The monsters and fools of the world

(Thomas Brooks, "The Glorious Day of the Saints Appearance")

Oh, many say with those in Job 21:15, "Who is the Almighty,
that we should serve Him? What would we gain by praying to
Him?" They are ready to say, when they look upon the sorrows,
miseries, and evils which attend the saints in this wilderness—
"Who have so many miseries, as Christians do? It is madness
and folly to live holily as they live, and to do righteously as
they do!" Oh, the world accounts them a company of crazy,
foolish people, who refrain from evil.

But God will have His people at last appear glorious, that the
mouths of ungodly wretches may be stopped, that they may
justify God in His goodness and mercy towards His own people.
When they shall see those who they accounted as the monsters
and fools of the world, men not worthy to live in the world—
when they shall see crowns set on their heads, and glorious
robes put on their backs—oh how will ungodly men gnash their
teeth, and say, "Oh! we thought them fools and madmen, who
thus served God, and walked with God—but now we see that
we ourselves are the only fools, the only mad ones, who have
turned our backs on God, and have said—It is futile to serve
God. What did we gain by carrying out His requirements and
going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty?"
Malachi 3:14