Genesis 17:23-27

In the self-same day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son

Obedience to the Divine voice

I. PROMPT.

1. To delay is to despise God’s authority.

2. It is safest to act upon moral impulses immediately.

II. UNQUESTIONING. God’s will is both law and reason.

III. COMPLETE. A particular and intense regard to God’s known will is the essence of piety. (T. H. Leale.)

Abraham’s obedience to God’s command

There are three things in particular in the obedience of Abraham worthy of notice.

1. It was prompt. “In the self-same day that God had spoken unto him,” the command was put in execution. This was “making haste, and delaying not to keep His commandments.” To treat the Divine precept as matters of small importance, or to put off what is manifestly our duty to another time, is to trifle with supreme authority. So did not Abraham.

2. It was punctilious. The correspondence between the command of God and the obedience of His servant is minutely exact. The words of the former are, “Thou shalt keep My covenant and thy seed after thee,.. .and he that is born in thy house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.” With this agrees the account of the latter; “In the self-same day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son; and all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him.” A rigid regard to the revealed will of God enters deeply into true religion; that spirit which dispenses with it, though it may pass under the specious name of liberality, is antichristian.

3. Lastly: It was yielded in old age, when many would have pleaded off from engaging in anything new, or different from what they had before received; and when, as some think, it would be a further trial to his faith as to the fulfilment of the promise. “Ninety-and-nine years old was Abraham when he was circumcised.” It is one of the temptations of old age to be tenacious of what we have believed and practised from our youth; to shut our eyes and ears against everything that may prove it to have been erroneous or defective, and to find excuses for being exempted from hard and dangerous duties. But Abraham to the last was ready to receive farther instruction, and to do as he was commanded, leaving consequences with God. This shows that the admonition to “walk before Him, and be perfect,” had not been given him in vain. (A. Fuller.)

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