“Doing God’s Will After Exhausting All Other Options” – 2/17/25
In March of 1967, Israeli diplomat and politician Abba Eban said, “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.” (I have heard variants of this, but this is the original statement.) His words remind me of the actions of the sailors in Jonah 1:11-16.
As the storm raged in Jonah 1, the mariners sought an answer. Jonah provided the answer when he told them, “Take me up and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you” (v. 12). In other words, the only way to get the storm to cease was to throw Jonah overboard to his sure and sudden death (they thought, see v. 17). Even in this desperate hour, killing a man was so distasteful, they could not accept what Jonah had said.
We know this is the case because of what happened next (Jonah 1:13). “Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land, but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them.” They could not accept God’s answer to their problem, so they continued doing things the way they had been. The verse tells us the result of their actions. They enjoyed peace in their voyage only when they did as Jonah (and God) said (v. 15-16).
This account parallels people’s lives in the Scripture. Remember Naaman? After hearing what to do to be cleansed of leprosy, he got angry, assumed he had a better way, and even tried substituting one river for another to keep from obeying God (II Kings 5:10-12)! Only after he obeyed, however, was he clean (II Kings 5:14).
This account parallels the lives of people today. When told what to do to please God, how many of us refuse to accept it? We think we have a better way and continue doing what we want instead of listening to the Lord. However, the Bible is clear about the consequences of disobedience, and it often leads to suffering, loss, and separation from God.
For example, this happens when people understand that they need to be baptized to be saved (Mk. 16:16; Acts 2:38, 22:16; Col. 2:11-13; I Pet. 3:21) but refuse to do it. They say things like, “My grandparents didn’t do that.” Or, “My preacher said I don’t need to be baptized.” Or, “I was never taught that.” Or, “That doesn’t make sense to me.” We could go on with the excuses, but once we have exhausted our excuses, God still says we must be baptized if we want to be saved from sin! Like the sailors, we can keep trying to row to shore, but nothing will work until we do it God’s way!
People will make excuses concerning our worship, specifically in the area of our singing. They wish to add instruments of music to the singing after God told us to simply “sing” in the New Testament (Matt. 26:30; Mk. 14:26; Acts 16:25; Rom. 15:9; I Cor. 14:15; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16; Heb. 2:12, 13:15; Jas. 5:13). Some will go back to family members who had a “talent” for playing an instrument. Some say it sounds better. Still others will justify by saying, “I see nothing wrong with it.” Or, “David played an instrument.” These and other excuses would fill this article, but when folks get done making excuses, the New Testament still says to sing. Just like when those mariners got done rowing, God still wanted Jonah thrown overboard.
Allow me to revise Abba Eban’s quote by saying that men and nations will usually do what God says after they have exhausted all other options. This is what happened in the case of Jonah. After doing everything else, they finally relented and threw Jonah overboard, as was told earlier (Jonah 1:15-16). In so doing, they saw the sea calm and safely traveled to Tarshish.
Friend, why not save a lot of time, effort, excuses, mental gymnastics, etc., and just do what God has said in the first place? If we obey God first and continue doing what He has said, we can get to the blessings much faster and suffer less from bad decisions (Matt. 6:33)! Don’t exhaust other options; make faith in God and obedience your first option (Jn. 14:15; Rev. 22:14)!
– Jarrod M. Jacobs