Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. Now, just think about these two phrases and how they lead us to pray.
– Ecclesiastes 9:18
The first phrase, wisdom is better than weapons of war. And obviously, there’s physical pictures of war, but I would point us to the biblical reality that all of us live in spiritual warfare all the time.
Ecclesiastes 9:18 reminds us we need wisdom for spiritual warfare.
There is an adversary right now who wants to destroy you, your relationship with God, wants to deceive you, wants to distract you, wants to lead to your destruction. That’s happening right now. There are spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms who are at war with your soul. So how do you fight that war?
Well, Ephesians 6 lists out a whole list of things we have in the armor of God. Ecclesiastes 9:18 is telling us God is telling you and me right now, wisdom is better than weapons of war. We need wisdom, so we need to pray for wisdom in our lives amidst the warfare that’s happening around us. God would help us to walk wisely with him. There’s a reason why Solomon, when God said, “I’ll give you anything as king,” Solomon said, “I want wisdom. I need wisdom more than anything else.”
Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. Oh, that phrase just shouts to me, to you, the drastic, devastating effects of sin on much good. And as I read that phrase, just I’m driven to pray. God, keep me from sin. Keep us from sin in any way today, knowing that we could sin in a way that destroys so much good. And so pray that God would guard our hearts and our minds and our words and our actions so that we do good and we don’t destroy good, which then ties back to the picture of a warfare that we live in every day.
Ecclesiastes 9:18 encourages us to ask God for wisdom.
So God, we pray for wisdom. God, I pray for wisdom. And every fast in my life, I pray this over every single person who’s listening to this right now. God, we need wisdom in our lives. We need wisdom in our families. We need wisdom at school, in jobs. We need wisdom in every circumstance we’re walking through at every moment. God, keep us from foolishness. Help us to walk in wisdom today.
And God, we pray that you would keep us from sin. No matter how small we might think it is or how we might rationalize it or justify it, God help us to flee all sin today, knowing that sin destroys good. It destroys good in our lives, destroys good in others’ lives, good in the world around us. God, help us to hate sin and run from it. Keep us from rationalizing it or treating it lightly. God, help us to avoid it, to run from it, to flee it. And God, should we fall prey to sin in any way, even a way that we might categorize as small, God help us to repent quickly and honestly and humbly and run from it by your grace.
Jesus, we praise you as our wisdom in this world. In the middle of spiritual warfare, you are our wisdom. We praise you for your spirit of wisdom inside of us. And Jesus, we praise you for conquering sin, for your sinless life, and your victorious death and resurrection so that we might be free from the power of sin and free to live in the goodness that you’ve made possible for us.
Prayer for the Saaroa People
Oh help us, then, to walk wisely in you and to live holy in you and to spread this good news about you to all the peoples of the world. God, we pray for the Saaroa people of Taiwan. 300 people in the remote mountains of Taiwan, this isolated area, 300 people who’ve never heard the good news of your love and Jesus. God, we pray that you would send your church to the sorrow of people, and they would receive the gospel as it’s shared with them and they might come to know eternal good in Jesus. May it be so, we pray, all this according to your Word, in Ecclesiastes 9:18. 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.
