In this sermon, Oswald J. Smith emphasizes the importance of building one's life on a solid foundation. He uses the analogy of building a house on a rock versus building it on sand. Smith highlights five solemn facts: not everyone will be saved, the majority will be lost, some who expect to be saved will be lost, and there is no salvation after death. He urges the listeners to reflect on their own lives and where they stand in relation to these facts, emphasizing the need to get right with God while there is still time.

Welcome to From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons. Each week we bring you a different message from some of history's greatest speakers in the Christian faith and powerful sermons for modern preachers too. This week we have Oswald J. Smith with his message Five Solid Facts. Therefore whosoever heareth these things 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 is 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, represents 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 belong to God, and yet even in the dragnet, they're 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 profess 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, 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. 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. 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. 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, and 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. Do 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. 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? 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 praise you 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. You've been listening to the From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons series. This week you heard Oswald J. Smith with his message, Five Solid Facts. Tune in next week to hear Corrie Ten Boom speak about authority over demons on From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.