What do the Rolling Stones have to do with the Second Coming?
Half a lifetime ago, a good friend, David Porter, a gifted writer and editor, now with the Lord, spoke at our church on the subject of rock music and the Christian. It was a fascinating evening, illustrated by a number of rare recordings. What stuck in my mind was the similarity between the Stones’s 1965 hit The Last Time and an ancient tape of a US black church choir. The choruses seemed very alike, but the choir’s theme was the return of Christ. No one knows the day or the hour. This could be the last time we meet as a church. And similarly we could say this could be the last time we meet for prayer, or for a Christmas carol service. He comes at an unexpected hour (Matthew 24.44). ‘This could be the last time – I don’t know.’ Quite a thought!
Signs of the times
The news continually makes us think about eschatology. The UK’s recent trade deals with China, with little regard for human rights in that country, have the wiff of the end-time Babylon, where only economic gain matters. The proposed further relaxation of Sunday trading laws has the same smell, as does the ‘commerce’ in ‘the bodies and souls of men’, involved in people smuggling and the migrant crisis (Revelation 18.13).
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …