Lewis explains that most students need the affective message more than the directive one: For every one pupil who needs to be guarded against a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. 

Recently I was driving through another state for a speaking engagement when I noticed a road sign with a rather smart message. “Littering is unlAwful!” is stated. The “unl” of unlawful was really small so that the message really read “Littering is Awful.” This state regulated sign is doing more than communicating a law. It’s seeking to form the affections of its readers.
The sign doesn’t aim to merely help people realize that it’s illegal to throw trash out of their car window on the interstate. It attempts to shape the way people feel about using creation as a giant trash can. It’s just awful. It’s one thing to regulate practice. It’s another entirely to form the affections.
This approach is deeply philosophical.
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In his short work, The Emotional Life of Our Lord, BB Warfield writes of the compassion, love, indignation, and sorrow that Jesus experienced during His earthly ministry. Jesus was “subject to all sinless human emotions.” [4] So, what were the occasions that caused the Lord to weep? Three moments in Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry stand above all others:  at the tomb of Lazarus (Jn. 11:35), over the unbelief in Jerusalem (Lk. 19:41), and in the Garden of Gethsemane as He pleads for the cup of God’s wrath to pass from Him (Lk. 22:44; Heb. 5:7-9).

There is an assumption that real men are not supposed to cry. Of course, this misconception probably stems from the authoritative positions in the home and the church where God has placed men. Biblical manhood reveals a man who is not driven by emotion. It calls for men to be wise, self-controlled, and sober-minded, not being blown “to and fro” by life’s changing circumstances. However, the refusal to be driven by emotion is not the same as understanding that emotion is a natural part of the Christian life. Therefore, a godly man will weep when necessary. A godly man will understand that weeping is often influential. [1] Furthermore, a weeping heart is often a product of the Holy Spirit melting the hardest of hearts in the believer (Ez. 36:26). [2]
Watson lays before his readers several situations where weeping is proper. Interestingly, every one of these appropriate circumstances focuses upon the godly man’s recognition of sin in his own life. This focus should be telling. Not only does a godly man recognize his own sinful corruption, but he hates the sin that causes his guilt in the sight of his God. Therefore, Watson pens that a proper understanding of biblical manhood will see sin, hate sin, weep over sin, and ultimately, kill sin.
Regarding weeping over sin, it must be understood that the godly man ought to have a sense of his sins of omission and commission. This means that the godly man will understand that he falls short of God’s standards and strikes out against God’s law. Watson says that a proper understanding of weeping will lead to a godly man shedding tears each time he is “overpowered by pride and passion.” [3] Additionally, he will grieve that he cannot be more holy. Watson continues, “It troubles him that he shoots so short of the rule and standard God has set. ‘I should,’ says he, ‘love the Lord with all my heart. But how defective my love is! How far short I come of what I should be….”
Thomas Watson rightly teaches that the ongoing presence of sin is the reason for the godly man to weep. Yet, does Watson fall short in targeting circumstances in which the godly have the right to weep? He does. Knowing that Jesus Christ was truly man, but a perfect man, emphasizes that he was not driven by emotion but was often moved to emotion.
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Nothing will prevent the Spirit of God from uniting all souls of God’s elect church to Christ by faith. Not even foreseen unbelief will prevent this. It too will necessarily give way and be overcome by grace. Having chosen men without regard to conditions, no condition will hinder Him in bringing those appointed to eternal life to saving faith.

Let us not take away half the love of God by saying he only started to love us at our baptism or only after we came to faith. Let us not take away half the love of God by saying he only loved us in a trickling, generally vague way until we ourselves harnessed and focused his love like a laser through our own reciprocation.
Leave God’s love wholly intact. Leave him be. Let his love for his elect church be as old and as particular as he wills it to be, for the scripture says: “…he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:3-4).
To take away half God’s love is to eclipse the glorious gospel of grace. Let the gospel shine fully without shadows. Where part of the gospel is darkened, part of the believer’s soul is darkened by doubts, fears, and many injurious introspections. Proclaim divine unconditional election.
God did. God does. Through Jeremiah he says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jer. 31:3). Here is the place of refuge and renewal for a sin-sick church who needs a foundation for her repentance that melts her heart and ignites her faith. As Geerhardus Vos said of this stunning text: “The best proof that He will never cease to love us lies in that He never began. What we are for Him and what He is for us belongs to the realm of eternal values. Without this we are nothing, in it we have all.”
It is popular, yet certainly wrong, to suggest God predestines individual men and women to salvation in Christ based upon the foreseen belief of different individuals and the foreseen fruitfulness of the same.
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