When the Hedge Comes Down

DreamWorks Animation came out with a movie called Over the Hedge, about a group of
animals that awake from hibernation to find themselves in a significantly reduced forest. While
they were asleep, a housing development was constructed. Between them and their new human
neighbors, they find a tall hedge. As they expand their activities from merely foraging in the
forest to stealing food from the humans, they discover that life is much more dangerous on the
other side of the hedge.

Scripture also has a famous story about a hedge and it involves Job. When we first meet Job, he
has a very full life with:

Seven (7) sons;

Three (3) daughters;
Seven thousand (7,000) sheep;
Three thousand (3,000) camels;
Five hundred (500) yoke of oxen;
Five hundred (500) female donkeys; and,
Very large household (i.e., many servants)

He was the greatest man in the East. To the best of our knowledge, he also had very good health
considering that he probably lived to the age of 210. His life could be pictured by this circle:

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However, as is often the case, things were calmest before the storm. We are told that, while the
Adversary was in the presence of Yahuweh, he accused Job of fearing God only because He
blessed him. The Adversary believed that if God removed His hedge from Jobs life and instead
stretched out His hand against Job then Job would curse Him.
The Hebrew word translate hedge is suwk. In ancient Hebrew pictographs, the root word for
suwk () is a picture of a thorn (), representing protection, and the picture of the palm of the
hand (), representing a covering, with the combined meaning protective covering. Jobs
hedge was clearly Gods hand, as David says in Psalm 91, He shall cover (cakak) you with His
feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge (vs. 4a).
Concerning the Adversarys request, Yahuweh replies:
Behold, all that he has is in your hand; only do not lay a hand on his person. (Job 1:12)
In one day, when the hedge came down, Job lost 7 sons, 3 daughters, 7000 sheep, 3000 camels,
500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and most of his servants. Did Job curse God as the
Adversary had predicted? No! We read that he actually worshipped God saying:
Naked I came from my mothers womb, and naked I shall return there. Yahuweh gave, and
Yahuweh has taken away; blessed be the name of Yahuweh. (Job 1:21)
Job did not worship the blessings of God, but rather God Himself. Job knew that everything He
had was on loan from Yahuweh and that Yahuweh could recall any or all of it as He wished.
But you may think, wasnt it the Adversary that took away his children, servants, and
possessions? Well, the Scripture adds:
In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong. (Job 1:22)
The word translated wrong is tiphlah and it has the idea of being worthless or bland because
ingredients are missing. In other words, Job did not charge God with not knowing what He was

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doing in taking all these things away from him. Although the Sabeans stole the oxen and
donkeys, fire from heaven burned up the sheep, the Chaldeans stole the camels, and a great wind
caused the house to fall on his children, they did not ultimately take these things from Job.
Although the Adversary was given permission to instigate these destructive acts, he did not
ultimately take Jobs family and possessions. It was Yahuweh Who in His sovereignty decided it
was time for these things to be removed from Jobs life. Who was it that brought up Jobs name
in the conversation to begin with? It was Yahuweh. Why would God do that? By the time we
get to the end of the book, we see that Job learned things about God that he did not know before
going through these trials, for he says:
I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. (Job 42:5)
At this point, we could picture Jobs life as the following circle:

All he seemed to have was his health. However, the storm was not over yet. The Adversary
again came and accused this godly man before Yahuweh. This time his argument was the Job
would curse God if he lost his health. Yahuweh granted the Adversary permission to harm Jobs
body, but he could not kill him.
Job was struck with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. His wife told
him to curse God and die. Did Job curse God as predicted by the Adversary and encouraged by
his wife? No, he replies:
You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from [the hand
of] God, and shall we not accept adversity? (Job 2:10a)
Wait, Job, you have it all wrong! The Adversary afflicted you with this disease. Or did he? The
Scripture continues:
In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (Job 2:10b)

