Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and
doeth them, I will liken him unto a
wise man, which built his house upon a
rock.
And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that
house, and it fell not, for it was
foundeth upon a rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of
mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened
unto a foolish man, which built his house
upon the sand.
And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that
house, and it fell, and great was the
fall of it.
These verses make it very, very plain, first
of all.
There's no such thing as universal salvation.
If anyone has an idea that everybody is
going to ultimately be saved, I think these
verses would contradict that opinion.
All will not be saved.
All you have to do is to look
at the parables of the Lord Jesus Christ
to realize the truthfulness of that statement.
Take the parable of the wheat and the
tares.
The wheat, the Lord Jesus Christ tells us,
represent the Christians, those who are saved.
The tares represent the children of Satan, those
who are not saved.
The disciples wanted to go and root out
the tares, get rid of them, and leave
only the wheat.
But Jesus said, no, wait until the harvest,
the end of the age, and then we'll
separate the tares from the wheat.
Are you represented by the wheat, or are
you represented by the tares?
There is going to be a separation at
the end of the age.
Then Jesus gives another parable, the dragnet, and
he says that both good and bad are
gathered into the dragnet.
They're not separated.
Now they continue in the dragnet until the
end of the age, and only at the
end of the age is the dragnet opened,
and will the good then be separated from
the bad, just the same as the tares
and the wheat.
You're in the dragnet.
The dragnet is not the world.
The dragnet represents the people who profess to
be Christians, who claim to be long to
God, and yet even in the dragnet, let
alone in the world, there are those who
are saved, and there are those who are
not saved.
Then Jesus gives a parable about the sheep
and the goats, the sheep representing the Christians,
those who are saved, and the goats representing
the unsaved.
And again, it is not until the end
of the age that the separation takes place,
and that the sheep are separated from the
goats.
Last of all, Jesus speaks about two ways,
the narrow way and the broad way, and
he tells about those who are on the
narrow way, and they are the ones who
are unsaved, and those on the broad way
are the ones, as I've stated, who are
unsaved, and those on the narrow way are
the ones who are saved.
But there's no separation until the end of
the age, and then there comes the separation
between the saved and the unsaved, those on
the narrow way, those on the broad way.
And the remarkable thing is that the narrow
way is thronged.
The broad way has very few on it
in comparison.
Therefore, the vast majority will be lost.
The vast majority will not be found on
the narrow way.
And you and I ought to ask ourselves
the question this morning, am I on the
broad way, or am I on the narrow
way?
If I'm on the broad way, I'll be
lost.
If I'm on the narrow way, I'll be
saved.
And that leads us to the fact that
the majority of people in the world will
be lost.
I think that's one of the saddest statements
that I could possibly make, and yet it's
true.
According to the word of God, the majority
will not be saved, the majority will be
lost.
Now you ask the question, how can a
God of love, how can he banish the
majority?
How can he allow the majority to be
lost and only the few to be saved?
This God of love, has it ever happened
before?
Has there ever been a time when this
God of love has allowed the majority to
be lost?
Think if you will of the days of
the flood.
How many were saved from the flood?
Only three, only, at least only eight, only
eight.
All the others were lost, all the others
perished, and only eight of all those upon
the face of the earth were saved, the
rest perished.
Now God allowed that to happen, and it
happened once.
And if it happened once, it could happen
again, and it did happen again.
You remember Sodom and Gomorrah, when God came
to judge those two cities, and the cities
of the plain, what happened then?
Only three were saved, Lot and his two
daughters, all the others perished.
Everybody in Lot, everybody in Sodom, and everybody
in Gomorrah, and everybody in the cities of
the plain, they were lost, except Lot and
his two daughters.
So it happened again, and this God of
love allowed it to happen, and I say
if he allowed it to happen once, he
may allow it to happen again.
If you were to count all the people
in the church on the Lord's day, and
then count the people outside the church, you
would find to your amazement that the vast
majority of people would be on the outside,
and only the minority of people would be
on the inside.
Comparatively speaking, only a handful would be in
the church, and the vast majority would be
on the outside of the church.
