Advance apologies for not responding to this sooner. I have scattered times that I can post and read, so I get behind in responses I want to make (sometimes giving up altogether).
I hope this doesn't create too much of a parallel thread within a thread since I'm going back several pages to respond...
I, for one, do not understand how any Calvinist can fancy such concern to be at all consistent with Calvinism. If I am not mistaken, according to Calvinism, God does not love all mankind; there are some persons--perhaps the vast majority of mankind--whom God does not love. God does not love these people, so, how much sense would it make to say that God is "concerned for their souls"? None. God is not concerned for their unfathomably dismal prospect of a future in endless, fiery torment; nay, according to Calvinism, He predestinated them to that horrific eschatological plight, according to His good pleasure. He is pleased with, rather than sorrowful over, the prospect of their horror and torment. And yet, Calvinists come along and claim that they, themselves, have a sorrowful heart for the lost. Now, if I'm not mistaken, according to Calvinism, there is no warrant to say to the lost, indiscriminately, "Jesus loves you, and He died for you," since the Calvinist knows not (and avows that he knows not) the status of the individual. Is this or that lost guy one of God's elect, or is he one of the non-elect, the eternally reprobate? The Calvinist claims not to know either way, and so, since he knows not, he doesn't want to risk affirming falsehood to a non-elect guy: "Hey, you. Jesus loves you, and He died for you!"
I understand that seeming struggle (not understanding why one can't indiscriminately say "Jesus died for you"). And maybe it doesn't come naturally (thinking that way), but the Calvinist is not inconsistent. Paul says this to Timothy :
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
I Timothy 1:15
And if that were all, the question would still be hanging out there (why not just say "Jesus died for you!" to everyone since all are sinners?). But Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost (speaking of the lost sheep of the house of Israel in his earthly ministry but the world after His death and resurrection). In so doing, he said this to the Jews :
And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?
When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Mark 2:16-17
Again...all are sinners...all have sinned. The Jewish leaders were no exception but Jesus makes it clear that He didn't come specifically for the Pharisees etc... - he came for those that were sinners but knew it and were not putting on airs or pretensions of being something else. He emphatically did NOT come for them. He says as much. So to say to a hardened sinner that Jesus died for him is not the same as saying that Jesus died for sinners (even though all are sinners). Until a man is convicted of his sin and finds himself in need of that Physician, he won't go anywhere near Him.
Now, to the Pharisees (who are actually sinners but who are not inclined to come to Him because they are not His sheep -- John 10:25-27), He frames things a little differently :
And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
John 9:39-41
Jesus came to bring judgment upon those who are sinners. But there is again a distinction between those who are humbled as sinners and those who are hardened in their sin. Because the Pharisees denied their sinfulness, they claimed that they did not need a Physician (to borrow the context of the previous passage) and so Christ did not come for them and so their sin remains. Did Christ die for them? If He did, would their sin have remained? This was pre-cross, so there is the chance that some of them did repent after Christ arose. Certainly Paul did - but even he says that he was set apart from his mother's womb and Christ was revealed in him at the time determined by God (Gal 1:15). But the cross is not for the unrepentant. And repentance is not possible without conviction. And conviction can only be brought by the Holy Spirit. So unless a man is drawn by God, he will remain in his sins and he is separate from the cross. Do how can you honestly tell someone that Christ died for him personally? Christ died for sinners. But until one is brought to conviction and repentance (the work of God) that man is not in the group Christ spoke of (the sick, the sinners). Even the man who agrees he is a sinner but wants to stay in his sin is yet in unbelief. Only God can make that man see his need of Christ.
And as maybe an afterthought, Matthew tells us:
But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.
