I’ve been enjoying the music of a 78-year-old rock star recently. With me now at 70, he was creating and performing in my impressionable teens and early 20s when I was spinning vinyl and playing a bit of music myself. That same musician is still productive today, having produced a second set of kids with his second wife, one of whom was on stage with him during his recent sold-out tour to promote his new album.
I’m always one to check Wikipedia to see, per chance, if anyone I followed in my youth has seen The Light. That would be a negative with him, as he remains a staunch atheist, which is to me an oxymoron. Here’s a man who is still alive and productive at 78, with eight children, with a beautiful younger wife with whom he collaborates, with a daughter on stage, who’s even philanthropic, given a new lease on life, and he could be a heartbeat away from hell, the road to which is slickly paved due to his total and vocal disregard for the truth.
It’s not that’s he’s ignorant of his plight. Just read some of his lyrics.
The road to hell is paved with gold, they’ll tell you
All the things that you don’t need, they’ll sell you
Your conscience uncontrolled
And beauty to behold
The promise of eternal youth
The spoils of fame, a carpe diem attitude
The wisest man to ever tread this earth outside of Jesus Christ, himself quite accustomed to fame and fortune, said this in rebuttal.
11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; 13 moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God. Ecclesiastes 3:11–13
To truly know God is to admit that one cannot truly “know” God. Like the atheist in a sense we all are resigned to not knowing him. The difference is a true believer knows that not knowing him is a very good thing, and this “lack of knowledge” is a gift to enjoy throughout eternity.
17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. James 1:17
Scary thought to have sung one’s last refrain under the sun.
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