So I wanna give a brief little discussion of this idea of the righteous being cast out. Uh There are scriptures talking about how righteous people are preserving cities through their presence. And um there are some misconceptions that about how this is gonna happen. And uh one of them is that the only
way it will happen is through a holocaust type rounding up of people. The other is that the righteous will be called out in some sort of observable way or all at once in, in unison. Um And then the other is that um righteous people always know when they're being led by God. And um these, these aren't
always the case. So in Isaiah 57 in the Gileadi translation, it says the righteous disappear and no man gives it a thought. And in the King James, it says that they, they die, I think anyway, the righteous disappear and no man gives it a thought. The Godly are gathered out, but no one perceives that
from impending calamity, the righteous are withdrawn, they walk, they who walk uprightly shall attain peace and rest in their beds. So this dispels this idea that the righteous will be gathered up in some observable way and at least some cases they will disappear without anyone noticing. And um, that's
not like they will become invisible or something. It just means that they will move away quietly for reasons that even they might not know. And um, it's all done by God who knows all things and he guides the righteous in ways that they don't always recognize the presence of righteous people, delays the
execution of God's judgment. One example of this being described as in Alma 10, it says, yeah, and I say unto you that if it were not for the prayers of the righteous who are now in the land that you would even now be visited with utter destruction. But it is by the prayers of the righteous that you
are spared. Now, therefore, if you will cast out the righteous from among you, then will not the Lord stay his hand, but in his fierce anger, he will come out against you. Then ye shall be smitten by famine and by pestilence by the sword. And the time is soon at hand, except ye repent the presence and
prayers of righteous people. They counteract the um natural outcomes of the actions of the wicked. When these people stop praying and or leave, that's when those natural consequences start to flow to the land. There are many people that you might not know about who are praying incessantly, they're interceding
for the wicked and they are imploring the mercy of God and this holds back his judgment. Another example is in Helaman 13 where it says yay woe unto this great city of Zerah Hela. For behold is because of those who are righteous, that it is saved but blessed are they who will repent for them, will I
spare? But behold, if it were not for the righteous who are in this great city, behold, I would cause that fire should come down out of heaven and destroy it. But behold, it is for the righteous sake that it is spared. But behold, the time come as saith the Lord that when ye shall cast out the righteous
from among you, then shall ye be ripe for destruction? Yeah. Woe be unto this great city because of the wickedness and abominations which are in her. So now I wanna combine these things that we've read and talked about and think about what it actually means to be cast out. So we know that God will lead
the righteous out of wicked cities and we know that their presence preserves those cities until they are quote unquote, cast out. So cast out has to have a broader definition than what we read in first Nephi 120 other places where it's similar where it says that uh people who are cast out are stoned
slain and people try to kill them and uh they're thrown into prison, they're mocked, they're spit upon they're smoked upon. So there's violence and and they are also literally taken bound and cast out, so literally thrown out of the cities. So the question is, what does this look like in a modern context
? Um It means any, any situation where righteous people leave where they live? Ok. That could happen because of God coming to someone and saying, here's this vision of what's gonna happen to your city now get out of here and go to this other place. But on the other side of the spectrum, there are more
subtle um communications of information or actions that can lead to this outcome. So broadly speaking, uh we can think about discrimination or unjust laws or violence and specifically, again, in a modern context, we could think of things like taxes. There are cities that have really high taxes where
most normal good people would say, why am I living here when I could have a better standard of living somewhere else, doing the same work and living in the same type of house or I can get a better house for the same amount of money because the taxes are lower in this other place because we're not funding
all these ridiculous programs. What about anti home school laws? For those that feel um compelled might be an appropriate word to teach their Children at home uh to help them avoid some of the things that they would be exposed to in public schools? Um there are places that are passing laws that prevent
this now or mandatory vaccination laws or political aggression. So, what do I mean by that? There are many places now where your perspective on political issues might draw severe harassment and even physical violence or you might get fired for your political persuasion, you might get fired for your religious
persuasion. And that has happened to many people. Um, what about gun laws if you live in a city that adopts, um, a gun tax that you have to pay annually? Is that something that you're going to, um, allow or are you going to move? What about crime? There are many cities where criminals run unfettered
where the police don't even answer, uh, emergency calls anymore. Um, there's section eight housing so government subsidized housing can move into your neighborhood and uh, create an environment where you don't feel, uh, that you don't feel is best to raise your Children in or you don't feel your family
is safe in when you have to go to work. What about bad schools? There are bad schools all over the place and maybe you're not in a position where you have the interest or ability to homeschool your kids. And so you have to find a place where you can put your kids into public school because you can't
afford private school and the places you live don't ha don't have good schools. So you have to move somewhere else there are many, many causes to leave. But what we'll find is that in aggregate, the righteous are fleeing from these places that are wicked and all of these things, these, these might not
seem like moral issues, but all of them are driven by a lack of light. So turning away from God's light, whether that's explicit God, uh so sort of right out of the scriptures type um lessons or commandments or whether it's just turning away from your conscience, you know, as a society, we're doing that
as a country, we're doing that as a global um group of countries were doing that, but cities are doing this as well. And so county and city legislatures are uh enacting legislation that is anti freedom and it goes against principles that even people who don't believe in God, uh who are honest ought to