Matthew 1:20-21
But, what seems, to me, a deeper question, here, is, why should the Calvinist even be concerned, and even the least bit moved with passion and sorrow over the souls of those whom, according to Calvinism, Jesus, Himself, does not even love or sorrow over? Why should the Calvinist be moved with any pity at all over the soul's plight whom Calvinism's Jesus, according to His own good pleasure, predestined to an inexorable suffering of endless, unmitigated agony? Why should the Calvinist, himself, love those whom Calvinism's Jesus does not love? Whence comes this compassion for souls by which Calvinists claim to be moved to preaching Calvinism? Does the Holy Spirit imbue them with it? I'm specifically talking about those non-elect to whom Calvinists reach out with the imperative to repent and believe Calvinism. If God does not love, nor pity those non-elect persons, it seems quite strange to imagine that the Holy Spirit would fill the Calvinist with a compassion and pity for those non-elect persons. It seems more like the Calvinist's love and compassion for those whom God, Himself, does not even love, needs to be filed, instead, under the category of prideful defiance of God. It seems that, on account of a cognitive dissonance, the Calvinist's professed sorrow and compassion over the plight of the non-elect amounts to a declaration that, "Whereas God does not love y'all at all, and is actually pleased to throw you into hell to watch you burn, we, on the contrary, have no pleasure in the thought of your burning, and we do love you, and are very sorry to see your suffering!"
Now, of course, I am not the least bit complaining against those Calvinists who are, indeed, compassionate in regard to the plight of those they consider the non-elect--I am not complaining against them for their compassion. What I am complaining about is the cognitive dissonance that allows them to feel free to be compassionate in that way while believing things which necessarily clash with that compassion. I'm all for their (your?) compassion for the non-elect, but that very compassion is, as far as I can tell, a stark testimony against Calvinism.
To use the common analogy of a man running headlong towards a cliff (though the Calvinist might say that man is dead in sin and so not running anywhere and so that analogy is faulty), the concern you have is also - to some extent - a concern that the arm of the Lord is indeed too short to save some. In other words, if the end is really simply to keep someone from a fiery fate, then doesn't God Himself have the power to instantly change everyone so that all are kept from this hell that God wants no one to go to? The universalist, at least, consistently (in this, anyway) admits of that fact and says that God indeed does save everyone because God loves everyone. Is God really "betting" the fate of millions on whether or not another one of His children will have enough compassion to witness to another soul? Is God simply not doing what He could because man's free will is preventing Him (even if only because He has supposedly limited Himself so as not to violate a man's supposed free will)? Is God really waiting and hoping that the masses will just wake up and see how good they can have it in Christ? How they can live forever? If that end were really the sum and substance of salvation, I would have to agree with you. But the Lord is also judging something.
When Jesus spoke to the (unbelieving) Jews in John 10, He told them this :
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
John 10:26-28
Jesus wasn't coming to find just anyone who would listen to Him, but those that would listen to Him and follow Him believed Him because they were His sheep. That's why the Jews Jesus was speaking to did not believe. It wasn't that they weren't his sheep because they didn't believe, but rather they didn't believe because they weren't His sheep. They were those to whom He would give eternal life. They were those who would never perish and be "unpluckable". So what is He judging here? Is He judging someone's free will or is Jesus judging a precondition?
So to return to the analogy, if you want to use that analogy and look at those who reject Christ and run headlong into hell - God could easily put out the fires of hell or simply stop all the spiritual lemmings from running off the cliff. But Jesus is "unmerciful" in His speaking to someone who He says is not His sheep and who (if the connection be apt) says "I can see" - so his sin remains. What kind of a God (the argument goes) can say He loves yet keeps hell in place? What kind of a God (the argument goes) saves some and not others? I believe - with George Whitefield, etc... that we are to weep over the lost. And I believe that love is part and parcel of the love of God. But the parallel has to stop somewhere. We would do all we could to see as many saved as possible. But were God to do that, who would be lost? The only refuge the Arminian (I use that generally as the one who resists Calvinism) has - that I can see - is to say that God is waiting for man to decide - He is waiting for man to turn to Him of his own free will. But the same one who says that would use the analogy of the one running headlong off a cliff and another warning him. Is it not more love to rather jump on the man and tackle him before he actually does jump off that cliff? How much more can God - in His sovereignty - arrest a man and turn him around?
So the very argument about not loving sinners enough is (as I see it) a cloak (and I would say it is quite often unwittingly so) for seeing God as unjust. And I am realizing that the conscious, willing mind of a fallen man masks the full depth of sin in the wicked heart (
Jeremiah 17:9) to a degree that is staggering and would honestly shock most people who aren't aware of it. So instead, we have to deal with man choosing God at a superficial level - and as a result, Christianity has become very superficial. But I'm getting off into other areas that are not directly related to the above.
