Mormon proceeds to compile his final record concerning the last days of his people. He has been no stranger to mayhem and chaos, “for behold, a continual scene of awful wickedness and abominations has been before mine eyes ever since I have been sufficient to behold the ways of man” (Mormon 2:18). Yet in his exemplary mission as prophet, general, priesthood leader, historian, father, and even partaker of the Lord’s presence (Mormon 1:15), this remarkable figure on the landscape of God’s earthly footstool stands as a paragon of valor, courage, faithfulness, hope, and unbounded charity and compassion—even toward a people whose “day of grace was passed” (Mormon 2:15). Concerning the people whose hour of destruction had come, Elder Bruce R. McConkie declares:
Truly, wrath and vengeance are bedfellows. When the Lord pours out his wrath without measure, the wicked suffer the vengeance of a just God in exactly the same proportion. It is their day of reckoning; they are given measure for measure as their deeds warrant; it is a day of retribution and avengement. It is “the day when the Lord shall come to recompense unto every man according to his work, and measure to every man according to the measure which he has measured to his fellow man” (D&C 1:10). (The Millennial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1982], 500)
How can we as modern readers maximize the benefit to ourselves and our families from such tragic scenes unfolding before us on the stage of life? President Joseph Fielding Smith answers this question in candid terms:
So far as this land is concerned, the Lord has said that no people can dwell upon it without destruction coming to them if they permit themselves to turn from the living God, and this destruction will come when their hearts are filled with wickedness and their cup of iniquity is overflowing. They must serve him; they will have to keep his commandments; at least they will have to have some semblance of righteousness or when the fulness of wickedness comes, he certainly will remove them. That has been done in the past. It occurred, as recorded, in the Book of Mormon, with two nations that were swept off the face of this land; and according to the revelations given through the Prophet Joseph Smith with one other nation, or perhaps more than one nation before that time, for the Lord swept the people from the face of the earth by the flood.
Then this land was reinhabited. The Lord brought people here and gave them this precious land, a land that he said was choice above all other lands, and he said they could have it for their inheritance on conditions that they would serve him, but, when they turned from him and became wicked, they were destroyed. Another nation came with like instructions, and when their cup of iniquity was full, they too were destroyed.
This warning has gone out to the people dwelling in this land today that unless they keep the commandments of the Lord like destruction will eventually overtake them. And what the Lord says of this land is also true in a large measure of other lands. History records the rise and the downfall of nations. We have before us the history of Babylon, of Assyria, of Egypt, of Rome, and other nations. Why were they destroyed? Because they refused to hearken to the spirit of truth, to the voice of righteousness, and to walk in that spirit before the Lord. In the days of their iniquity trouble came upon them, and the Lord’s anger was kindled against them, and they fell from their high and exalted positions. (Doctrines of Salvation, 3 vols., ed. Bruce R. McConkie [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954–1956], 3:320–321)