"And as they begin to grow ye shall clear away the branches which shall bring forth bitter fruit, according to the strength of the good and the size thereof; and ye shall not clear away the bad thereof all at once, lest the roots thereof should be too strong for the graft, and the graft thereof shall perish, and I lose the trees of my vineyard."
Jacob 5:65
This one is from Zenos' allegory of the tame and wild olive trees, and the most interesting thing about it, to me (going on the theme of the end of the world again), is that it is talking about our day at this point in the allegory... the church was restored, and God is nourishing his vineyard for the last time... later in the chapter it talks about how the fruits were all equal, and all of them were good, and as soon as bad came into the vineyard again, then was the judgement and the burning of the vineyard... but at *this* point, he is talking about clearing away the bad branches trying to get to that point where they are all good.... and isn't it interesting how it is all up to the good branches (us)? I was just talking to a friend last night about earthly government and how so much injustice goes on constantly, and how hard it is to feel like we can do anything about it... but here, God is telling us that the bad things will go away as we create good things. The more we work at making the world better, and the bigger and stronger advocates for good we are, the more the evil will be taken away, until we really do have a righteous government, and a righteous society. ...Anyway, just thoughts.
This verse and verse 66, not only describe the world, but also the Lords True Church in the last days. If you read this and other parables in the Bible and comments from Church Presidents from this era. You will find it also shows the apostasy of the church in the last days, before the Lords Second Coming. This relates to the parable of of the Sheep and Goats and somewhat to the parable of the 10 Virgins. In the beginning the Lord has need of all, including the Goats, but in time as the Lords more tender sheep increase, the goats will fall away in some trial, and the Lords sheep will rise up. The Lord has said, he will cleanse his House first, before he cleanses the World.
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