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Again, Job correctly saw this adversity as coming from Yahuweh. Sure, the Adversary may have
had an intermediary hand in it, but the Adversary had to get permission from God and so God
was the ultimate source. This disease was in His sovereign will for Job. If this adversity had not
come from God, then Job would have sinned with his lips.
We rightly ascribe the good things in our lives to Yahuweh; however, we generally do not see
adversity as coming from Gods hand as Job correctly did. God Himself declared this truth
through the prophet Isaiah:
I am Yahuweh, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me. There is none besides
Me. I am Yahuweh, and there is no other; I form the light and create the darkness, I make
peace and create calamity; I, Yahuweh, do all these things. (45:5-7)
The word translated calamity is the same Hebrew word used by Job and translated adversity,
namely, ra. It is the same word found in Genesis 2 regarding the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. Unlike in Genesis 2, where Yahuweh uses ra in contrast to good (towb), here in
Isaiah 45:7 He uses it in opposition to shalowm or wholeness/peace. Our heavenly Father
ultimately is responsible for all that comes into our lives whether it causes has to enjoy
prosperity or endure adversity.
We read a lot about the right hand of God. For instance, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the
Father. The right hand was the hand of authority and honor. The word translated right hand in
Hebrew is yamiyn. In ancient Hebrew pictographs, it comes from the root () composed of a
picture of water () representing blood and a picture of a seed (), representing continuance,
with the combined idea blood continues. Species continue by passing its blood to the next
generation. This included strength and the right hand was the strong hand. In the children of
Israels song in Exodus 15:6, it was Yahuwehs right hand that was glorious in power and
defeated the enemy. In Psalm 16:11, David found pleasures at Yahuwehs right hand. But we
need to see that God is not only right-handed, He is ambidextrous. In Psalm 77, Asaph indirectly
provides us some insight into what is associated with Gods left hand:
Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favorable no more? Has His mercy ceased
forever? Has His promise failed forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in
anger shut up His tender mercies? And I said, This is my anguish; but I will remember the
years of the right hand of the most High. (vv. 7-10)
As you read the rest of the psalm, you realize that when Asaph speaks of the years of the right
hand of the most High, he is speaking to the time of great miracles associated with the exodus
from Egypt. Gods right hand is associated with power and prosperity. So what about Gods left
hand? Asaph would seem to be living in a time of left hand of the most high, which involves
being cast off feeling far from Gods favor, mercy, promises, grace, and tender mercies. The
writer of Psalm 111 declares:
The works of Yahuwehs hands are truth and judgment. (vs. 7)
Notice that he mentions the hands of God, not merely the hand of God. The Hebrew word
translated truth is emeth and it comes from the same root as right hand. Just as the right

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hand is the strong hand, the truth is firm and provides support. This is consistent with all that
has been previously said concerning the right hand of God. Psalm 111 says that the other hand is
associated with judgment or mishpat. This Hebrew word has at its root the idea of a serpent
striking or bruising. In Matthew 25, those on the Lords right hand are blessed and those on His
left hand are cursed.
It is important to remember that adversity does not always come into our lives as a result of sin.
God Himself describes Job as a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil
(1:8). In the second chapter of Job, Yahuweh indicates that Adversary incited Him to swallow
up Job without a cause. This does not mean that Yahuweh did not have a plan behind Jobs
sufferings, but rather the severity was in no way deserved from the standpoint of Jobs personal
sin. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus, the sinless Son of God, learned obedience
through the things that He suffered (5:8).
The Hebrew word translated left hand is semowl. At its root, the word is related to the idea of
being wrapped up. As it is covered, Gods left hand is not as easily detected as His right hand.
So often we view all difficulties as coming from the Adversary, rather than from the hand of
Yahuweh. When peace reigns in our lives (His right hand), we readily acknowledge that He is
at work. But when adversity comes (His left hand), we often despair that He has left us.
Returning to Job, it would seem that he had nothing, but is this really the case? We could picture
Jobs life at this point with this circle:

All he had was God, Who had always been there in the background. He was there when Job
had everything a man could want. He was there was Job had only his health. And now He was
there when Job had been stripped of nearly everything. We are reminded of the truth in Hebrews
13:
Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For
He Himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. (vs. 5)

