A Question for a Questioner (sermon 1843)

Sometimes people ask a hard question: "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" It is not hard to answer, in one sense, but it shows a certain hardness in their soul to suggest that the unchanging God of grace has somehow altered in himself or ceased to be himself. So Spurgeon demands that we give that question all its weight, drag it into the light, and interrogate the question. By the end of the sermon, the question has become less a challenge to God and more a rebuke to ourselves. Spurgeon puts the question first of all in the mouth of a child of God who is cast down. Then he suggests that it might be found on the lips of a seeking sinner. Finally, and briefly, he wonders how it would play in the heart of a dispirited gospel worker. In each case, he forces us to follow the logic of our own doubts, often showing a merciful lack of mercy in pressing the case toward its ugly conclusion, before turning the question back upon us to expose our unbelief and present God to us in all his unchanging faithfulness and abundant grace. It is not easy to be dealt with so robustly, but Spurgeon evidently believes that there is some value in his rigorous dealings with souls. If we have been tempted to cover up our wounds of unbelief with the plaster of high-sounding words, Spurgeon is going to rip off the plaster and instead apply some astringent medicine to our souls—painful, perhaps, but profitable indeed.