must seek the gentleness which can fiercely grip a poisonous growth and
tear it out to its last hidden root. We must seek that holy love which is
as a "consuming fire."
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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.