Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2288
“And David’s place was empty.” 1 Samuel 20:25.
THERE may be much to learn from an empty place. The world thinks much of the places which have been emptied through the home-going of its celebrated men. Those who have served the world are remembered by it. Those who have served the Church are remembered, too, and empty chairs in the world, in the Church, and in the family awaken a great many memories.
I do not intend to keep to one subject, tonight. I think I have, in these words about David’s place, a roving commission and, keeping to my text, I shall be able to consider a great many subjects and to speak briefly upon each.
I. First, then, let us think of THE EMPTY PLACE IN THE PERSECUTOR’S HOUSE—“David’s place was empty.”
David had good reason for vacating his place at Saul’s table, for the passionate king was so malicious and so embittered against him, that he sought his life. Saul had, on several occasions, in his fits of mad anger, hurled javelins at the man to whom he owed so much—and the envious king determined to put his rival to death at the first convenient opportunity! David, therefore, very properly left a place in which his life was continually in peril.
Oh, how happy are we, in these days, that we are not subjected to the fierce sufferings and the cruel persecutions which the early Christians and even our own forefathers had to endure! How often, in a Jewish family, as soon as a young man had become a follower of Christ, from that moment none of his household would acknowledge him. He was a follower of the hated Nazarene! “A curse be upon him,” said his father. And even a mother’s tenderness seemed to be dried up, so that she could not think of him without bitterness and gall. The same thing happened, also, in the old Roman families. The child of a Roman noble had stepped into some little place where humble and unlettered people met to hear the Gospel preached, to sing songs in the name of Jesus, and to keep holy, one day in the week—and there that youthful heart had learned the story of the Cross, and by the Grace of God had been brought to love the Savior. As soon as the fact was made known, the officers of justice would take the child away from the father’s house and haul the young Believer off to prison—and so another seat was empty.
When persecution grew very hot in the old Roman times, you know how the good, and the great, and the true, the strong and the old, the young man and the maiden had, alike, to flee for their lives. If they remained, it was only to be dragged before the Roman praetor and short work was made of them at the stake or in the arena. After a little while, nothing was left of them but a heap of ashes from the martyr fire, or a few bones that the wild beasts did not care to eat. Thus another “David’s place was empty.”
Horrible work was worked, too, when the Church of Rome had its full power, and the officers of the Inquisition, at dead of night, knocked at the door of some Christian man and demanded either himself, or his wife, or son, or daughter. They had to surrender themselves without a word, that they might be immured in the damp, dark vaults of that hellish institution, never to be seen again, except, on some dreadful day, when they were marched out, in derision, to be burnt alive because they would not bow before images of ivory and wood, and call those idols the Christ to whom homage and reverence should be paid! You know how it was in our own land—how many a seat was empty during the persecutions of Queen Mary. And after that, when our noble sires would not conform to the established Church of this land and, therefore, were hunted into the dens and caves of the earth, as though they had been wild beasts, instead of men of whom the
world was not worthy. Many of the bravest and best of England’s sons and daughters fled away to America and found another and a safer home there, in New England, where the wild rocks were less flinty than the hearts of men here in England.
Often and often, when persecution has arisen for the Truths of God’s sake, David’s seat has been empty. If martyr days should come back, could we vacate our places? Could the husband let his wife and children go for Christ’s sake? Could the child, again, give up the father’s love? Could you wrench yourselves away from all your dear ones to prove that you were truly Christ’s—and that you loved Him better than father or mother, husband or wife, or any of your kin? God grant that the true martyr spirit may not die out of our hearts, even if, in God’s gracious Providence, it is not called into terrible exercise as among the brave peasants of Switzerland, or the noble covenanters of Scotland, or the old Nonconformists of this country! At any rate, whatever we are called to endure, may we be true and loyal to the Gospel for which our fathers bled and died. And if the times of persecution should ever come again, and come they may, may we be ready, again, to vacate the place of comfort, luxury and peace for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake!
II. There is another place which sometimes becomes empty, that is, THE PLACE OF SINFUL PLEASURES. This empty place is the result of the working of God’s Grace in the heart.
I know that concerning some here, it may be said, with very great thankfulness, that David’s place is empty. Ah, dear Friend, where was your place, seven years ago, on such a night as this in our so-called Christian land? Ah, well, we do not want you to tell where it was, you had better be silent about that! But, with a holy blush, and then with devout thankfulness to God, rejoice that, so far as you are concerned, David’s place in the seat of the scornful is now empty! You know that the ale-bench would not suit you now, nor the place where the lascivious song awakens enthusiastic applause from the ribald throng—you would be out of place in the company of the flippant, the foolish, the blasphemous and those who find their pleasures in forgetting their God—and think it no sin to break though His Laws. No, thank God, that place is now empty!
Grace makes a wonderful change in a man! It is not so much that he dares not go where he used to find delight—he would not go if he were paid to go, no, not even if he were flogged to make him go! Old pleasures are not given up by us simply because we think them wrong. We know they are evil and that would be one reason for abandoning them, but we give them up because they are no longer pleasures to us. We have no delight whatever in them, now, nor would we have them if we were free to choose them for ourselves. Were the Law of God suspended and we were permitted to take as much of the pleasure of sin as we liked, we would decline to take any, since it is not pleasure to us. Oh, be thankful, dear Friend, that Grace has made such a change in you! And resolve in your heart that, as Grace has done this for you, you will use your utmost endeavors to get the same gracious work done for your friends, that others may be captured from Satan’s ranks.
Oh, what a gap God sometimes makes in the devil’s army when He takes one of his most active soldiers and enlists him in the army of Jesus Christ—and then makes a recruiting sergeant of him to enlist others for his new Captain! There are no servants of God like those who have been valiant soldiers of Satan! Saul of Tarsus, when once made into an Apostle, was not only not a whit behind the very chief, but we may venture to say that he was the very foremost of all the Apostles and did more for Christ than any of them! Oh, may many a David’s place, among those who are seeking sinful pleasures, be speedily emptied by God’s almighty Grace! And if the devil should fill it up with another of his foolish votaries, may God be pleased to empty that place again and again! May many, like Moses, choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
III. Now I shall speak of other empty places which are better than those I have mentioned. During the past year it has happened several times, to some of us, that David’s place has been empty. I mean that, for a time, THE PLACE OF OUR