Mormon must have thought a lot about the prophecies of Samuel. This Lamanite prophet so accurately prophesied of Mormon’s day, saying, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure (Hel 13:38). Alma warned what would happen to the procrastinators. His words are just as applicable to the openly rebellious, for they become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked (Alma 34:35).
Jeffrey R. Holland
“It is at this moment in Nephite history—just under 950 years since it had begun and just over 300 years since they had been visited by the Son of God himself—that Mormon realized the story was finished. In perhaps the most chilling line he ever wrote, Mormon asserted simply, ’I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually.’ His people had learned that most fateful of all lessons—that the Spirit of God will not always strive with man; that it is possible, collectively as well as individually, to have time run out. The day of repentance can pass, and it had passed for the Nephites. Their numbers were being ’hewn down in open rebellion against their God,’ and in a metaphor almost too vivid in its moral commentary, they were being ’heaped up as dung upon the face of the land.’” (Christ and the New Covenant, p. 319)
Spencer W. Kimball
“It is true that the great principle of repentance is always available, but for the wicked and rebellious there are serious reservations to this statement. For instance, sin is intensely habit-forming and sometimes moves men to the tragic point of no return. Without repentance there can be no forgiveness, and without forgiveness all the blessings of eternity hang in jeopardy. As the transgressor moves deeper and deeper in his sin, and the error is entrenched more deeply and the will to change is weakened, it becomes increasingly nearer hopeless and he skids down and down until either he does not want to climb back up or he has lost the power to do so.” (The Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 117.)