“Keep My Commandments and Endure to the End”
Doctrine and Covenants 14:6–7
6 Seek to bring forth and establish my Zion. Keep my commandments in all things.
7 And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God.
Elder Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjödahl wrote:
“David Whitmer is told to seek to bring forth Zion and to do whatever God should command him.
“The promise is that, if he would do so and remain faithful to the end, he should receive eternal life. The spirit of prophecy indicated, even before David Whitmer joined the Church, the danger of not enduring to the end.
“David Whitmer was baptized during the month of June 1829, and was privileged to become one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon. He was one of the original six members of the Church. He shared in the trials of the Saints, was appointed president of the high council in Clay County, July 3, 1834, and took a leading part in the Church in Missouri. When the Saints settled in Far West, he was sustained as their president there. But, notwithstanding all this, he was excommunicated on April 13th, 1838. Had he given heed to this revelation, he might have remained faithful to the end. He did not return to the Church, but he remained faithful to the testimony to the Book of Mormon until the day of his death.”
(The Doctrine and Covenants Commentary, rev. ed. [1951], 72.)
