Ezekiel 20:10-17

Here we have the history carried on to the wilderness dispensation. If, as some say, the direct road to Canaan might have been accomplished in a few days, the Lord's keeping them there forty years plainly proves, that it was for punishment and the trial of their faith. Here the Lord manifested that they were under his peculiar care, for he gave them Sabbaths as a sign between Him and them, and ordinances as a means of grace to keep up holy fellowship and communion all the way. But when the people polluted the Lord's Sabbaths, and defiled His statutes, the Lord seemed ready to enter into judgment upon them. But here again as before, that the holy name of the Lord should not be polluted and profaned in the sight of the heathen, the Lord suppressed the judgment, and His eye spared them in mercy. Reader! to preventing mercy, sparing mercy, and the mercy which forms itself in the heart of Jehovah before judgment goeth forth, who shall take upon him to state the amount in every man's debt-book before God?