dccanon
Doctrine & Covenants
Section 86
Jehovah gives His servants the authoritative reading of the wheat-and-tares parable: the apostolic sowing was choked by Babylon's apostasy, driving the church into the wilderness, while the priesthood continued hidden through lineal descent — not institutional succession — waiting for the restoration hour. Now, in the tender blade stage of the last days, the angels press to reap but are held back until the wheat is mature enough to survive the harvest sequence: wheat gathered first, tares bound and burned after. The lawful heirs of this lineage-carried priesthood are appointed as light to the Gentiles and as saviors to the remnant of Israel.
1
Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servants, concerning the parable of the wheat and of the tares:
2
Behold, verily I say, the field was the world, and the apostles were the sowers of the seed;
3
And after they have fallen asleep the great persecutor of the church, the apostate, the whore, even Babylon, that maketh all nations to drink of her cup, in whose hearts the enemy, even Satan, sitteth to reign—behold he soweth the tares; wherefore, the tares choke the wheat and drive the church into the wilderness.
4
But behold, in the last days, even now while the Lord is beginning to bring forth the word, and the blade is springing up and is yet tender—
5
Behold, verily I say unto you, the angels are crying unto the Lord day and night, who are ready and waiting to be sent forth to reap down the fields;
6
But the Lord saith unto them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also.
7
Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned.
8
Therefore, thus saith the Lord unto you, with whom the priesthood hath continued through the lineage of your fathers—
9
For ye are lawful heirs, according to the flesh, and have been hid from the world with Christ in God—
10
Therefore your life and the priesthood have remained, and must needs remain through you and your lineage until the restoration of all things spoken by the mouths of all the holy prophets since the world began.
11
Therefore, blessed are ye if ye continue in my goodness, a light unto the Gentiles, and through this priesthood, a savior unto my people Israel. The Lord hath said it. Amen.
