The servant agreed with the pruning done by the Lord, but wanted to take the remaining branches after the pruning and to “nourish it a little longer, that perhaps it may bring forth good fruit.” (5: 27.) The Lord then  visited with the remaining tree branches, established His covenant with them, and made it possible for them to reconnect with covenant Israel and the Family of God. (3 Ne. 11: 8-17.)

This ministry succeeded in establishing fruit-bearing in that and several succeeding generations. [I gave a talk on the Nephite years of fruit-bearing which someone recorded and still distributes. I am not involved with that, having only given consent to allow it to happen. The CD’s are sold for a modest amount, and the proceeds are used for supporting missionaries (I don’t even handle any of the money). It is the “Zion” CD (I don’t recall the actual title used) and I think you can get it from Confetti Bookstore in Spanish Fork. I won’t repeat that information again, but mention it because it is relevant to the subject of the Nephite people producing fruit for the Lord of the vineyard.]

In each of the places the Lord put the scattered branches, the Lord and His servants visited and labored. (5: 28.) This was a global post-resurrection ministry. He told the Nephites (3 Ne. 16: 1-3) and Jacob’s older brother, Nephi about it. (2 Ne. 29: 12-13). All of these places in the vineyard began to bear fruit.

Another “long time had passed away” in the vineyard. The end was drawing near, and so it was necessary to recheck the vineyard. The momentum of the Lord’s prior ministry needed to be checked again. When the natural tree root, with its grafted branches was checked, there was “all sorts of fruit” that “did cumber the tree.” (5: 30.) There were Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Campbellites, and an hundred other sorts of fruit on the tree root’s branches. But when the Lord “tasted the fruit” (5: 31) He found that “none of it was good.” (5: 32.)

There was nothing left of the Family of Israel in the original root and its associated branches: “they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.'” (JS-H 1: 19.)

The Lord’s reaction is telling. He immediately wondered “What shall we do unto the tree, that I may preserve again good fruit thereof unto my own self?” (5: 33.) The Lord is neither an optimist nor a pessimist. He is a pragmatic laborer. It is not about blame, only about taking the required next step to rehabilitate the cumbered and unprofitable tree. God’s ways are indeed higher. (Isa. 55: 9.)