This calls to mind country singer Hank Williams, Sr. who held the world in his grasp then lost it all in the back seat of his Cadillac dying from a drug overdose on New Year’s Day, 1953. He was age 29. His long-time manager Merle Kilgore called him, “the most cocky, confident man I ever met in my life.” Yet, he was a small man with a very average appearance.

He had a string of hits including “I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry” in 1949; and the haunting “Cold Cold Heart” in 1950; and “Your Cheatin Heart” in 1952. It seems that Williams could massage a song to get the most from it and was proficient with his guitar, but he couldn’t handle fame, money, and life in general. He was often drunk or drugged even on stage.

With all his advantages, as is true of other entertainers, he lived a shameful, sorry, and sinful life and died a lonely death surrounded by toys, trinkets, and treasure.

His songs reveal that Williams had some exposure to the Gospel. One of his songs reveals his knowledge of salvation: “How Can You Refuse Him Now?” The chorus asked: “How can you refuse him now, how can you refuse him now, how can you turn away from His side, with tears in His eyes on the cross there He died, How can you refuse Jesus now?” Hank obviously refused Him.

He wrote his famous “I Saw the Light” in 1948 although the melody was exactly the same as the Chuck Wagon Gang’s 1935 country gospel song, “He Set Me Free.” Williams often sang his song as if he was a man facing the end, desperate to believe in a salvation that he didn’t think existed. Was he trying to convince himself of the reality of the Gospel? He sang: “I wandered so aimless, life filled with sin; I wouldn’t ask my dear Saviour in. Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night; Praise the Lord, I saw the light! The chorus went, “I saw the light, I saw the light. No more darkness; no more night. Now I’m so happy no sorrow in sight. Praise the Lord, I saw the light!” But Hank was not happy but hopeless, and hapless.

The second verse: “Just like a blind man I wandered alone, Worries and fears I claimed for my own. Then like the blind man that Jesus gave back his sight; Praise the Lord, I saw the light!”

The third verse: “I was a fool to wander astray, For straight is the gate and narrow is the way. Now I have traded the wrong for the right; Praise the Lord, I saw the light!” But Hank apparently never saw the light! He usually closed his shows with this famous song.

Near the end of his life, he was doing a show in San Diego but stumbled drunk off stage after only two songs. His friend, country performer Minnie Pearl, tried to sober him as they rode around town in the back seat of his Cadillac so he could do his second show. She got him to join her in singing “I Saw the Light” thinking it might help sober him, but after one verse, Hank put his head in his hands and said, “O Minnie, Minnie, I don’t see no light. There ain’t no light.” But there was light, only it seems Hank refused it.

On Jan. 1, 1953, Williams died in the back seat of his car on the way to a concert in Charleston, WV. He was to do a show the next day in Canton, OH in the Memorial Auditorium. Williams’ Drifting Cowboys band opened the Ohio show with a spotlight on the curtain after the packed crowd was told that Hank Williams had died the previous day. The band, behind the curtain sang, “I Saw the Light.”

More than 20,000 people attended his funeral on Jan. 4 at Montgomery’s (AL) Municipal Auditorium where an overflow crowd listened via loudspeakers. Roy Acuff sang, “I Saw the Light” as Hank’s body lay in front of him in its casket. Acuff was joined by Bill Monroe, Little Jimmie Dickens, Carl Smith, Red Foley, Webb Pierce, and others. Dickens began weeping uncontrollably during the song. It seemed to be appropriate to this huge crowd of fans that Hank’s “closure” song was used to end his last public appearance—his funeral.

Williams is buried in Montgomery and across the front of his huge tombstone are the words, “Praise the Lord, I Saw the Light.” What a tragedy that a man could talk, write, and sing about seeing the light, and apparently never see it.

We are on this earth for only a few years and it is foolish, freakish, and folly to destroy our health by drug addiction, riotous living, and even undisciplined eating. Hopefully, in this New Year we will be more disciplined, dedicated, and determined to live a life that is honorable with no dependence on illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and gluttonous eating.

We only have one life and we are fools to waste it. There is no second chance.

