As I read about the events leading up to the destructions of the Nephites and the Jaredites, I always wonder why some of the people didn’t see what was coming and run.  I think if I had been there I would have gathered my family and slipped off to some deserted mountain valley where we could have hidden from the insanity that was gripping our peers.  In these two instances it appears that every heart was hardened, and that there were no survivors other than the two prophets, Moroni and Ether. They needed to stay around so that they could record the results.

But we don’t know.

The reality is that dozens or perhaps hundreds of similar destructions have taken place throughout history, and that in each instance the righteous groups or families among the people were led away by the hand of the Lord shortly before the final blow fell.  In each case the offending city or nation was warned by a prophet to repent or to face destruction.  Very often there was a family or a group among them who paid heed, listened, followed counsel, and who were then led to a place of safety.

I call these exodus events.  I have identified about two dozen of them in the scriptures.  They were never easy, and often required those being saved to endure unimaginable hardships.  The presence of those righteous few among the many provided a degree of protection for the whole population; but when they were withdrawn, the Lord’s protections were taken away, too, and swift destruction followed.

Righteous Lot’s extraction from Sodom is a good case in point.  The Lord told Abraham that if 10 righteous people could be found in the city that He would not destroy it.  (Genesis 18:32).  In the final tally there were only four.  One of them, worrying about the daughters and grandchildren she was leaving behind, looked back, and perished also.  Though she, herself, was righteous, her heart was with those who were doing iniquity.  (Gen. 19).

Similarly I think of Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives.  Each of those four couples undoubtedly left behind children who, like Lot’s sons-in-law (Gen. 19:14), refused to listen to the warnings, and were consumed in the holocaust that followed.

Holocausts take many forms.  In Noah’s time it was a flood.  In the case of Sodom it was brimstone and fire.  (Gen.19:24).  When Jared and his brother were led away from the tower it was a confusion of tongues.  When king Omer and his family were warned to flee the kingdom, a civil war followed that killed all but 30 of those who were left behind.  (Ether 9:12).  After the families of Lehi and Ishmael were extracted from Jerusalem, the city was left vulnerable to the invading Babylonian army that destroyed it.  Famine followed the exodus of Abraham from Ur.  The same was true when Jacob left Canaan to seek refuge in Egypt.  Four hundred years later, as the Children of Israel left Egypt they left a land that had been destroyed by hail, pestilence, disease, insects, and the death of every firstborn.  The righteous Nephites who had been cast out of their cities just before Christ’s crucifixion saw those cities destroyed by fire, earthquakes, tsunamis, vapors of smoke, and being sunk and buried in the earth.  (3 Nephi 10:13).

An extra-scriptural account of a people heeding the prophets’ warnings and being saved was the Christians in Jerusalem following Christ’s resurrection.  They remembered His prophecy about the abomination of desolation concerning the destruction of Jerusalem.  Jesus told them that when they saw it that they were to “flee into the mountains…and not return to take anything out of (their) house(s).”  (Genesis 1:12-14). The warning was given in 33 A.D.  In 66 A.D. a Roman army was approaching Jerusalem.  The Christians fled to Pella across the Jordan River, and away to the north.  That army was successfully turned back, but the Romans returned four years later and leveled Jerusalem, killing over one million people.  The Christians, however, weren’t there.  They stayed in Pella and avoided the calamity.

A similar account involves our own time.  In the 1830s and 1840s the Latter-day Saints were driven from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois, and finally, clear out of the United States and into the wilderness.  Suffering, death, and privation were their lot, just as had been the case with Lehi, Nephi, and every other people involved in an exodus event.  But each exodus event, with its accompanying hardships, proved to be a great blessing.

Our early Church members’ expulsion from their country left the United States wide open for the Civil War.  The Saints dwelt safely a thousand miles away as blood and carnage and the deaths of 600,000 people engulfed their former home.

So what are the lessons learned?  Has anything changed?  Exodus events have been taking place since the first one, led by Enos, the grandson of Adam.  (Moses 6:17).  The second exodus event recorded in scripture was that of Enoch, when the City of Zion was taken up from the earth.  That event was a type and a foreshadowing for an exodus event yet future.

The earth became so wicked in the days of Noah that the righteous few were put aboard an ark while the earth was cleansed in a baptism by water.  Modern prophets have told us that the earth today is as wicked as it was in the days of Noah.  Another cleansing is due.  This time the cleansing will be a baptism by fire.  The elements will melt by fervent heat, and all the wicked shall be as stubble.  The righteous, however, will first be caught up to meet Jesus in the clouds as He returns in glory to reign upon a righteous earth for 1,000 years.

Will I be caught up, or will I be burned?  The answer probably lies in how well I’m keeping the commandment to “gather ye out from among the wicked.”  I look upon that as a commandment that I’m to keep weekly—and please note that I spell that w-e-e-k-l-y.

The righteous and the wicked are separated at least once each week.  If you allow yourself to be gathered on a weekly basis, then it’s very likely that you will be in the group that’s told to leave town, or that is caught up to meet Jesus in the clouds.

I’m sure that there are exodus events yet future, but which will precede that of being caught up into the clouds.  There are wars and pestilences and tsunamis and tempests and earthquakes still in the forecast.  We still see the Saints being unwelcome in certain homes, cities, and whole nations.  Wo unto those who cast out the prophets and don’t receive them.  They’re casting away safety.

Stay tuned to the forecast.  Pay attention to the prophets.  Keep yourself where you’re sure to hear the reports.  When the time comes, you won’t be doubtful, like Lot’s wife, about your proper course of action.  Your children will have been in church with you every week, so they’d certainly be with you when you’re called to go elsewhere.  You won’t have cause to pause and look back.  There might be hardships ahead, but they’ll be good for you, and you’ll certainly avoid the calamity which the Lord says is coming upon the inhabitants of the earth.  (D&C 1:17).