Therefore even in this our day, the vast
majority in the world are on the outside.
They are not on the inside.
And then when you think, if you will,
of China, with nearly 900 million people, how
many of them are saved?
How many of them are lost?
I need not tell you that the vast
majority know nothing whatever about the Lord Jesus
Christ, and they're on the outside.
They're lost.
They're perishing.
And only a handful of people in the
whole of China know Jesus Christ as their
Savior.
And then think, if you will, of India,
with 650 million people.
Do you find the vast majority saved or
the vast majority lost?
You know as well as I do that
they belong to their own religions, and that
the vast majority in India do not know
Jesus Christ as their own personal Savior.
They're lost, and they need a Savior.
Then think of Russia, with 250 million people.
How many in Russia are saved?
How many are lost?
Russia is an atheistic country, atheist.
They do not even profess to know God.
They're outside the kingdom of God.
The vast majority, in comparison to those who
are saved, those who are lost, there are
only a handful of people in the whole
of Russia who know Jesus Christ as their
own personal Savior.
The vast majority, they're lost.
Then think of South America and Europe and
the other countries of the world.
And today as I stand before you, I
have no hesitation in saying that the vast
majority of people upon the face of this
earth are lost, and they do not know
Jesus Christ as their Savior.
But there's something very sad about it all,
and that is that many are going to
perish who expect to be saved.
Now we come to those who profess to
be Christians, those who profess to be saved.
And yet even of those who are professing
Christians, the vast majority of them are on
the broadway headed for destruction.
Think of the ten virgins.
All the ten virgins professed to be Christians.
They were not heathen.
They professed that they were Christians, and yet
only five of them were saved.
The other five perished, and they were professing
Christians.
I want you to think of the churches
of our day and generation and those who
profess to be Christians, and ask yourself the
question, how many of them are saved?
How many are lost?
How many know Christ?
How many do not know him as their
own personal Savior?
Jesus tells us about those on the rock
and those on the sand.
One house built on the rock, one house
built on the sand.
They both looked the same.
They were both beautiful.
Then the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat upon those houses, and the house
on the rocks stood, but the house on
the sand was swept away.
For the remaining portion of Dr. Smith's message,
please turn this tape over.
I wonder as we think of the people
of our day and generation, those who profess
to be on the rocks, I wonder how
many of them are on the rock.
How many of them are on the sand?
How many will be swept away when the
judgment comes and the storm breaks upon them?
Now there isn't any salvation after death.
You talk about a second chance.
You think about an opportunity that you're going
to have after you die.
If you read the Word of God from
Genesis to Revelation, you will not find one
single statement in the Word of God anywhere
from the first book to the last book
that gives you any reason to hope for
one single moment that there is a chance
of salvation after death.
Death will end it.
You will die as you live, and if
you're not saved while you're living, you will
not get saved after you die.
There is no second chance.
Why should there be?
If I offer you a Christmas present, you
throw it back into my face, and if
next Christmas I offer you another Christmas present,
and you likewise throw it back into my
face, how often do you think I'm going
to continue to offer you a Christmas present?
It's perfectly evident that you don't want it,
that you're not interested in it, and therefore
you refuse it.
My friends, if Jesus Christ is offered to
you as your own personal Savior, and you
reject him, and you refuse to have anything
to do with him, why should God offer
him again?
Why should he give you another chance?
Why should you have a second chance?
If you refuse the chances that he gives
you while you're here upon earth, why should
God give you a chance after you die?
He tells us that there's a great gulf,
and that it's fixed.
No one can cross it.
It's too great to be crossed.
It's impossible to move it.
It's there for eternity, and if you die,
and if you land on the wrong side
of the gulf, there is no hope for
you, unless you get right with God while
you're here in this life.
There will be no chance when you get
to the next life.
You will be on the wrong side of
the gulf.
I wonder if this could be somebody's last
opportunity.
I wonder if while you're sitting here this
morning, even though you don't know it and
you don't realize it, I wonder if it
could be your last opportunity.
You know that life is uncertain.
You know that there are accidents on every
side.
