Post by Joseph –
In the last post, we summarized Zenos’ Allegory up to our place in the history of the House of Israel. Which is not quite yet to the middle if I’ve got this right. By the time you study the allegory, it may be the future for me and the past for you, but so be it. So here is the rest.
6. After a long time, the Lord returns to the vineyard.
7. The mother tree into which the Lord grafted some non-Israelitish branches had produced some good works.
8. The transplanted branches of the mother tree bore good fruit in all cases but one – sadly that one was our branch. Only half of our branch had produced good fruit. The other half was a mess, which I project would be the Laman and Lemuel half. Jacob insists I be fair, so in all fairness, there is bound to be some of the seed of Laman and Lemuel which the Lord would consider good fruit and surely some of our seed will bear bad fruit. But the Allegory speaks generally about only half of our branch bearing good fruit.
9. Although the Lord wanted to destroy the bad half of our branch, His servant counseled Him to try one more time to save the whole tree. He therefore continued His work with our branch of the House of Israel. Some of these will certainly be my descendants so I am comforted that He will give them every chance and opportunity.
10. A great number of years passed away and the Lord of the Vineyard returned to the vineyard only to find the mother tree bearing only bad fruit. All the natural branches which had been planted in other parts of the vineyard, including ours had also become corrupt. All of scattered Israel had gone into complete apostasy.
11. The Lord determined to make one last effort to save His trees by grafting back into the natural tree the natural branches He had grafted into His wild trees. So in other words, after this long period of apostasy, the Lord of the vineyard will make one more effort to gather Israel in from among the non-Israelites.
12. At the same time He is working to gather Israel, He will be cutting out the bad from the natural branches and they will begin to grow strong and produce good fruit. The pruning, grafting and dunging will all be in preparation for the end of the harvest.
13. This time the Lord of the vineyard will bring in other servants to help in this work. You that are reading this are probably part of this group of servants called in to help gather Israel and bring forth good fruit.
14. Eventually there will be a time when there is no more wild fruit. This period when there is nothing but good fruit will eventually end and wild fruit will again begin to be brought forth. This will bring about the end of the vineyard. He will gather His good fruit and the vineyard will be destroyed by fire.
So for you reading this summary of a few thousand years of God’s dealing with the House of Israel as Zenos related it through this allegory, it seems that pride and apostasy are a recurring problem with God’s children here on earth. Pride brings apostasy and apostasy brings destruction. Since my brother Jacob and I see this very pride and apostasy destroying our people, I see why Jacob so very much wants to warn our people.
Our hearts break for those of our descendants who’s pride will lead them from the word of God to the bringing forth of wild fruit. No doubt, you will have had experiences with loved ones in your life who may be bringing forth wild fruit. Though in your frustration you may want to cut out the decaying fruit and burn it as did the Lord of the vineyard, He set the real example of mercifully, tenderly and lovingly working to reclaim both our roots and branches. Long-suffering isn’t called long-suffering because it’s easy or short. If the Lord of the vineyard can strive for over 3,000 years to bless and strengthen Israel to bring forth good fruit, we can certainly dung about our loved ones throughout this mortal life.
