THE HEDGE AROUND JOB
Job 1:8-10
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
A policeman stopped me and said he was looking for a suspect with one eye. I told him to use both eyes and he might have better luck!
B. TEXT
1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 6 One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. 8 The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." 9 "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. 10 "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so at his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. Job 1:1-10.
C. THESIS
1. Satan basically said, “I’ve been looking for an opening in Job’s hedge, to attack him, but I couldn’t find one!”
2. Every time he’d tried to get through the hedge, an Angel would rap him on the knuckles. The enemy never got inside the hedge until God let him in, and God won’t let him in unless we will come out better for it. But I like the fact that he couldn’t get in!
3. We, as Christians, are standing in a place of victory. Jesus has conquered death, hell, and the grave. We are under the protection of the angels and the blood, but there’s also a hedge around us of the keeping power of God. “The wicked one touches them not” 1 John 5:18.
4. Church, I don’t know about you, but God built a hedge around me! Let’s see where else hedges are talked about and then draw some inferences.
I. OTHER PLACES HEDGES ARE MENTIONED
A. REMOVED BECAUSE OF SIN
1. SCRIPTURE: Isa 5:4-5 "What [more] could have been done to MY vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? 5 Now...I will take away the hedge thereof...and break down the wall...and it shall be trodden down." KJV
2. God put a hedge around Israel when they were obedient. However, when disobedient, He allowed the hedge to be torn down & enemies to invade to punish them for their sin.
3. In Joshua, after Achan had stolen the things dedicated to God, God told Joshua, “They’re protection is gone!” And they were defeated by a far-inferior army at Ai.
B. NOT MAINTAINED BY SPIRITUAL LEADERS
1. We need to remember that all natural hedges need to be trimmed/ attended to. So do spiritual hedges. Our next verse highlights a nation’s hedge not being tended to.
2. Ezek. 22:30 And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. 31 Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD. KJV
3. God needed a mediator, an intercessor to act as the defense attorney for Israel, to intercede in their behalf before God, but He found none.
C. A HEDGE OF THORNS TO PROTECT DISOBEDIENT RELATIVES
1. The Prophet Hosea’s wife was unfaithful. God wanted that to change. So He prophesied, “I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. 7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. Hosea 2:6-7, KJV
2. Hosea was told to marry an unfaithful woman or a harlot. She represented Israel prostituting herself to foreign nations and their gods.
3. God said He was going to put a hedge of thorns” around her to keep her from her lovers. Then she would return to Him.
4. He made her life difficult with that hedge of thorns so that there was no place she could go or turn was without trouble or pain. She would eventually come to her senses and say “It’s better for me to be with the Lord than with foreign gods.”
II. WHAT THE HEDGE SIGNIFIES
A. PLANNING & PURPOSEFUL DESIGN
1. Hedges are not accidental or whims of nature, they are part of God’s system of checks and balances. There is a blessing on the obedient that is not on the wicked. Job’s hedge was of God’s doing…not Job’s.
2. The protection Job was experiencing was not strictly of his own merit but was a manifestation of God’s grace. As we saw with Job and Israel, the existence of hedges is often dependent on intercessors and the obedience of those protected.
B. A HEDGE INDICATES OWNERSHIP
1. God doesn’t build a hedge around just anyone; but only around those who are His kids (or those they are praying for). As I Cor. 6:20 says, “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” We belong to the Lord and He looks after His possessions.
2. You don’t fence in the land that belongs to someone else, but only that which belongs to you. It indicates a special relationship between God and His people.
3. Universalism teaches that everyone has God’s unmitigated support & is under His hedge. This is a deception. God has no grandchildren, only children! You must be born-again!
C. A HEDGE INDICATES VALUE
1. You’re precious in the eyes of God. People only fence in good land. God wants to protect what’s precious to him. God doesn’t make bad bargains.
2. I don’t know what, but God saw something of worth in you and I, worth letting His Son go to Calvary. We’re precious in his sight. God never made provision to save the fallen angels and they must have shined far brighter than us. But God saw something in us, and He desired to make us His own. He looked and searched for us until He found us.
3. God says, “…So a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on His name. ‘They shall be Mine,’ saith the Lord, on the day that I make them My jewels.” Malachi 3:16b-17a.
D. A HEDGE IMPLIES PROTECTION
1. Scripture says, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Deut. 33:27. John 10:28 speaks of us being protected in the Father’s hand. The Psalms speak of the angels being given charge of us to protect us in our way.
2. Many other Scriptures speak of divine protection, so it comes as no surprise that the Bible speaks of a hedge of protection being around God’s people.
3. In Psalm 91 and other psalms, it is said that God will “deliver you” (verse three) from the snare of the Fowler. God is also said (verse four) to be the “shield” around his people and that “under His wings you shall trust” (Ps. 17:8; Mt. 23:37).
III. EXTENT OF THE HEDGE: “ON EVERY SIDE”!
A. ELISHA’S EXAMPLE
1. Elisha’s servant was allowed to see this great truth with his own eyes!
2. “…And his servant said to him, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ Elisha answered, ‘Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And he prayed, and said, ‘Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” II Kings 6:15b-17.
B. PETER’S PERSPECTIVE
1. 1 Peter 1:5 says we are “kept by the power of God.” The Greek word is “proureo” – “to be a watcher, to hem in, to protect.”
2. Again this Scripture points out, especially in the “hemmed in” reference, that God is all around His people. “As the walls surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people.”
IV. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE “HEDGED LIFE”!
A. Joy: “Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I will say, rejoice!” [Phip. 4:4]
B. Assurance: “The Lord thy God is with you wherever you go.” [Josh. 1:9b].
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUS.: WHEN GOD FROZE THEM IN PLACE
1. When missionary Rowland Bingham went into the King of Iwo’s territory (Nigeria), he went before the Muslim king to ask permission to preach the Gospel. The King told him “no” and to leave their territory the next day.
2. As he was leaving from the King, large crowds were on both sides of the street. A man stepped out into the middle of the road, pointed at him, and then uttered a string of curses in the name of Allah against him. Rowland stopped, not knowing what to do.
3. Then the man raised his arm and thrust it down, giving a signal. No one moved. The man looked wildly around and gave the signal again. But no one moved. Disgusted, the man spat toward Rowland and walked away.
4. That night two men came to his tent, “You are lucky to be alive. There is some kind of magic around you?” “What makes you say that,” said Rowland.
5. “That man who spat at you is the head man at the mosque. He stirred up the people and organized them to stone you to death as a warning to other missionaries not to enter Iwo territory.
6. But when he gave the signal to rush at you, a great fear came over the people and no one moved. Afterward, they said magic held them back, and even the angriest were forced to step aside to let you pass. Even the King is scared of you!”
B. ALTAR CALL
1. The Lord Jesus taught us to pray, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This implies that through prayer we can be kept from trial and temptation.
2. Deut. 20 3:14 says, “For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you.”
3. SO HOW CAN WE BE ASSURED OF PROTECTION?
a. Be wise in the way you live.
b. Pray for protection.
c. Be led by the Spirit (Paul was forbidden to preach in some areas – possibly because God knew he might be killed).
d. Trust God. God is a good God. He is our faithful Creator. He loves us more than will ever know. He is trustworthy. He keeps his Word! He does what he says he will do; relax and trust him.
