“Love well those who are spared to you, and do them all the good you can, for their places will not hold them for ever. Cheer the aged, console the desponding, help the poor, for they will soon be beyond your reach, and when you look for them you will be told that David’s place is empty.”
David’s place was empty.— 1 Samuel xx. 27.
At this time I shall use David’s empty place for quite another purpose, and shall note first that in your assemblies at this time there are SEATS EMPTIED BY DEATH.
Our sympathies must now flow forth to a bereaved husband, and also to a widow, in whose hearts there are places sorrowfully emptied, and in whose homes there will be an empty chair and an empty couch, which will force from their eyes rivers of tears whenever they look upon them.
It is our firm hope and confident belief that in these cases the loss of the house of God below is the gain of the house of God above: they fill other and better places, and even those who loved them best, and miss them most, would not wish to call them back again.
Our places will be empty soon, and we shall be missed from our accustomed pews in the house of prayer; let the seats which have been just vacated remind us of this, and silently call to our remembrance the precept, “Be ye also ready.”
Use well your places for hearing the gospel, for gathering at the communion table, and for meeting for prayer while yet the opportunities remain to you, for the time is short, and an account will have to be rendered.
Love well those who are spared to you, and do them all the good you can, for their places will not hold them for ever. Cheer the aged, console the desponding, help the poor, for they will soon be beyond your reach, and when you look for them you will be told that David’s place is empty.
Here is a nice collection of Spurgeon’s Sermons:
You Can Trust Him 