[Sons to Glory!]

I told the Lord this morning that I feared the Bema judgement, because I am not fully convinced I am faithful in the few things He's given me. The more I look into the judgement of both regenerated and unregenerated, the more I'm not so confident in what I thought I knew! (knowledge, like Paul says, will fail) And while John relates that, "Perfect love casts out fear," scripture still has a lot to say about the fear of the Lord being good for the soul. So maybe we need both the carrot and the stick to help us . . .

And the more I look into the subject of the final judgement of hell, the more I see that this judgment for unregenerated is probably not exactly what I thought (eternal, conscious torment), and that there certainly are passages that could be construed as annihilation of the soul or perhaps even universalism . . . there are verses that seem to support each view. Likewise are verses that seem to show various regarding the Bema.

So to me, it's like I told a brother recently: "Whatever its exact nature is (the final judgment of hell), it's not going to be a pleasant thing!" I view what will happen at the Bema in a similar way - there certainly will be accountability for things done in the body after we are saved, and that has the potential to be quite good or quite unpleasant!