Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his maker?
– Job 4:17
These words are spoken to Job by one of his supposed friends when he’s in the middle of darkness. It’s one of many examples in the words of Job’s friends, where what they say is true, but when they say it, how they say it, and how they apply that truth is unhelpful.
Job 4:17 reminds us to speak truth wisely.
So think about those words, can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his maker? The answer is no, not in and of himself. We are sinners before God. We can’t make ourselves pure before God. So it’s true that we cannot make ourselves pure before God. At the same time, when Job is in the middle of darkness and he’s experiencing suffering not because of sin in his life, but actually because of blamelessness in his life.
He doesn’t need a friend who’s trying to explain his suffering by accusing him of sin. And so I want to lead us to pray for wisdom, to know when and how to speak truth into each other’s lives, especially when we’re talking with people who are going through really hard times, for us to ask God for his help in speaking truth and love and knowing when to say what. Obviously, we don’t want our lives to hold back from speaking truth out of fear, but we do want to apply truth carefully and wisely under the leadership of God’s Spirit.
Job 4:17 reminds us to apply truth wisely.
So God, help us we pray to one, know the truth. We pray that you would fill our minds with truth, that as we read your Word and meditate on your Word, that you would conform and transform our minds according to your truth. And then God, we pray that you’d help us to be wise and speak truth and help us to know when to apply truth and how to apply your truth to comfort others. God, we don’t want to ever comfort people with falsehood.
At the same time, we pray that you would help us to comfort people with the truth in ways that are sensitive to where they are at that moment and ultimately in ways that point to the gospel. God, we praise you that yes, though we cannot be made pure before you are maker, you, by your grace have made us pure through faith in Jesus. Jesus, we praise you that mortal man through you can be in the right before God, not based on our own merit, but based on your righteousness. We love the gospel. Jesus, we praise you for making us pure and right before God. All glory be to your name.
Prayer for the Zekara Berber People
So help us to speak this truth all the time, to apply this truth all the time, the beautiful truth of the gospel. God, we pray for the spread of this truth, of the gospel to people who’ve never heard it in the world. We pray specifically today for the Zekara Berber people of Morocco, 77,000 of them. Hardly any followers of Jesus at all, hardly any of them have even heard the truth of the gospel. God, we pray that Zekara, Berber people would be made right before you, made pure before you, through the proclamation of the Gospel truth to them. We pray all this according to your Word in Job 4:17, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