Boys’ new book Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! was published recently by Barbwire Books; to get your copy, click here. An eBook edition is also available.

Like a school girl reacting to the handsome football star, major media people gushed over Prince in their showers of praise toward a man who did not deserve such praise. According to everyone, he could play the guitar but what I’ve heard was only two steps above noise. As I listened to his music, I thought of Amos 5:23: “Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols (a stringed instrument).”

His singing ability was almost as good. Of course, any death is a tragedy especially the death of a young person. It may be unsympathetic but not untrue to say that he accelerated his death by his ungodly, unhealthy, and unnatural life.

He would not permit workers at his concerts to make eye contact thus promoting his self-ordaining persona of royalty. It appears that he actually believed all his news releases and the fawning acolytes that hang around the music business.

The Washington Post declared, “With the death Thursday of Prince Rogers Nelson, you may see a strange mix on your Facebook feed of sex and religion. That’s because perhaps one of the raunchiest, steamiest pop culture figures in the past quarter-century was a conservative Christian. Religious and spiritual themes ran through a huge amount of his work.” No, the statement proves that the writer and the editors at the Post are deceptive or deceived or maybe dishonest. No informed person declares that the Jehovah’s Witness sect even comes close to being “conservative Christian.” Furthermore, “Religious and spiritual themes” may have appeared in his work but nothing resembling biblical truth.

I expect secularists to laud Prince and his ilk but when Christianity Today (CT) does so, it would gag a maggot! Mike Cosper is a pastor of arts and worship in a Louisville church and disgraced himself and CT with his ode to Prince. Cosper showed his true colors in praising anything “religious” or “spiritual,” or cultic when he wrote, “He seemed to defy mortal boundaries, but in fact, he showed us the glory of simply being made in God’s image.” No, it was very difficult to see God’s image in the way he lived, sang, dressed, etc.

In addition to contributing to the drug culture, aberrational sexuality, he advanced the new “gospel” for leftists everywhere: transgenderism. He sang, ““I’m not a woman / I’m not a man / I’m something you will never understand.” Seeking to justify his obsession with sex, CT wrote, “Sex is one of the few places that a secularized imagination maintains space for the possibility of transcendence.” What in creation does that mean?

We are told that Prince was a “wonderfully eccentric, provocative Persona” however, he was really a tragic, talented misfit who surrendered to basic instincts that eventually killed him.

The CT writer opined, “Prince’s life should remind us Christians of how truly wonderful it is to be human. He wasn’t actually more than human; but neither was he mere dust, or the product of a million cosmological accidents resulting temporary consciousness and animation. He was, instead, an image bearer, one who so clearly reflected the Creator’s own jaw-dropping creativity and power.” No, Prince was a weirdo in a silk shirt and the fawning author obviously has a Ph.D. in Gobbledy Gook.

Even if my readers disagree with everything I’ve written, surely no sane person will suggest that Prince was a good role model for young people. It distresses me to know that vast number of youth almost worshipped him and his music. It further distresses me to go into a teen’s bedroom and see posters of rock stars, athletes, and entertainers on the walls that scream, “I’m identifying with these weirdos on my walls.” How pathetic that their life is so jaundiced and empty.

I was a normal teen but when I trusted Christ my heroes became people of character. As a boy, my heroes were military men who carried the battle to Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini. My nonmilitary heroes were a few college football stars and Booker T. Washington who was one of the most principled men who walked our land. As a teenage jail and street preacher I heard about a young evangelist named Billy Graham who influenced my life; then the five missionary martyrs in Equator became a major life influence; my pastor who was a dynamic preacher, teacher, and musician became my hero; then I met a few missionaries from various nations who visited my church; all impacted my life in a positive way.

Prince squandered his talent, wasted his life, and helped lead untold numbers of people into a world of drugs, sex, and violence. He is not to be praised but pitied.

Boys’ new book, Evolution: Fact, Fraud, or Faith? was published recently by Barbwire Books; to get your copy of Evolution: Fact, Fraud, or Faith? click here. An eBook edition is also available.