Exodus 6:1-9
At the first Pastors Conference my wife and I attended was in 1969 and the speaker was Dr. Howard Sugden, pastor of South Baptist Church in Lansing, MI from 1954-1991, his entire ministry. During one of the question and answer times at the conference, he was asked, “Pastor Sugden, have you ever been tempted to quit the ministry?” He paused just briefly, then said, “Most every Monday.”
How often do you feel that way in your ministry? Most every Monday? Monday has a tendency to be a “down day.” I discovered that early in my ministry; therefore, I decided that Monday was not going to be my day off. Monday is one of the worst days of the week, and I was not wasting it as my day off. Usually by the end of the week everything was going well, so Saturday was my day off. Taking Saturday off also gave me a good opportunity to be with my family since that was their day off, too. By the way, if you plan to take Saturday as your day off, that means you must have your sermon prepared before Saturday.
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During my 37 years of full-time ministry, I have experienced numerous discouraging days, just as you have, and they are not always on Mondays. Many of those discouraging days can turn into weeks or months. At such times, you can certainly be tempted to quit. Difficulties arising from forces outside your church or ministry seem to crush you, and those are hard indeed. Worse than that, however, people inside your ministry may give you a hard time. Yes, you know that the idea of quitting the ministry is not new. Having difficulties in serving the Lord is not new. Having problems relating to your congregation is not new. Indeed, such things occurred in ancient times as well.
Examine the events that occurred in the book of Exodus as an illustration of this situation, specifically the events of chapter 5. This chapter occurs after God called Moses at the burning bush. He has already gone through his many objections as to why he should not return to Egypt to lead Israel out, and now he is convinced that he has the responsibility. Therefore, he returns to Egypt where he meets with the leaders of Israel. Consider the words of Exodus 4:29-31, “Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the LORD had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.”