Conditions of wickedness that may precede a society's destruction can be obvious to some but not to everyone. Jeremiah and Lehi lived in Jerusalem at the same time, and in their day, as today, there were those who called "evil good, and good evil." (Isa. 5:20.)
"The Jerusalem of Lehi's time . . . was seen differently by different eyes," wrote Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Council of the Twelve. "Laman and Lemuel, reluctant to leave, resented their exodus, saying later, `We have suffered in the wilderness which time . . . we might have been happy" back in the land of Jerusalem. (1 Ne. 17:21.)"Laman and Lemuel, he pointed out, saw the people of Jerusalem as righteous. (See verse 22.)
"Thus can people come to have errant pride in the status quo; hence the importance of listening to the Lord's prophets without being offended."