And the brother of Jared repented of the evil which he had done, and did call upon the name of the Lord for his brethren who were with him. And the Lord said unto him: I will forgive thee and thy brethren of their sins; but thou shalt not sin any more, for ye shall remember that my Spirit will not always strive with man; wherefore, if ye will sin until ye are fully ripe ye shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And these are my thoughts upon the land which I shall give you for your inheritance; for it shall be a land choice above all other lands.
God is merciful and forgives sins. Jesus commanded his disciples to forgive seventy times seven, and surely the Father keeps his own commandments, so he is pretty patient with sinners. Nevertheless, he apparently has a limit to his patience. Though he is infinite, he is not infinitely patient. We can reach a point in our willful, rebellious, intentional sinning that the Lord stops inviting us and enticing us to turn to him. He does not close the door on our possible repentance, but it will be much more difficult for us to recognize and turn from our sins when his Spirit is withdrawn from us. Far better is it for us to repent daily, even though we remain weak, than to think we can postpone our repentance to the last minute. If we wait for the last minute, we will likely miss that minute and slip past the grasp of mercy completely.
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