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Id like to focus on a phrase in that passage, be content with such things as you have. The
Greek word translated content is arke, which means, to be sufficient, to be possessed of
sufficient strength, to be enough for a thing.
I think that it is important to realize that such things as you have will change from time to
time. For many when they are in their twenties and thirties, they may be on top of the world
they have a good job with plenty of opportunity for advancement, theyve met a young man or
woman who has become their husband or wife, theyve been blessed with children, theyve
purchased a home, and theyve no serious health problems. For some in their forties and fifties,
they may just continue be promoted to higher paying positions, their marriage may deepen, and
their children may grow into responsible adults. For others, they may lose that great job because
the company is downsizing and they would rather pay a younger person to do our work. Their
marriages may fall apart and their children may go astray. They may begin to develop some
health problems. In our sixties, seventies and eighties, we may be blessed with grandchildren
and the ability to enjoy retirement, but at the same time, it may seem that all we think about are
mounting health issues. At each stage, Gods command to us is be content with such things as
you have. It doesnt say long for such things as you used to have, but rather be content
with such things as you have.
It is not a natural attitude to have. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Philippi:
Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned that in whatever state that I am, to be
content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things
I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do
all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11-13)
It is not easy to be content when we are suffering need, whether that be physical, emotional, or
financial. During those times, the natural response is that we want our health to improve, the
stress to be relieved, or the cause of our money problems to be eliminated. In this passage, Paul
uses a slightly different Greek word that has been translated content, namely, autarks. It is a
combination of the Greek word for self (autos) and the word we just looked at for content in
Hebrews 13 (arke), with the resultant meaning sufficient in oneself, self-sufficient, needing no
assistance. Paul doesnt use this word to imply that he did not need other people, or more
importantly God (remember he says that he can do all things through Christ), but rather, he did
not need anything that God decided he did not need. If we go back to the circles that we used
to illustrate Jobs life, the apostle was saying, I dont need anything that God has not put in my
circle.
Paul wrote the epistle to the Philippians while under house arrest in Rome. Early in the letter
(1:15-16), Paul indicated that there were individuals who were preaching, not out of love for and
obedience to Christ, but rather to add affliction to Pauls imprisonment. Did they accomplish
their wicked purpose? No, for Paul writes:
What then? Only that in every way, whether by pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and
in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice (1:18)

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Paul was probably the greatest missionary who had ever lived, but at this point in his life, he was
in a prison rather than out on the front lines. These individuals referred to by Paul were
essentially saying, Ha, ha, Paul. God has put you on the shelf. You are not the hot shot
preacher anymore. God is using us now! Paul could have been miserable thinking back to the
days when he was free and reaching the world for Jesus. But he realized that he was in prison
because that is where God wanted him at that particular time. We would not have the letters to
the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians or Philemon, if Paul had not been in prison.
How did Paul learn to have this attitude? I think we are given great insight into this in the 12th
chapter of 2 Corinthians, where he writes:
And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of revelations, a thorn in the
flesh was given to me, a messenger of the Adversary to buffet me, lest I be exalted above
measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with Yahuweh three times that it might depart
from me. And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made
perfect in weakness. (12:7-9a)
Earlier, Paul indicates that he had been allowed into the third heaven and heard inexpressible
things. In order to prevent him from being proud, God gave him something that he refers to as a
thorn in the flesh. We are not told exactly what this was, but I believe it was the unending
beatings that he endured for two reasons. First, he mentions being buffeted (Greek,
kolaphizo). He uses this same word in his first epistle to the Corinthians:
To this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten
(kolaphizo), and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we
bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the
filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things until now. (4:11-13)
In the 11th chapter of 2 Corinthians, which is part of the context of what the Apostle writes in the
12th chapter, Paul catalogues his sufferings, which include being scourged 5 times with 39 lashes,
beaten 3 times, and stoned 1 time. It is understandable that he would want to be freed from
them. But when he was told by Yahuweh, No, My grace is sufficient for you, Paul stopped
asking for beatings to be taken away. The word translated sufficient is again arke. Paul
learned that when he was weak, it was then that Gods strength was perfected in him. He
continues:
Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest
upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions,
in distresses, for Christs sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (12:9b, 10)
The second reason I believe that the thorn in the flesh was the beatings he endured is that he says
that instead of asking for the thorn to be removed that he was now well-pleased with infirmities,
reproaches, needs, persecutions and distresses. It only makes sense that these were the very
things that he asked to be taken away previously.
The apostle wrote earlier in 2 Corinthians:

