"Don't Go Ridin' On That Long Black Train"

Country music has always been one of my favorite genres of music, simply because the lyrics of the songs usually express some kind of moral truth. Josh Turner's "Long Black Train" is such a song.

The following is my short analysis of the lyrics to the above song along with related Scriptures:

That long black train, is representative of the world's allurements and sin (1 John 2:15-16). The train's whistle sounds so good and inviting, "It's a beauty, makin' everybody stare," the lyrics tell us. The devil is the engineer of that long black train. He deceives folks through various fleshly means (Revelation 12:7-9; cf. John 8:44), such as beer commercials, that implore folks to "Get all the gusto you can"; illustrating that everyone is extremely happy and enjoying life to the fullest.

However, those same beer commercials do not show the broken homes, the mangled bodies after head-on collisions, the lives destroyed, or the pain inflicted upon innocent people. They don't show a baby on the way without benefit of marriage. They don't show aborted babies. They don't show folks drunk out of their mind, staggering to and fro, not knowing where they are or what's happening to them (Proverbs 23:29-35).

As the lyrics tell us, the only destination that the long black train will take you is "the middle of nowhere" — it's a dead-end destination with no hope. Instead of boarding that long black train, we need to "Cling to the Father and His holy name, And don't go ridin' on that long black train — for "the ride is not worth the pain." Instead, as the lyrics suggest, we need to "Look to the heaven's, you can look to the sky (Colossians 3:1-2). "You can find redemption staring back into your eyes" (Ephesians 1:1-7).

Yes, "there's protection (Romans 8:1) and there's peace the same" (Romans 5:1), when we "burn our ticket for that long black train" of sin and death, rendering immediate obedience (Romans 6:17-18) to the Lord's salvation plan for our life (Acts 8:25-39; Acts 10:34-48; Acts 16:14-15; Acts 17:25-34; Acts 22:12-16).  Only then can we truly claim "Victory in the Lord" (1 John 5:4; 1 Corinthians 15:55-58; Revelation 15:1-4). Dear reader, if we haven't already, let's claim "victory in the Lord" today (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets