Doctrine and Covenants 77

(November 5, 2013)
I am almost frightened to go through the process of finding out the necessary historical information to know just what percentage of Church members received Exaltation during the time of John.  It would be easy enough to do.  Look at the seven churches, and find out the number of men who had died up until the point when John received his Revelation.  Then divide 24 by that number.  So if 100 men had died at that point, 24% of the male membership of the Church were faith and received into the paradise of God.

My fear is that the number of Church members who had died at that point is actually very large.  In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the number of martyrs for the seven churches approached 24 by the time John wrote.  If that is the case – if nearly all of the people who received their Exaltation were martyrs – we have far more to do to be worthy of our Eternal Destiny and we must take our repentance and our covenants more seriously.