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And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all
sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. (9:8)
I think that this verse is telling us that whatever we have in our circle at a given point in our life
is exactly what we need to serve God in the way He wants us to serve Him. There may be a time
in our lives, where we need perfect health to achieve what He has called us to. But there may be
another time in our life, where He wants us to endure illness. In both situations, Gods grace is
sufficient. The word translated sufficiency is autarkeia, which is from autarks. And notice
He doesnt give us enough grace to scrape by, but rather an abundance for every good work.
Paul uses autarkeia one other time, when he writes to Timothy:
Now godliness with contentment (autarkeia) is great gain. For we brought nothing into this
world and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with
these we shall be content (arke). (1 Timothy 6:6-8)
True riches come from godliness (awe of God and the desire to live a life pleasing to Him) and
contentment (submission to the sovereignty of God, accepting that when something comes into
our lives, good or bad, that it is from a loving heavenly Father). When adversity comes, our first
thought is how can I get out of this with the least negative impact to ourselves. However, instead
of trying to get out of the adversity, we should stop and ask ourselves three questions that Ken
Sande discusses in his book The Peacemakers:
1. How can God use this difficult situation to bring glory to Himself?
2. How can God use this difficult situation to help someone else?
3. How can God use this difficult situation to make me more like Jesus?
These are not natural responses, but like Paul we can learn to be content. We can learn that
Gods grace is sufficient, in fact, it is abundant. An example of this is found in the life of
Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob.
Jacob favored Joseph above all his other sons, because he was the son of Rachel. If their fathers
favoritism was bad enough, Joseph bragged about dreams that he had, which told how his family
would bow down to him. Their jealousy led them to sell Joseph into slavery. He would spend
the next 13 years in Egypt either as a servant or in prison for a crime he did not commit. In
Gods time, he was raised to prime minister and was used by God to help Egypt get ready for a
famine. This famine resulted in the reunion of Joseph and his family. After Jacob died, his
brothers were afraid that he would seek revenge and sent this message to him:
Before your father died he commanded, saying, Thus you shall say to Joseph: I beg you,
please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin, for they did evil to you. Now,
please, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father. (Genesis 50:16, 17)
Josephs reply showed that he had learned the same lesson as Job and Paul:

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Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you devised evil against me;
but God devised it for good, in order to bring about as it is this day, to save many people
alive. Now therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones. (Genesis
50:19, 20)
Joseph probably did not have this attitude as a 17 year old when being sold by his brothers.
However, we see that Yahuweh had done a work in his life. First, God was glorified in the
eyes of Pharaoh, for none of his magicians or wise men could interpret the dream that warned of
the coming famine, but Joseph had declared that God would give him the interpretation. Second,
many people were helped, kept alive because of this difficulty that Joseph endured. If Joseph
had remained in Canaan, he would not have been in Egypt to carry out the plan to save food
during the years of plenty. Third, Joseph was made more like Jesus. As a 17 year old
teenager, he bragged of the dreams that God had given him. As a 56 year old man, he forgave
his brothers in a way similar to Jesus who said on the cross, Father, forgive them for they dont
know what they are doing. Sure his brothers action was sinful and their plan/design was to hurt
Joseph, but Gods plan/design was to bring glory to Himself, to keep many people alive, and to
make his servant Joseph more like Himself. Earlier Joseph had said:
But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; but
God sent me before you to preserve life. And God sent me before you to preserve a
posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was
not you who sent me here, but God. (Genesis 45:5, 7, 8a)
They may have done the selling, but ultimately, it was God Who did the sending. We serve an
amazing God, who works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).
Many people know Romans 8:28:
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those called
according to His purpose.
Joseph knew that truth millennia before Paul penned the words. But most people dont read the
next verse, which tells us why all things work together for good:
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that
He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (8:29)
The reason all things work together for good is that God uses everything to make us more like
Jesus. And it is important to realize that all things means all things, including our own sins
and mistakes. We set ourselves up for discouragement when we view God as only right-handed
(i.e., only the source of prosperity in our lives and not adversity). The greatest sin ever
committed, the crucifixion of Jesus, was not outside the sovereign will of God. In Acts 4, the
disciples prayer includes the following words:
For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius
Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your
hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. (vv. 27, 28)

