Articles
It Only Takes One
Wisdom is powerful, but it is easily defeated.
Solomon, the man given wisdom from God, observed wisdom’s greatness. “Wisdom is better than strength,” he concluded, after witnessing how a poor, wise man was able to save a small, outmatched city from the attacks of a great king and his large siege works (Ecc. 9:14-16). The king should have won easily. But wisdom is powerful. Wisdom saves people and wins wars. “Wisdom is better than weapons of war” (Ecc. 9:18).
This is no surprise though, right? Of course, the wisest man to ever live would tell us about how great wisdom is. But he is leading to a counterpoint. After building up the importance of wisdom, Solomon abruptly turns and adds, “but one sinner destroys much good” (Ecc. 9:18).
Wisdom is powerful. Sin is more powerful.
“Dead flies make a perfumer’s oil stink, so a little foolishness is weightier than wisdom and honor” (Ecc. 10:1). I don’t know much about perfume, but I know I don’t need a bunch of dead flies in my food before I lose my appetite. One will do. Sin is just like that. It does not take a bunch of sin to ruin a life.
It only took one sin to bring death into the world for everyone. Adam and Eve only needed to eat the forbidden fruit once, and nothing they had done beforehand would change that fact. Even if Adam and Eve had spent hundreds of years living righteously in the Garden of Eden, those years of faithful obedience would have been completely undone by one sin, one act of utter foolishness.
We’ve seen this play out in modern society too. Beloved celebrities, coaches, and sportscasters have ruined their careers with just a single offensive statement. Marriages have been destroyed by a single moment of indiscretion. It only takes one.
Sin is powerful. More powerful than wisdom. More powerful than righteousness. Solomon knew this and he wants you to know it too.
As a result, we must be constantly on our guard. We must be mindful of who we keep as friends. One bad friend can cause a lot of trouble! We must also constantly be on guard for ourselves against temptation. We should have a zero sin tolerance for ourselves.
Whenever we speak of being completely sinless we become discouraged. Who can do such a thing? We all sin. We have already failed. Are we all hopelessly doomed, then?
Sin defeats wisdom, but, fortunately, Jesus defeats sin. He can remove all sins and make us pure and blameless (Eph. 5:26-27). That is good news and good cause for rejoicing. However, it doesn’t change the dangerous nature of sin or the damaging consequences that can come with it. Somehow, we must find a balance where we have confidence in our purification and salvation while simultaneously being vigilant to avoid any and all sin going forward.
