Day 4: Hedge of Protection #21 Day Purity Challenge

Job 1:6-12

6One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them.

7“Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan.

“From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.”

8Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil.”

9Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10Have You not placed a hedge on every side around him and his household and all that he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11But stretch out Your hand and strike all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”

12“Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “Everything he has is in your hands, but you must not lay a hand on the man himself.”

Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

A hedge is a fence, a boundary, or a wall that surrounds or encloses for protection. It could be made of stone, thorns, or other materials that are durable to keep those enclosed protected. Sheepfolds often are surrounded by hedges to keep the sheep from crossing it and keep predators out. In ancient Palestine, hedges served to protect vineyards from damage by animals or intruders.

Applying this to God’s people, God puts His hedge around us for a defense and restraint mechanism. As we see in the text above with Job, God keeps us, our possessions, and everything connected to us safe from the devourer when we belong to Him.

There needs to be a gate around us no matter how spiritually mature we are because unless God watches over us, we as watchmen watch in vain. He knows hidden dangers that we may not see, because He is God. He speaks with Satan and is in charge of what he does to his people. God is all knowing and omnipresent.

We should be grateful also for the restraint mechanism of his hedge. He provides ways of escape to keep us from disobeying Him, warns us through dreams and messages from Heaven so we won’t turn astray, puts a check of discernment in our spirits, trains us in righteousness, and a variety of other ways.

God is the one who helps us through His Spirit to do all that He has appointed and created us to do, if we yield to Him. If we fight against this protection, we can end up taring down a wall that was meant to keep us from harm, opening up ourselves to what is lurking to attack us. This happens through disobedience, acts of the flesh, compromise, unforgiveness, willful sin, and neglecting God. God then removes this hedge for discipline.

Job must have felt terrible not knowing why all the trials he faced came upon Him, but in Job 1:22 it says, “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”

Journal Prompt: How have you been responding to the tests and trials you are experiencing this year? Have you been charging God with wrong and complaining about His leadership style?... You still have the rest of December to turn your heart around and ask God for forgiveness. God is just in all His ways and works everything for your good. Get back under His safety and yield to His protection mechanisms. Then you will see a refreshing come over you and thankfulness of His faithful devotion to you (Lamentations 3).

Hosea 2:6-9

6Therefore I will hedge up herd way with thorns,

and I will build a wall against her,

so that she cannot find her paths.

7She shall pursue her lovers

but not overtake them,

and she shall seek them

but shall not find them.

Then she shall say,

‘I will go and return to my first husband,

for it was better for me then than now.’

8And she did not know

that it was I who gave her

the grain, the wine, and the oil,

and who lavished on her silver and gold,

which they used for Baal.

9Therefore I will take back

my grain in its time,

and my wine in its season,

and I will take away my wool and my flax,

which were to cover her nakedness.