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We may know this all in our head, but our belief in it often crumbles when adversity comes. In
the third chapter of Job, he says the following:
Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, who long for death,
but it does not come, and search for it more than for hidden treasures, who rejoice
exceedingly, and are glad when they can find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose
way is hidden and whom God has hedged (cakak) in? (vv. 20-23)
It is interesting that when everything was going right, the Adversary viewed Job as being behind
the hedge of Gods protective hand. He saw the hedge as thorns turned outward to keep him
from attacking Job. Now in the midst of the adversity, resulting from Gods protective hand
being partially removed, Job views himself as being hedged in by God. But understandably Job
did not have a hedge of protection in mind, but rather a hedge of restraint. He felt that the thorns
had turned inward to hurt him. Id like to propose that the Adversary and Job were viewing the
very same hedge, one from the outside and one from the inside. The hedge formed by Gods
hands around Job always had thorns on both sides. However, Jobs experience of the hedge
depended on how close Yahuweh drew His hands in. I have tried to pictures this as follows:

Looking at these diagrams, we see that Job was actually closest to God under what I have called
the Job 3 Hedge. When the Job 1 Hedge surrounded him, Job was, to put it in Hebrew
terms, in a large or wide place, as described by David in Psalm 118:5:
I called upon Yahuweh in distress; Yahuweh answered me and set me in a wide place.
The Job 1 Hedge was like being on a spacious ranch which is so vast that you could not see the
boundaries on the horizons. Job may have heard about thorns, but until this point in his life they
had not impacted him. On the other hand, the Job 3 Hedge was like being in very small closet
with the doors closed. It was dark with the tall hedge walls very close to him, blocking the sun.
Although I entitled this sermon When the Hedge Comes Down, it really never came down in
the case of Job. It may have become more permeable as God drew His hands closer to Job,
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forcing things out under His sovereign control. Job was never exposed to more adversity than
God designed for him. The Adversary did not have free reign to do whatever he wanted to Job;
he was not allowed to devour him. A more accurate title might be When the Hedge Closes In.
In vs. 25 of the third chapter, Job says the following:
For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me.
I said earlier that we set ourselves up for discouragement when we view God as merely the
source of good things in our lives. Like Job we may fear adversity, because deep in our hearts
we are not convinced that it comes from the hands of a loving Father. This is why the Apostle
John wrote:
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he
who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)
If we could learn like Paul and Joseph that whatever circumstances we find ourselves in are
under the sovereign control of God and be content with His choices, we would not fear adversity.
We would be settled in Gods love and realize that He uses adversity to train us, to prune us, to
draw us closer to Himself.
This morning, do you find yourself surrounded by a Job 3 hedge? Youve heard the responses
of Joseph, Job and Paul under such circumstances. A more modern example would be that of
Horatio Spafford, who experienced several traumatic events over a relatively short period of
time. The first was the death of his only son in 1871, shortly followed by the great Chicago Fire,
which ruined him financially. Then in 1873, he had planned to travel to Europe with his family
on the S.S. Ville Du Havre, but sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business. While
crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with another ship, and all four of
Spafford's daughters died. His wife Anna survived and was picked up unconscious. Shortly
afterwards, Spafford wrote these words as he passed over the watery grave on his way to get his
wife:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

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My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
Can you say with Joseph concerning adversity, the adversary or men my have designed for my
destruction, but God designed it for my good? Can you say with Job, I accept both good and
adversity from the hand of God? Can you say with Paul, I have learned in whatever state I am
in to be content? Can you say with Horatio Spafford, whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to
say, it is well, it is well with my soul? Unfortunately, the only way we learn to think this way is
to go through difficulty. So this morning, if you find yourself in a Job 3 Hedge or
experiencing the left hand of the Most High, rejoice that God has taken you into His school
and is personally teaching you lessons you could not learn anywhere else or from anyone else.
Id like to end with this Scripture:
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
For who has known the mind of Yahuweh?
Or who has become His counselor?
Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?
For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Whom be glory for the ages!
(Romans 11:33-36)
A pastor, who also survived the collision of the Ville du Havre, recalled Anna Spafford saying,
God gave me four daughters. Now they have been taken from me. Someday I will understand
why. Job never knew about the conversation between Yahuweh and the Adversary. Paul
clearly states we cannot fathom all that God is doing. But this one thing we can be sure of: all
things that come into our lives (whether good or adversity) come from the heart of Yahuweh (of
Him), all things that come into our lives (whether good or adversity) come by means of the
hands of Yahuweh (through Him), and all things that come into our lives (whether good or
adversity) come to bring Him glory (for Him).

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