Do You Weep For Sinners?

Through the years I have been writing against some of the beliefs and practices of those who call themselves "Primitive" or "Old School" Baptists (aka "Hardshells"). I have chastised them for not praying for the salvation of lost sinners and for lacking real empathy for those who are on the road to destruction. This was not the case, however, with a large number of their founding fathers of the 1820s and 1830s. They did pray and weep over lost sinners. In fact, one song that I have seen in some of their hymn books begins with these words:

Did Christ o’er sinners weep

And shall our cheeks be dry?

Let floods of penitential grief

Burst forth from every eye

This failing to have a genuine sorrow for the lost is not pleasing to the Lord. Notice these texts:

Luke 19:41: "And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it," showing Jesus's sorrow over those who rejected God's love and were lost.

Romans 9:2 & 10:1: Paul expresses "great sorrow and unceasing anguish" for his people, stating, "my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved." 

Lamentations 1:16: "For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me..." The weeping prophet was weeping over the lost condition of his people.

Psalm 126:5-6: "Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him," which shows a sorrow for the lost and for those unharvested.

Jeremiah 9:1: "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" 

This lack of concern for the lost, and failure to weep for them, is a symptom of a terrible spiritual disease. You will never hear Hardshells praying for sinners and this is proof of their awful state. I pity them and weep for them, for I know it will go ill with them when they stand before the Lord and be judged for these things.

In one of my posts on Elder John Leland I gave the following citations from him (See here):

"In August, 1799, my soul was again visited with the same peace and holy longings after God and the salvation of men as at former times. My preaching then, through grace, was not coasting around the shallow shores of doubt and uncertainty, but launching out into the deep for a draught. Attention and solemnity followed."

"Before the work made a visible appearance, and for three months afterwards, there was not a day but what I had the spirit of prayer, and a travail for souls; and often felt as if I should sink under the weight of my burden if souls were not delivered. Sometimes, individuals would lay in my heart; at other times, the longings desire would be more general. After three months I felt that spirit of prayer abate, but the spirit of preaching continued for three months afterwards, until the ingathering was over, and then the peculiar impression which I had, subsided." (Elder John Leland "Some Events In The Life of..." Part V)

In chapter 49 ("Elder Leland's Preaching"; See here) I cited from the words of Leland where he prayed for the salvation of sinners and preached with the aim of being an instrument in their salvation.  Recall how he said 

"I knew what it was to travail in birth for the conversion of sinners. The words of Rachel to Jacob were the words of my heart to God: "Give me children or else I die."

He also said: "there was not a day but what I had the spirit of prayer, and a travail for souls." 

My Hardshell brothers often claim John Leland as being of their kind, but he wept for lost souls and believed that he was God's instrument in saving them, as the above citations show.