St John Chrysostom on the End Times

Wait ‘til the end and you will see the outcome of events. Don’t fuss, don’t worry yet awhile. Imagine someone who is not of the trade watching a blacksmith start melting down gold and mixing in ashes and straw. If he does not wait till the end, he will think that the poor piece of gold is going to be destroyed. Imagine someone else, born and bred on the sea, being suddenly landed on terra firma and not having the least notion about agriculture. He sees a farmer collecting grain and shutting it in a barn to protect it from damp. Then he sees this same farmer take the same grain and cast it to the winds, spreading it on the ground, maybe in the mud, without worrying any more about the dampness. Surely he will think that the farmer has ruined the grain, and he will reprove him. Is such reproof justified? Yes it is, not due to facts about the grain, but because of the man’s ignorance, the pride and rashness of the judgment made. Because if this individual, before committing himself, had waited for the summer, he would change his ideas. He would see the grain waving in the fields, he would see the farmer sharpening his scythe to reap the very grain that he had scattered and left to rot, he would see how greatly that grain had multiplied. Now, if the farmer waits all the winter, so much the more ought you to await the final outcome of events, remembering who it is that plows the soil of our souls. And when I speak of the final outcome, I am not referring to the end of this present life, but to the future life —God’s plan for us aims at our salvation and glory.