Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.

• Job 1:10

Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?

• Job 3:23

Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled.

• Isaiah 5:5

The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge. The day God visits you has come, the day your watchmen sound the alarm. Now is the time of your confusion.

• Micah 7:4

Tim Hawkins has a comedy routine on a hedge of protection.  He claims that he’d rather have a concrete wall with razor wire on top.  Wouldn’t we all?  Does it boggle your mind that Satan cannot just step over a silly hedge?  I was thinking of providing a link, but it might detract from what this is about.  If you are interested, it is on Youtube.

But the two Scriptures from Job obviously show that Satan cannot simply step over the hedge.  He needs God’s permission.  God’s hedge is impenetrable.  Not until God removes it does Job suffer the physical damage that Satan inflicts, all to get Job to curse God and die.

Even the Isaiah Scripture above speaks of God removing the hedge from Israel and Judah.  Satan and the armies of the earth could not penetrate God’s hedge.

But then, in Micah, the hedge is a thorn hedge and it is puny and worthless.  What makes the difference?  God’s Chosen People had abandoned God and built their own hedge.

We do that kind of thing all the time, when God’s hedge will remain and remain impenetrable if we just obeyed.

I doubt anyone with a concrete wall with razor wire would ever tear down that wall for a hedge of protection.  But remember that God’s hedge of protection is a spiritual thing.  That hedge can be there or not be there whether we have nothing to protect us physically at all or we have ten concrete walls with razor wire atop each of them.

By the way, these are the only references to hedge in the NIV, but they together make a profound statement.

With our sin nature we will not perfectly follow God’s laws as Job is portrayed in the Bible, but we can keep our eyes on Jesus and pray, study the Bible, and keep good Christian friends near us each day.

These do not even constitute an earthly hedge, but they give us accountability and that helps us with our obedience to God.

Hang in there.  This life has its troubles, but the troubles go away when we go to be in the presence of our Lord and Savior.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory