God, to test Job’s resolve, purposely removes the hedge (Job 1:11, 12). God says specifically to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him.”
This should give us a window into what God’s “withdrawal of grace,” that R.C. Sproul speculates of, is all about. The removing of the hedge is the removing of grace.
The protective hedge, therefore, is the grace God gives to protect people from demonic assault.
Using this hedge, God can literally restrain Satan and place certain measures of power in his hand. This obviously is not passive at all, and while it is not active in the sense that God literally forces people to do evil, the obvious answer is that God permits Satan to tempt a man to do evil, and being that God has perfect foreknowledge, the end result of the man’s decision in response to his temptation is in accordance with God’s will.
Yet, the responsibility is with the man not to give into temptation to sin when tempted. Even if tempted, like David was before he conducted the census, the moral responsibility is not on the tempter, but on the one who makes the sinful decision. For this reason, Christians pray “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” You need help from God to “resist the devil” so that “he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
It is very important to know that with the proper Biblical understanding, while there is little hope for unsaved people like Pharaoh to resist demonic temptation, this is not true of God’s people. If Job is tempted to sin by Satan, thanks to God removing the hedge protecting him, we should remember the following promise: “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13).
Further, God gives believers “new hearts” and “new spirits” that cause us to walk in His statutes (Ezek 36:26-27). Hence, Christians are “new creations,” and the nature of the Christian is no longer depraved because “the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor 5:17). To sin is against the nature of the Christian (Rom 6:2), though Christians do sin because their new hearts battle with the old flesh (Romans 7). Exactly how this is the case is a divine mystery.
However, this is not true of the unbeliever, because they do not have such new hearts. Instead, “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen 8:21). We don’t want to think about it this way, but the hearts of faithless people we think are “nice” are actually continually evil (Gen 6:5).
So, God does not need to withhold grace to make these people “more bad.” Anything and everything that “is not of faith is sin” (Rom 14:23). “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Is 64:6) apart from those we do in faith in Christ. All the good-intentions and love apart from Christ, that seems normal in the world, in alienation to God is wickedness.
Even though there is latent evil in the flesh of all men inherited from Adam, in order to make “grace-withdrawal” theology work, we have to assume that non-believers are active participants in God’s grace. While the Bible is clear that He makes it rain on the just and unjust (Matt 5:45) and He keeps all of us breathing every second (Job 34:14-15), nowhere does the Scripture say that God spiritually sustains non-believers.
This means it is possible God places hedges in front of unbelievers as well as believers to accomplish His will, but we do not know this with any certainty. There are certain situations where we can infer such a thing, for example Saul being given God’s Spirit to accomplish great victories only to have His grace leave him. In fact, God intentionally handed Saul over to demons, in which Saul left to his own succumbed to.
Some may assert that this is “unfair.” However, everyone can see from creation itself that God exists and that they are sinners before Him, yet in their natural state they turn their backs on Him. As judgment for this, God gives unbelievers over to depraved minds for punishment.
…which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them (Rom 1:19-24).
Hence, the picture we see here is of a people that by virtue of that they should know better, deserve judgment, leading to God giving them over to lust as punishment. We can speculate that the “handing over” is the removal of the hedge.
The lusts that God gives people over to are “of their [own] hearts” and originate in the depraved nature of man. Man is no better if he never acts upon them, simply because they are already in his heart and mind. Nonetheless, God hands the sinner to his own lust as punishment, likely through manipulation of the demonic realm to entice the man to act upon the evil in his own heart.
This may be highly speculative, but Satan when given the opportunity to assault Job when the hedge was removed was used to this. Unbelievers wilted before him all the time. He expected the same for Job. But, what he didn’t count on, is that God preserves his saints: “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:39). Job would not be tempted by anything more than he can handle and his new heart, given to him by the Holy Spirit, would not permit him to curse God.
Many of these concepts can be difficult if we do not understand central Christian doctrines, such as “preserverance of the saints” and predestination. It is great comfort to a believer that they are not one by their own power, or otherwise, they really do not know if God will really get them through a tough spot. There is no assurance of it, even though promises such as 1 Corinthians 10:13 would appear to preclude such an understanding. However, we know, that for the believer suffering has a purpose and God will not allow a believer to forsake Him as a result of suffering.
As we can see, God apparently has full “control” over Satan, like a mad dog on a leash, and lets him loose on Job. So, the Bible is not shy about making God complicit in making an evil event occur. Here, God willingly and knowingly allows it to happen. The purpose is to make known that mankind can be faithful in the Lord without a hint of self-interest.
In summary, God controls Satan by placing limits on what he can do. By doing this, God can harden a man’s heart to do evil and play an active role in it without actually compelling the man Himself to do evil.
God doesn’t shake His fist at Satan, complaining that He cannot stop Satan from doing all sorts of bad stuff. In fact, God knows He will crush Satan and throw him into the lake of fire for eternity. The best interpretation we can draw from the relatively chummy conversation Satan and God have is that Satan thinks he is getting the better of God, but God knows where this all leads and that it is really the other way around.