The Hedge is Torn Down: THAT IS YOUR CUE TO ACT NOW
“Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.” – Job 1: 9-10
I’ll be frank with the reader: It’s the Hedge that’s bothering me. I’m referring to the hedge reference in the passage above (Hbr:שׂוּךְ Suwk – Thorny/intertwined Fencing for protection). As I survey the landscape with its the ever-escalating “culture war,” I confess that reference would keep coming back to me is… The hedge!
First of all, let’s understand: In order to attack an upright man, Satan needs to gain jurisdiction. To do that, he must find and accuse the man as anomos (Gr. Lawless – I Timothy 1). In short, such a man is carnal (Romans 8: 7), refusing to follow the Apostle in serving the Lord according to His Law with his mind (Romans 7:25)[1]: The Apostle Paul wrote:“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
Once Satan gains jurisdiction, he can then TEAR DOWN THE HEDGE surrounding a man or woman. Ezekiel (Eze. 13: 1- 17) warns also of a hedge (Hbr:גָּדֵר gâdêr – hedge, fence, wall) surrounding God’s people and the nation of which they were stewards (cf. II Chron. 7: 14).
That hedge protection was also “torn down” because of the disobedience of God’s people. God placed much of the blame upon the clergy of the people, including false prophets who falsely claimed to be sent by the Lord. God disavowed them all…and ordered the hedge-wall to fall before the “Tempest” that He will bring upon the land (Ezek. 13: ), a tempest of ungodly men (cf. Psa. 18: 4-6) drawing His wrath (vss. 11- 21)… just like today in America.
No doubt. Our land is facing such a tempest now. The Hedge has been torn down. What hedge? The one put up for our protection by earlier Christian generations:
- The 2nd Amendment,
- the Bill of Rights,
- a free market economy, and most importantly…
- the Church in America.
Please note how powerful the Church was in the America which the Church helped to create in the 17th-18th centuries. A famous French visitor to the United States in 1840, noted the real “government” of the United States as he traveled all throughout the newly established country…The Influence of the Church! Note his statement as we compare the power and influence of the Church in America today:
State of the Church in America 1840:
“Among the Anglo-Americans there are some who profess Christian dogmas because they believe them and others who do so because they are afraid to look as though they did not believe in them. So, Christianity reigns without obstacles, by universal consent.”
- TODAY: Christianity does NOT REIGN in influence in America.
State of the Church in America 1840: Impact upon our legal system AND MEDIA in 1840:
“While I was in America, a witness called at assizes of the County of Chester (state of New York) declared that he did not believe in the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to allow him to be sworn in, on the ground that the witness had destroyed before all possible confidence in his testimony. Newspapers reported the fact without comment.”
- The Lord is barred from being cited in our legal system and especially the judiciary today…
- The media, for the most part, is the enemy of Righteousness and the Church in America today.
State of the Church in America 1840: Influence of pastors for freedom in the development of the Union:
“I have known Americans to form associations to send clergy out into the new states of the West and establish schools and churches there; they fear that (the Christian) religion might be lost in the depths of the forest and that the people growing up there might be less fitted for freedom than those from whom they sprang. I’ve met rich New Englanders who left their native land in order to establish the fundamentals of Christianity and of liberty by the banks of Missouri or on the prairies of Illinois. In this way, in the United States, patriotism continually adds fuel to the fire’s religious zeal. It would be mistaken if you think that such men are guided only by the thoughts of the future life; eternity is only one of the things that concern them. If you talk to these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to hear them so often speaking of the goods in this world and to meet a politician where you expected to find a clergyman.”
- The clergy were very much involved in settling America and in this immediate context, again helping to settle the Western frontier of the United States in mid-19th century America. In 2020, you can hardly find the clergy concerned about HOW Americans feel about their country.
- The clergy were universally concerned that the church be at the center of the issue of Liberty… And that that liberty be defined in accordance with the Word of the Lord. In 2020, you can hardly find clergy concerned enough to teach their people about Liberty (and the Hedge that it is called to be).
- Even wealthy Christians left the comfort and ease of home (“rich New Englanders” in this context), in order to pioneer the West as missionaries. (You won’t find that even in Christian textbooks about the era, and yet 19th-century records, diaries, judicial acts and statements, and other “legal and organic documents of that heritage” testify to the IMMENSE IMPACT of the clergy of the era. In 2020, very few Christians are concerned about making an impact for Liberty and Righteousness in our land!
State of the Church in America 1840:
“But American revolutionaries are obliged ostensibly to profess a certain respect for Christian morality and equity, and that does not allow them to easily break the laws when those are opposed to the executions of their designs…” In 2020, revolutionaries attack EVERY nuance of Christian thought and morality in all areas of our public and private culture. From textbooks to condoms to abortions to pornography to statues… All is attacked today. There is respect and reverence for NOTHING… and few even know HOW to defend against this flood of ungodliness.
State of the Church in America 1840:
“It wasn’t until I went into the churches in America that I discovered the reason for the greatness of the United States. America is great because America is good. If America ceases to be good America will cease to be great.” In 2020: America is not good as a nation, as a culture and its government is overbearing and moving toward complete tyranny. We have ceased, by any definition, to be a “good” nation. It was the Church that kept the nation. Many churches – indeed perhaps the majority “back then”– referred to themselves as guardians of Republic. But that is no longer the case today. Clergy refuse to address issues pertaining to the Republic, the preservation of Liberty, nor do they relate the failures of the churches as a correlate of the failure of the nation.
As you can see, the Hedge that God put around our people for centuries, has been torn down. Ezekiel points the people of God as the failure to uphold, maintain and defend the Hedge that God put in place.
Ezekiel warned the people of Israel they needed to repent, and approach the Lord in prayer FIRST. Afterwards they were to act to preserve their freedom and their country. Tragically, all they did was either to wait to see what would happen… Or as the Prophet put it, “they (metaphorically) daubed the hedge (walls) with untempered mortar…” and God, in wrath for their makeshift attitudes concerning the rebellious nature and the failure of the clergy to call people to repentance and uphold righteousness in the land (actively)… sent a “Storm and Tempest” against the land and destroyed the hedge walls of protection daubed with untempered mortar, i.e., They tried to build protections for the massive onslaught of evil without recognizing the Righteousness of the Lord… and He judged them.
To hear the sermon The Hedge CLICK HERE
