Blessing and Burden of the Ministry

Posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 4:46 pm

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You might wonder, after reading of the difficulties in the life of A. W. Pink, why God would allow such difficulties in the life of his servant.  Many great men have asked just that question.  Why does God in his providence bring sorrows and troubles to men who seem to be trying to serve him?  Why was Spurgeon so troubled (almost broken) by depression?  Why was Pink reduced to the sidelines when he wanted so badly to be a preacher?  Why was G. Campbell Morgan troubled all of his life by terrible headaches?  Why has the Lord placed Dr. Kennedy at home in 24 hour care instead of in the pulpit?

These are perplexing questions, but Spurgeon took them on in a sermon.  The sermon is reprinted in a small book that has just come out called The Suffering Letters of C. H. Spurgeon.  The book also includes a number of unpublished letters that Spurgeon wrote while he was ill. I am anxiously awaiting my copy as I had to order it from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Bookshop ( http://www.tabernaclebookshop.org) in England.  I do know, however, the answer that Spurgeon gives to the question.

Spurgeon says that God gives his servants troubles, and takes them out of the pulpit at what seems to be the worst times, to remind us that it is God and not the men who are doing the work.  John Piper in his book on preaching reminds his fellow ministers that “God will hide much of the results of our preaching because he seeks to glorify himself and not us.”

Those who have been in the ministry know that it can be both a wonderful blessing and a terrible burden.  There are those days when you feel like everything is going along right and the world is turning correctly and the church is just the most wonderful place in the world.  Then there are those other days.  The days when you wonder if you are really doing anyone any good; when you wonder if some person in the congregation, through sheer jealousy or meanness will bring down all that you have tried to work for in the last two or three years; the days when it seems like the job is too big and you are too small and that things never change; the days when the cares threaten to crush you underfoot and leave you broken and bleeding and for what?

For what?  For the glory of God and the good of his sheep.  That is what the minister is called to spend himself for; to stay up late at night for; to study and study and study for; even if they don’t know it and can’t appreciate the good food that they are getting, continue on.  Keep feeding.  We glorify not ourselves, but Christ Jesus.  May it ever be so.