"_It shall be given you in that same hour._"
--MATTHEW x. 16-28.
And so I am not to worry about the coming crisis! "God never is before His
time, and never is behind!" When the hour is come, I shall find that the
great Host hath made "all things ready."
When the crisis comes _He will tell me how to rest_. It is a great matter
to know just how to rest--how to be quiet when "all without tumultuous
seems." We irritate and excite our souls about the coming emergency, and
we approach it with worn and feverish spirits, and so mar our Master's
purpose and work.
When the crisis comes _He will tell me what to do_. The orders are not
given until the appointed day. Why should I fume and fret and worry as to
what the sealed envelope contains? "It is enough that He knows all," and
when the hour strikes the secrets shall be revealed.
And when the crisis comes _He will tell me what to say_. I need not begin
to prepare my retorts and my responses. What shall I say when death comes,
to me or to my loved one? Never mind, He will tell thee. And what when
sorrow or persecution comes? Never mind, He will tell thee.
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.