Rolling Stones: "Somebody Up There Likes Us"

The Rolling Stones US No Filter Tour

Four members of the original 1970s Rolling Stones rock band are still rocking well into their 70s (Ronnie Wood is 72, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are 75, and Charlie Watts is 78), and they think that this is because “somebody up there likes us.” That is what Wood told the press recently, after lead singer Mick Jagger “bounced back” from a noninvasive heart valve replacement (“Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood reflects on sobriety, Mick Jagger’s ‘superhuman’ recovery,” The Sun, June 24, 2019). The band is continuing its “No Filter” U.S. tour. Their longevity and worldly success has deceived them into thinking that all is well, but the accounting with the holy Creator is at hand. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14). The vast influence of the Rolling Stones has been extremely unholy. They helped set the theme for the licentious modern pop culture with their 1965 song, “I’m Free.” Thumbing their noses at God, they sang, “I’m free to do what I want any old time ... I’m free to choose what I please any old time.” They have mocked holy matrimony. Jagger has had eight children by five women. The Stones have exalted Lucifer in albums such as Their Satanic Majesty’s Request and Beggars Banquet and the song “Sympathy for the Devil.” Jagger dressed up as the devil for their 1969 tour, including for the concert at Altamont Speedway in which at least four died and hundreds were injured. The Hells Angels murdered a young black man named Meredith Hunter right in front of the stage as Jagger was prancing around in his Satan routine. In Hellhounds on the Trail, Gary Patterson gives many other details of the Rolling Stones’ occultic involvement. Many of their songs and stage antics are so filthy that neither the titles, the lyrics, nor the descriptions can be printed. Yet Wood says, “Somebody up there likes us.” He is right, but not in the way that he thinks. God loves the members of the Rolling Stones and would save them from their sin through the redemption that Christ purchased at Calvary (John 3:16), but there is no salvation without true repentance and faith. Jesus said, “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). And perish doesn’t mean cease to exist.

​(Friday Church News Notes, June 28, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

---