By The Rivers of Babylon

...we sat and we wept.... Psalm 137:1

Have you ever wondered, could there ever be such a thing as a "Babylonian Captivity" of the American church?

Or has she already been captured? Does worship on Sunday rise upward to God, glorifying Him and Him alone? Or do his creatures take center-stage, seeking to share His glory? I have found in my own heart a desire for men's praise as I performed in front of the Sunday crowd.

One of the marks of the true church is the preaching of the Word.

As the prophecy of Jeremiah is read to him, in Jeremiah 36, the wicked king cuts up the scroll into pieces and tosses them into the fire.

Is this happening every Sabbath? Are verses are lifted from their context and "Peace, peace," proclaimed when there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:14; 8:11)?

There is one TV "preacher" who delivers his "messages" with a smile but nary a passage from the Word, while the camera pans across the congregation, Bibles open in their laps.

What page are they turned to, all these open Bibles? Perhaps the Intertestamental Period when God's silence was deafening and the people perished for lack of knowledge.

The doors of the American church may never be closed by governmental fiat. It may be that, as the congregations slip away, one-by-one, the last one out turns the lock.

Yet God has promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church and that He will preserve a remnant of the faithful.

God, preserve me from seeking your glory. Instead may Christ's kingdom grow until it fills the earth and all the kingdoms of the world are laid in the dust.

Be it so.