Between a rock and a hard place
Meaning: To be forced to make a decision between two undesired options or as an another source puts it, “stuck between two opposing forces” (www.goenglish.com)
Origin
Gary Martin, author of Meanings and Origins provides us with the US origin of the phrase. He traced the earliest known printed reference to 1921. At the time it spoke of ‘recent panics’ in Arizona." The ’recent panics’ referred to in that citation was the Bisbee deportations of 1917. Martin explains. “In Bisbee, Arizona, in the early years of the 20th century, a dispute between copper mining companies and mineworkers developed. In 1917, the workers, some of whom had organized in labour unions, approached the company management with a list of demands for better pay and conditions. These were refused and subsequently many workers at the Bisbee mines were forcibly deported to New Mexico.” Martin continues, “It’s tempting to surmise, given that the mineworkers were faced with a choice between harsh, underpaid work at the rock-face on the one hand and unemployment and poverty on the other, that this is the source of the phrase.”
In today’s text, St. Paul tells his story of being between a rock and a hard place or being stuck between two opposing forces (vs. 7-8).
His story is our story. The two undesired options are clear – i) remain ignorant (uninformed) of the law of God (Ten Commandments referenced here) or, ii) hear the law of God and as a result be faced with the fact that we are sinful by nature and experience the weight of our sin.
We need to define sin. Strong’s Concordance says it comes from the Greek New Testament word hamartano (ham-ar-tan’-o). It means the same as the Hebrew word Chattah and has the connotation, “To miss the mark and so lose the prize.” When God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree in the middle of the garden and they ate, they missed the mark and so lost the prize (fellowship with God). When we know God lays before us an expectation, an instruction, a command and we reject it, ignore or abuse it, we miss the mark (sin) and so forfeit the prize of communion with God – this of course was our continuing condition apart from the finished work of Jesus on the Cross of Calvary.
So, whether uninformed of God’s law or aware of it and confronting the news of our sinful natures, it puts us desperately far from God. If we choose to remain uninformed about the law concerning sin then we are free to live without a conscious. Do whatever you want, be your own person and have no sense of guilt or remorse for those choices but live with the eternal consequences of those choices. Paul illustrates in verse 7b… (To covet is to want something that belongs to someone else with no consideration for the impact it will have on another person).
Was Paul suggesting that if the law didn’t exist so that I didn’t know coveting was wrong, that it would not be wrong for me? Believing that is to declare, “Ignorance is bliss” (what I don’t know is not my fault). Unfortunately it does not deal with the matter of sin which in Paul’s example, is coveting. Coveting is sin whether we’re aware of it or not. Ignorance is not bliss; it is a recipe for spiritual death. I remember driving through a school zone once when I noticed the red and blue flashing in my mirror. The officer pulled me over and inquired about my speed. I was ignorant to how fast I was driving. I couldn’t tell him if I was driving 50kms/hr or 70kms/hr. I could have argued, “Well officer, I didn’t know I was driving 75km in a 50km zone.
“Yes, I see your point there Mr. Pilgrim. Since you didn’t know any better, I won’t give you a ticket. Have a nice day.”
My speeding fine was $120. He gave me a higher fine to avoid point deductions. My ignorance did not factor in the equation of the right and wrong of that situation.
In telling his story, Paul goes on to outline the paradox. At first glance we might think Paul is blaming the law for the paradox. In other words the law seems to create what it wanted to destroy (vs. 10). It is this apparent conflict that leads many people to reject the Bible – “it’s got too many rules; you can’t do this and you can’t do that.” We consider the instruction of the Bible as stifling and a kill-joy, and it “takes the fun out of everything.” As a result of our attitudes, we reject the authority of God and often choose to ignore his instructions which he designed for our good and benefit.
To reject it is to find ourselves like the person in the story who rushed to the beach on a sunny day and dove into the water to go swimming. After surfacing for air he saw the sign on the dock – “No swimming. Sharks in water.” The swimmer can decide the ‘no swimming’ rule is a kill-joy that’s taking the fun out of his day or he can decide it’s a good thing to be aware of the dangers of swimming right now and heed the instruction “no swimming”. What would you have done? I know, you would have kept swimming.
We can ignore God. We can reject the Bible’s instructions as a kill-joy and complain that God has too many rules. But the fact is, his rules are for our good. Making excuses about our decisions to ignore them will only get us in trouble and cause death in the end.
The problem is not the Bible. The Bible does not create a paradox. Sin creates the paradox (vs. 11-12). Sin does what it always does best. It takes the holy and twists it to serve its own interests which involve destroying what is beautiful, what is healthy, what is whole. It plants viruses in the human heart and sets it against God in the name of self-interest and desire. There is nothing wrong with the law of God – the problem is what sin does to the law. Actually, Paul tells us in verse 13 that what the law of God actually does is show us how ugly, how gross sin really is, which we would not have known prior to God introducing the law to us (read verse).