hold dear. And um people will move away from that naturally, like water and oil. And uh in doing so, we will see, even though it might seem unlikely, very large cities. So cities with, with very large populations, even though they have numerically, a lot of people, we will see very few righteous people
left in them. And this will happen increasingly and it will happen like like clockwork. So if you're in this situation where you have felt impressed that you shouldn't stay where you are question is where should you go? The answer is wherever God tells you to go and you shouldn't invent things as you're
seeking him. It's very good to use your natural ability to evaluate options and into numerate options. And uh you know, the brother Jared did his homework when he um made the 16 stones and took them to God and said, here's my problem. Here's my proposed solution. What do you have to say about this? But
he also submitted to what God told him and that's what we have to do as well. And in my own experience in my family, in doing this, uh my wife and I went through this huge analysis of everything we thought we understood about what is to come and our best answer of where to go. And then God said, no,
you're gonna go to this place instead and that was fun. Uh But that's what we did. And I'm smiling because there's a lot more to that story of it anyway. Um The safest place for you is wherever God tells you to go. Because remember the name of the game is not escaping from trials. It's ensuring that
the trials that you walk through are precisely the ones that God has ordained for you that are precision designed for exactly what you need to learn. It's not about avoidance, it's about precision. And um each of us has things that we need to learn and we need to trust Him. God has never given us a reason
not to trust Him. And that's true for every single person on this planet. And if you really honestly think about it, you'll accept that idea and it'll empower you to trust Him more than you do right now. Uh When you think about where to go, uh and trust in God, when he tells you where to go, when angels
came to lot, uh as a result of Abraham's prayers and led his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah, they told him to go up into the mountains and he said, oh, I have a better idea. How about this other city? That's a lot like Sodom and Gomorrah. And um, the angel said, oh, yeah, ok. Fine. And then, uh in
the aftermath of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah lot thought, well, maybe this city isn't such a great place to be anyway. And he ended up in the mountains. It's really important to trust God when he tells you where to go. Um, many times. So lot made that decision based on what he knew, which was
obviously a lot less than what the Lord knew. Many times we lean on our own understanding our own awareness of things. And we temporarily forget actually, we probably more often than not do forget. It's probably rare that we don't do this. We temporarily forget that God's awareness is greater than ours
. He understands so much more than we do. And um, we interpret reality based on what we currently understand. We really ought to trust much more in what he tells us, even if we don't understand it. And in time, we will understand it and we'll see why this was wise, but hopefully we trust him the first
time and we don't need awful things to happen to us. Like happened to lot before we understand where he's coming from. God will be able to bless you much more if you trust him without explanation than if you require explanation before you act. This is actually a key to encountering higher blessings with
God. And it's actually a double blessing because not only do you benefit from principles that you're not yet capable of understanding because you obey them without understanding them. But also you open the gateway to understanding far more, which not only explains the things that you've already been
blessed with, but also empowers you to encounter further blessings from living those principles, not through blind obedience, but through understanding in your own active application of those things to new situations. So when you're thinking about where to go, I have two principles to share with you
. The first is that light flows in filaments or rivers of light, you could think of them as so river um water is everywhere on this planet um in, in greater or lesser quantities. But you find it concentrated in rivers and lakes and oceans and in rivers, you find these starting as almost imperceptible
uh springs and they all flow into larger and larger rivers and this is the way light works as well. And it doesn't matter. The greatest example of this is to look at pictures from space and look at how electromagnetism flows through the universe. This sounds like new agey, but it's very much just astrophysics
. But if you look at these pictures of like nebula, for example, um you'll see that these things, it looks a lot like the, the synapses in your brain. Um It's all the same, it's all the same exact thing or roots in a tree. It's all light, it's all electricity, electromagnetism. But, but that's a macro
thing. It's a big picture. And in your life, you can think about this as well as you're just sort of floating through life. You're going to hit some of these filaments and it's not by random chance, but you can approximate it that way. Think about it that way for this purpose and you'll get so far in
life if you can learn to detect these filaments and follow them. Because if you follow a spring, you'll go to a river and uh if you follow the river, you'll go to a sea. This is the way light works as well. In fact, there are things like this all over the place if you think about fireflies. Um I grew
up on the east coast and we had fireflies. We don't have them where I live now. But the way they work is that you know, you go out on a warm night and you see all these fireflies and, um, as they flashed their lights, what happens is the, the ones with less bright lights, see the ones with the brighter
lights and they fly towards them. So you can actually map these patterns of movement where the, where the lights, you know, it's doctrine, it says in doctrine and covenants light cleaves to light. And, um, I don't know, I'm getting pretty metaphorical here, but I hope that this all makes sense to you
. Follow the light. The Lord sets up these ends signs for us in life. Um And they're like signposts as we go through life with brighter and brighter light. As long as we're learning the things that He gives us to learn, we're not rejecting them will, will flow from one light, from a lesser light to a
greater light. And um I don't know if you want more about this process, you can read the book. The glory of God is intelligence. But um I hope you have already if you're watching this, but uh that's something to think about and I'll sort of leave it at that. So be aware of these things they're happening
, they will continue to happen. God is moving people to the places he needs them to be in for the events that are coming. And so open your heart to anything he tells you and listen to the promptings that you're getting and he will guide you to the places you need to be, to experience the things that