Paul warned us that we shall receive that which we have practiced in our flesh. The wicked and lazy servant did in fact receive that which he had done. He was lazy and overcautious. He buried the Lord's money. He did not devote his time and efforts to the building of the Kingdom. He was thrust out of the Kingdom of God because he did not find the Kingdom to be of sufficient worth to compel his attention and diligence.

It is taught commonly that all who profess Christ will be raised from the dead and ascend to meet the Lord, and will spend eternity in Paradise with the Lord. But Christ and His Apostles did not teach this.

The writer's opinion is that the fourth chapter of First Thessalonians and the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians are speaking only of those persons whom Paul, Peter, John, James, and Jude would judge to be true and faithful disciples of Jesus. It is our point of view that being "in Christ" means vastly more than the token acceptance of Christ that is today's standard of salvation.

The true saints are entering life now. They are being judged now. They already have been received of Christ. When the Lord returns they will be caught up to meet Him and immediately will be filled with exceedingly great glory. Their judgment has been accomplished, their iniquity has been pardoned.

If Christ were to return now, and the careless believers were to be raised from the dead and caught up to meet Him in the air, they would find themselves in a furnace of Divine fire and judgment. They would be unimaginably worse off than they are now. Our God is a consuming Fire.

The dead will be summoned from their graves by the voice of the Lord Jesus. Then each of us will receive that which he has practiced while alive in the flesh.

The resurrection from the dead will include people from all ages of history. Some of these have been in Paradise with Jesus for thousands of years. But in the hour when Jesus comes and their dead bodies come forth from the grave, they will be rewarded according to how they conducted themselves when alive on the earth.

The concept of Christian people being raised from the dead and then judged, and that judgment actually having far-reaching effects, including vastly different rewards and severe penalties, is not always presented clearly.

When the writer was a young Christian he was taught that the Judgment Seat of Christ will prove to be, for the believers, some kind of sports banquet in which a few heroes receive trophies and everyone else receives a certificate for participating.

There is nothing to worry about, no "terror of the Lord" to cause us to tremble (II Corinthians 5:11). No believer will be rebuked sternly at the Judgment Seat of Christ, much less be carried into outer darkness. All believers will receive approximately the same reward.

To be continued.