It is not hard to understand why so many people in our post-modern society struggle with the Christian church and its stand against pornography, homosexuality, same-sex unions or abortion. The law of God is quite clear where he stands on such issues and society won’t face the teaching that it is not acceptable practice. If the Bible never existed we would never know God’s mind on such things, therefore anything and everything would be acceptable behaviour. It is odd though how we pick and choose to suit our own desires. No one would agree that theft or murder is acceptable behaviour – clearly outlined in God’s law as unacceptable behaviour – yet we reject other types of standards when it comes to the earlier examples mentioned.
Let me say a quick word about our responsibility socially with controversial content. The biggest enemy we have in the church is not the Bible. Society labels it as ‘hate literature’ because of fumbling, insensitive extremists who wave judgmental fingers and presume themselves to be the conscious of God for the world. The greatest love story ever written has become the most hated book in the world. We have to learn how to draw people through love instead of banging them over the head with judgment.
Let’s continue with the paradox sin creates. If God did not give us his law we would continue to feed on sinful practices that are unhealthy, lead to death, and we would never have been any wiser. At the end of the day we would blame God and charge, “why didn’t he tell me this wasn’t good for me?” No, God loves us so deeply he chose to give us the truth so we could know his healthy alternative. Brian Hedges tells a story, originally written in The Daily Bread that illustrates God’s love for us through his Word, the Bible. “The early American Indians had a unique practice of training young braves. On the night of a boy’s thirteenth birthday, after learning hunting, scouting, and fishing skills, the tribe gave him one final test. They placed him in a dense forest to spend the entire night alone. Until then, he had never been away from the security of the family and the tribe. But on this night, they blindfolded him and took several miles away. When he took off the blindfold, he was in the middle of a thick woods and he was terrified! Every time a twig snapped, he visualized a wild animal ready to pounce. After what seemed like an eternity, dawn broke and the first rays of sunlight entered the interior of the forest. Looking around, the boy saw flowers, trees, and the outline of the path. Then, to his utter astonishment, he beheld the figure of a man standing just a few feet away, armed with a bow and arrow. It was his father. He had been there all night long.”
God’s law (the whole Bible) concerning the forest of sin is not a stick he uses to beat us over the head every time we fall down or do wrong. It is his deep presence that points us to the path of escape. It is his dawn breaking on the darkness, his flowers and trees of refreshing presence when the darkness of sin would overwhelm and destroy us. It is one of God’s richest gifts that expresses his love for his people.
Paul moves on in his story to speak of the plague of sin’s paradox (vs. 14-23). You have heard it said and may have used it, though you may have been joking – “the devil made me do it.” Of course there is no room to blame the devil because he cannot make us do anything against our will. However, sin’s influence seems to take the fall for Paul’s struggles. In verse 20 he says, “It is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” The picture looks like Paul is suggesting he has no control over what he does – that it is unavoidable. That is not his message. To suggest this is to provide another option to saying “ignorance is bliss”. It’s like saying, “Okay, I know about my sin but I can’t stop myself.”
Sin is very powerful. It is actually stronger than we are. Paul is not saying, “The devil made me do it.” He’s not telling us that he can’t help himself. He is recognizing we can’t help ourselves without the power of God in us. If we choose not to draw on the resources of God’s strength against sin we will continue to do things we know we shouldn’t do but can’t change. Our control is to choose the power of Christ and his strength that is stronger than sin.
There is an answer! Paul concludes his story with the message of The Preserver (vs. 24-25). Paul asks in desperate need, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” It is the picture of a man drowning. Arthur Gordon in an article entitled "The Rewards of Caring," tells the story of how once, as a small boy, he was witness to a near tragedy. At the beach, a woman stepped off a sandbar into deep, swift water and panicked. At least 20 adults in bathing suits watched, apparently paralyzed, until suddenly a young man ran up, plunged in fully clothed and brought the woman out. As Arthur Gordon described the episode later to his parents, his admiration for the young man was matched by the contempt he felt for those who failed to act. She was drowning, and they didn’t even seem to care. His father looked at him thoughtfully and said, "The world often seems divided between those who care and those who don’t care enough. But don’t judge too harshly. It takes courage to care greatly."
We are like the drowning woman. The truth is we don’t have any control. We cannot cure sin and its power in our lives anymore than we can stop the rain from falling or bring someone back from the dead. We needed someone to have enough courage to care greatly – “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (vs. 25)
The message is clear for us. No one can earn the right to be preserved, saved, or rewarded for a good life lived. It is not about how good we are but a matter of our condition. A person facing terminal illness cannot decide that by giving thousands of dollars to charity or missions will release them of their disease. Similarly, no amount of good works can deal with the sin nature with which we are born. It is a fact of our condition and there is only one hope for spiritual terminal illness – the Great Physician and his finished work on the cross!
WRAP
- The story – we’re all corrupted by sin
- We’re stuck between two opposing forces – the holy law of God and the undertow of sin’s tug.
- Sin is stronger than our ability to defeat it on our own. We need help.
- The Bible is not our enemy. It is God’s gift to living healthy and whole and holy lives
- There is hope – the finished word of Christ on the Cross can save us!
