Hedge in the Word of God is divine protection. The United States
has been suffering a critical crisis for many years. We have
been confronted with terrorism, street crime, domestic violence,
alcohol and drug abuse; sexual immorality, and decay of marriage
and the family, spiritual illiteracy, apathy, irreverence,
greed, pride, political crimes, and many such-like matters. Our
hedges are almost broken down.
In the Word of God, we find hedges around three times: a nation,
Psalm 80:12;
Ezekiel 13:5; a
family, Job 1:10;
and a person, Hosea
2:6. There are three reasons why God will bring down the
hedges: to bring judgement on His people; secondly: to awaken us
to spiritual vigilance; and thirdly: to bring us to confession
and repentance. A holy God demands a holy life. God builds
hedges through godly people. (Ezekiel
22:30) God builds a hedge through His Word. God builds a
hedge through prayer.
Today in America, God is pulling down the hedges. Look at the
catastrophic events that are occurring in this world: ice
storms, snow storms, murders, and lack of church attendance,
divorce rate skyrocketing, no respect for the law nor lives,
mass murdering and many other things. God is pulling down the
hedges. Our divine protection is disintegrating fast.
Many Americans do not respect God anymore. This nation is
experiencing a moral slump. The people are poisoned by greed and
churches are almost empty. God had intended that Israel was to
be a testimony to the world. The trade route was flowing through
and by Israel. Their land was on the crossroads of the ancient
world, so that men passing through might be able to carry back
to Egypt and Assyria, back to Babylon, and Persia, back to
Greece and Rome, the news that God had pitched His tabernacle
among men in the land of Israel. The world was to know that
there, in that little land, God’s Word, God’s worship, and God’s
ways could be seen and studied as in an open book. But they
failed in that mission. Why hast thou then broken down her
hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?
The promised land was on the main trade routes of the ancient
world, on the axis where Europe, Asia and Africa meet. The great
world empires made their way through this land.
(Ezekiel 22:30)
God had sought for a man among them that should make up the
hedge and stand in the gap before the nation and before God for
the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.
“Therefore, I have poured out my 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.” (Ezekiel
22:31) God will pull down the hedges. O yes He will!
America was supposed to be the nation that represented God, but
she failed. Nations idolize America, but she has fallen, she has
apostate and gone away from God, she is a backsliding heifer.
She no longer represents God. Her prophets are like the foxes in
the deserts. They have not gone up into the gaps, neither made
up the hedges for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in
the day of the Lord. They have seen vanity and lying divination
saying, the Lord saith: and the Lord hath not sent them and they
have made others to hope that they would confirm the Word. The
prophets have not stood in the gap. They have not made up the
hedge. They did not tell the people what the Lord had said. The
priest, princes, and people oppressed and exercised robbery, and
vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger
wrongfully. “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.” (Ezekiel
22:30)
God’s hedge is His invisible wall of protection that He builds
around a nation, a family, and a person. Israel was God’s
vineyard and He protected them from nations and empowered them
to win battles that were impossible. A praying people, a godly
people, and a people that will follow the Word of God; He will
protect. Families need prayer, churches need prayer, nations
need prayer, homes need prayer, our lives need prayer. The hedge
is down and the enemy is almost about to destroy our government,
homes, schools, our lives, our churches, our priests, pastors;
and God is about to pull down the hedge!
God needs His servants to proclaim His Word and His standards.
God has the power to build hedges around a person, family,
church, city, or a nation. He needs preachers to stand in the
gap between He and people.
When Israel numbered against God and God was about to pour out
His wrath upon Israel, Moses stood between God and the people.
He stood in the gap and stayed the wrath of God. He asked God to
take his life instead of theirs. God will build a hedge.
When the psalmist Asaph realized what was happening to the
hedges of protection, he wrote this heart cry for a revival.
“Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts look down from heaven,
and behold, and visit this vine, (verse 14). Lord visit this
nation!
You have broken down the hedge that guarded our country, but we
know you want to bless us again. Turn us to you! This is our
heart cry! This is your world! You made it, you created it, you
built it, it belongs to you. It exists for your purpose. Restore
the hedge around our families; get our attention. We are being
overcome with evil. Protection is God!
Pastor, Rev. Dr. Cullian W. Hill
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