MATTHEW v. 17-24.
"First be reconciled to thy brother." We are to put first things first.
When we bring a gift unto the Lord He looks at the hand that brings it. If
the hand is defiled the gift is rejected. "Wash you, make you clean."
"First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."
All this tells us why some resplendent gifts are rejected, and why some
commonplace gifts are received amid heavenly song. This is why the widow's
mite goes shining through the years. The hand that offered it was hallowed
and purified with sacrifice. Shall we say that in that palm there was
something akin to the pierced hands of the Lord? The mite had intimate
associations with the Cross.
And it also tells me why so much of our public worship is offensive to our
Lord. We come to the church from a broken friendship. Some holy thing has
been broken on the way. Someone's estate has been invaded, and his
treasure spoiled. Someone has been wronged, and God will not touch our
gift. "Leave there thy gift; first be reconciled to thy brother."
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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.