How do you know but what you might
be in an accident before you get home
from this service today?
How do you know how quickly it might
happen?
The rich fool thought he had lots of
time.
He said, I'll eat and drink and be
merry.
I have many years to live.
I'll bestow my fruits, and I'll take life
easy because I have lots of time.
He didn't know that God had said to
him, this night thy soul shall be required
of thee.
But God said that, and that very night
his soul was required of him.
He never had another chance.
He never had another opportunity.
The only opportunity he had he rejected.
He refused, and he never had an opportunity
again.
Then, last Sunday night, a man who was
a man of God, a man who was
an earnest Christian, last week he was working,
or the week before last, he was working
in our book room here in the People's
Church.
Did he have any idea that he wouldn't
be working in the book room this week
or last week or next week?
I used to go in and talk to
him.
I used to go in and see him.
He was always smiling.
He was living for God.
He lived for the Lord Jesus Christ.
But last Sunday night, his heart stopped beating.
He went to be with God.
He was buried last week.
Did he have any opportunity that he would
never work in the book room again?
Of course not.
He was taken suddenly, unexpectedly.
My friend, the only safe thing to do
is to accept Jesus Christ now as a
personal Savior before it's forever and forever too
late.
Remember, Jesus is coming back one of these
days.
Are you ready for his coming?
Are you prepared to meet him?
Would you be afraid to face him?
The only time to get ready is now,
and if you don't get ready now, it's
going to be too late.
You realize that the Holy Spirit is going
to cease striving with you one of these
days.
The Bible says, my spirit shall not always
strive with man.
He's striving with you now.
God wants you to be saved, and he
sends his Holy Spirit to strive with you.
And he strives with you, seeking to win
you to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But you refuse him.
You reject him.
You remember what King Saul said?
God has departed from me.
It's a terrible thing when your wife departs
from you, or your husband departs from you,
or your child departs from you, or your
mother or your father departs from you.
But what if God should depart from you?
If God knows that you are never going
to say yes, that you are never going
to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, then
God simply says, what's the use?
Why should I strive any longer?
Why should I send my spirit to deal
with this man again?
He has said no every time I've approached
him.
He has refused to accept me as his
own personal Savior.
God is departed from me.
And the Apostle Paul, what did he say
about the people of his day?
He said, God gave them up.
God gave them up.
They had been striven with, but they would
not say yes.
They refused to accept the Lord Jesus Christ
as their own personal Savior.
And so God gave them up, because they
would not say yes.
They would not come to the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I wonder if God has been striving with
you, and if you have been refusing.
If you have been saying no.
If you have been rejecting his invitation.
I wonder why he should continue to strive.
Why should he continue to send the Holy
Spirit to deal with you?
Why should God continue to urge you, if
he knows that you will never say yes?
That you will never accept Jesus Christ as
your Savior?
My friend, it's between you and God.
You have to decide whether you're going to
open your heart to the Lord Jesus and
accept him.
Or whether you're going to refuse him as
your Savior.
And say no, again and again and again.
While he does everything in his power to
win you to the Lord Jesus Christ.
What is going to be your answer?
Shall we bow together in prayer?
Every head bowed and every eye closed.
And as we bow in prayer and before
we sing our next hymn, let me remind
you of the five extremely solemn facts to
which we've listened this morning.
All will not be saved.
I wonder where you stand.
Second, the majority will be lost.
They're on the Broadway, headed for destruction.
Third, some who expect to be saved will
be lost.
They're building on sand instead of rock.
Finally, there is no salvation after death.
As the tree falls, so shall it also
lie.
Our Heavenly Father, we pray that as we
are confronted by these extremely serious, extremely solemn
facts, rather than just playing with this theological
principle and saying, those are interesting.
May we put ourselves into this picture and
ask ourselves the question, where do I stand?
Where is my life relative to the facts
of the Word of God?
If we are on the wrong side, by
faith help us to get on the right
side.
If we're outside, by faith help us to
get inside.
If we're not saved, by faith help us
to find Christ.
For we ask it in Jesus' name and
for his sake.
Amen.