Not Till Our Lord Jesus Christ Comes the Second Time Will the Church be Exalted into Her True Function of Rulership Over the World THE Church was not sent into the world to convert or Christianize it. It was sent into the world to preach the Gospel to every creature. It was not to condone the world but to condemn it. With its twin doctrines of Incarnation and Regeneration it was to ring the knell of evolution and deny the hope of any saving energy in the flesh. It was not to flatter, to paint, to gild nor endeavour in any wise to reform or organize the world. It was to deal with the world, with the system called the world, as a ship pounding to pieces, and pounding helplessly, upon the rocks of fallen human nature, the dethronement of God in the soul and the enthronement and exaltation of self-interest in the soul. The Church in its ministry and widely commissioned effort was to plunge, as a well-equipped and perfectly manned life-boat may do, into the sea and surf of natural and Satanic things and get men out of an old system under the doom and judgment of God into Christ as the head of a new system under grace and the coming glory of God. The Church was not to build up a kingdom during the absence of the Lord. On the contrary, she was to recognize herself as the affianced bride of a rejected king and coming bridegroom. She was to walk in separation from the world, refusing the seductive enticements of her would-be lovers and with an upward and heavenly look serve while she waited for a returning Lord. The Lord did not come. The Church grew weary of her vigil. She exchanged the heavenly for the earthly look. She met the Devil and felt the magic of his bewitching glances. He had led her Lord to the mount of temptation. He had shown Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. He offered them to Him on condition that He would turn His feet out of the pathway that led to the sacrificial cross. He offered them on condition that He should refuse to go to the cross and there in the agony of His soul and body and on the loom of His vicarious sufferings weave the seamless robe of divine righteousness for sinful men. The Lord refused. The Devil turned and slew Him. He now led the willing Church to the same mountain height of temptation. He tempted her with the same temptation he had offered her Lord: The rulership of the world. If she would turn aside from a heaven-ordained bridegroom and a king whose face she could not see, she might win the world as her kingdom and rule it in spite of the cross. The offer of world rulership sounded pleasant in her ears. She yielded. She fell into the arms of the world. The world became her paramour. She became the world's mistress. Out of that ungodly and sensual alliance was born the illegitimate child, that woful ecclesiastical offspring, we call the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church became the Holy Roman Empire. The Empire was the Church.