The Rock and the Hard Place

05.28.12

Romans 9.33 33 …just as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” NASB

Paul quoted Isaiah 28.16 where the people of Israel of Isaiah’s day believed they would escape the impending captivity; their nationalistic pride egged them on to believe they would somehow escape the terrors of being ruled by the Gentiles. But Isaiah prophesied it was better to go into captivity with God than to stay behind without Him. God had placed a choice before them that amounted to a stone of stumbling and rock of offense in announcing to His people it would be better to go into captivity than to than to refuse it: they just had to believe in God and trust in what He was doing.

Sometimes we call that being between a rock and a hard place; danged if we do and danged if we don’t. What limits us is our perspective: we cannot see as God sees. For God to place a stumbling stone and a rock of offense in Israel was clearly something they never expected Him to do. But sometimes God calls us to do things we have never considered or would be loath to do in order to teach us things we don’t know or to take us to new places in our relationship with Him. God is in control and if He asks us to believe in the stumbling stone or rock of offense then there is good reason for us to do so.

The stumbling stone in Isaiah’s day was trusting God who would lead them to and through a season of captivity. The Stumbling Stone and Rock of Offense in Paul’s day was faith in Christ to save and not by works through the Law. God was asking them to believe Him – and sadly, Israel couldn’t.

Jesus Christ is still the Stone of Stumbling and a Rock of Offense today. There is no other name on the planet as slandered as His. And of all the world’s religions, Christianity is mistreated and ridiculed above all. What caused men to stumble and be offended back in Paul’s day is what causes them to do the same today: Faith in Christ. How can the choice be so narrow!?

I have heard it said that many roads lead to Christ but only One road leads to God: and that road is Christ. Mankind cannot handle the simplicity of One. Men cannot handle the rock and the hard place. And so men persist in rebelling that there is only One way and that Way is Christ. He is the way between the rock and the hard place and somehow by trusting in Him He will show the one who believes how to get through the impossible in a way that is unknown to everyone but Him: he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.

The majesty and miracle of the Rock and the Hard Place is somewhere between them is a place form-fitted to each of us that helps us get from the place we’re in to the next place. The passage between the two may look awkward or difficult but is in that exact place where we find God and to the one who believes will be great satisfaction on two fronts: that we did it and that we found God as we did.

Wherever you are on the journey today, if it is in that difficult place between trying circumstances, be encouraged that He is already there waiting for you.