Saturday Song: Billy Joel, "We Didn't Start the Fire"

What a brilliant piece of songwriting this is. Instead of telling a story, this song uses evocative names and phrases to create memories in people's minds.

Listen to this song and think about the events it brings to your mind.

This song is about various crises in recent history. They range from the Suez Crisis to heavy metal suicides. Iconic entertainers are also mentioned to help bring back the ambience of the time.

We also see that the ancient world had similar, and even worse, problems. Luke 13:1 to 5 (BBE) reports, "Now some people who were there at that time, gave him (Jesus) an account of how the blood of some Galilaeans had been mixed by Pilate with their offerings. And he, in answer, said to them, 'Are you of the opinion that these Galilaeans were worse than all other Galilaeans, because these things were done to them? I say to you, It is not so: but if your hearts are not changed, you will all come to the same end. Or those eighteen men who were crushed by the fall of the tower of Siloam, were they worse than all the other men living in Jerusalem? I say to you, It is not so: but if your hearts are not changed, you will all come to an end in the same way.'"

The Old Testament is one long history of Israel and her surrounding nations. But the biggest catastrophe in history was the world-wide flood. The world had become so wicked that the Lord destroyed it. We read in 1 Peter 3:20 (KJV) of those ancient victims, "Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water."

Neither will this "fire" which Billy Joel sang about last for ever. An atomic fire will come and dissolve the universe. We see in 2 Peter 3:10 (KJV) how this fire will be kindled. "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up."

May we all be safely in the hands of Christ when this happens.

On Monday, I'll post about two kinds of baptism and why the second is superior to the first.