What did Martin Luther mean when he said "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."?

Somebody planted this question in the Senior Citizens section. So I took the liberty of returning it to the Religion & Spirituality section where it might do some good.

With a stretch of the imagination, this perhaps illustrates the principle behind that quote from Luther. We do our bit, regardless of how it might be received, trusting the final outcome will produce results.

It means don't live your life like the world is ending. Something fundamentalists need a serious wake up call about. Their Rapture fantasies/negligence actively made the world worse.

You got to eat no matter the day. Although we know from Bible prophecy being fulfilled today, we live in the final days of Satan's wicked system. We will never know the exact day nor hour until after the fact, but we still go about secular jobs to have money to provide family necessities.

Absolutely we ate closer to it than in Martin Luther's time. Also keep in mind that at death, all efforts to please God are over. If we have failed to do God's will from 1 Timothy 2:4 by our deaths, too late now! We lost out on salvation.

By the way, "once saved, always saved" is a complete lie. Dreamed up by clergies to keep the money flowing from any source unacceptable to God. Matthew 10:22; 24:13 both quote Jesus, "Only the one that endures TO THE END is the one who will be saved". END of what? Either our lives OR end of Satan's wicked system. Not anywhere in the middle or between.

Paul at Philip. 3:13 said he did not have salvation YET. To you think you are better than Paul?

Some ideas and works have intrinsic worth regardless of time or circumstance.

A delusion of sin.

God is sovereign, It is beyond us, we can do nothing to change it.

Idk... All I know about him is that he was a Nìgger