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The sermon presents tears over sin and lost people as a mark of spiritual strength and Christian love. Spurgeon emphasizes that moral respectability, church proximity, and exposure to preaching do not equal regeneration; without faith and divine grace, people remain spiritually dead. He warns that rejecting greater gospel privileges brings greater accountability and eternal punishment. Christians are therefore urged to pray persistently for their families and communities, grieve over their condition, and leave vengeance to God while calling sinners to Christ.
Theological center: Human respectability and religious privilege cannot save; sinners need conversion by divine grace and face righteous eternal judgment if they reject Christ.
Applications: Weep over sin and suffering · Pray persistently for children · Act for the souls around you · Turn to Christ before judgment
Primary texts: Jeremiah 9:1 · Matthew 11:21 · Matthew 23:38
“Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.” Jeremiah 9:1 SOMETIMES tears are base things—the offspring of a cowardly spirit. Some men weep when they should knit their brows and many a woman weeps when she should resign herself to the will of God. Many of those briny drops are but an expression of child-like weakness. It were well if we could wipe such tears away and face a frowning world with a constant countenance. But ofttimes tears are the index of strength. There are periods when they are the noblest things in the world. The tears of penitents are precious—a cup of them worth a king’s ransom. It is no sign of weakness when a man weeps for sin, it shows that he has strength of mind—nay, more, that he has strength imparted by God, which enables him to forswear his lusts and overcome his passions, and to turn unto God with full purpose of heart. And there are other tears, too, which are the evidences not of weakness, but of might—the tears of tender sympathy are the children of strong affection and they are strong like their parents. He that loves much, must weep much—much love and much sorrow must go together in this vale of tears. The unfeeling heart, the unloving spirit, may pass from earth’s portal to its utmost bound almost without a sigh except for itself. But he that loves has digged as many wells of tears as he has chosen objects of affection. For by as many as our friends are multiplied, by so many must our griefs be multiplied too, if we have love enough to share in their griefs and to bear their burden for them. The largest-hearted man will miss many sorrows that the little man will feel, but he will have to endure many sorrows the poor narrow-minded spirit never knows. It needs a mighty prophet like Jeremiah to weep as mightily as he. Jeremiah was not weak in his weeping. The strength of his mind and the strength of his love were the parents of his sorrow. “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.” This is no expression of weak sentimentalism. This is no utterance of a mere whining pretence. It is the burst of a strong soul—strong in its affection, strong in its devotion, strong in its self-sacrifice. I would to God we all knew how to weep like this. And if we might not weep so frequently as Jeremy, I wish that when we did weep, we did weep as well. It would seem as if some men had been sent into this world for the very purpose of being the world’…