Unpopular subject

Scripture suggests that some Christians will be ashamed at Christ's coming.

Hell will be terrible for all, but it will be more terrible for some than others, depending on their works on earth.

All Christians have not the same enjoyment of God in this life, neither indeed were they able to bear it if they had it (1 Cor 3:2). But those Christians that are most laborious for God in this world, they have already most of him in their souls, and that not only because diligence in God's ways, is the means whereby God communicates himself; but also because thereby the senses are made more strong, and able, by reason of use, to understand God, and to discern both good and evil (Heb 5:13,14). To him that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance (Matt 13:11,12). He that laid out his pound for his master, and gained ten therewith, he was made ruler over ten cities; but he that by his pound gained but five, he was made ruler over but five (Luke 19:16-19). Often, he that is best bred in his youth, he is best able to manage most, when he is a man, touching things of this life (Dan 1:3,4); but always he that is best bred, and that is most in the bosom of God, and that so acts for him here; he is the man that will be best able to enjoy most of God in the kingdom of heaven. It is observable that Paul saith, "Our - affliction - - worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor 4:17). Our afflictions do it, not only because there is laid up a reward for the afflicted, according to the measure of affliction; but because afflictions, and so every service of God, doth make the heart more deep, more experimental, more knowing and profound; and so more able to hold, contain, and bear more (Psa 119:71). "Every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour" (1 Cor 3:8). And this is the reason of such sayings as these–Lay up for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that you may lay hold on eternal life (1 Tim 6:19), which eternal life, is not the matter of our justification from sin in the sight of God; for that is done freely by grace, through faith in Christ's blood; (but here the apostle speaks of giving of alms) but it is the same that in the other place he calls "the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." And hence it is that he in his stirring them up to be diligent in good works, doth tell them, that he doth not exhort them to it because he wanted, but because he would have "fruit that might abound to their account" (Phil 4:17); as he saith also in another place, "Beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor 15:58). Therefore I say, the reward that the saints shall have at this day for all the good they have done, it is the enjoyment of God, according to their works: though they shall be freely justified and glorified without works. - John Bunyan

Hell: The Most Unpopular Subject in the World (and sometimes in the Church)