"What, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God; and that whosoever will be the friend of the world, is the enemy of God?" The Corinthian Church attempted to take the place of rulership in the world. With keen and biting words the Apostle rebukes them. Thus he writes to them: "Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we might also reign with you." Then he adds by way of contrast: "I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels and to men." It is this same apostle who under the inspiration of the Spirit in his second epistle writes to Timothy: "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." It is not while her Lord is the crucified and rejected that the Church is to reign and rule over the world. Not while He is seated on His Father's throne in heaven and His own throne on earth is cast down and trampled in the dust. Nay! if the Church is faithful she will walk in separation from the world. If the Church is faithful she will testify against the world, not testify merely against certain abuses, but against the world as a system, that it is built upon the principle of the enthronement of self and not God, the exaltation of the flesh and not spirit. If the Church shall be faithful and like Noah in the building of his ark condemn the world; if the Church will take up earnestly the solemn truth of God and warn men that no matter how good a government may be established by human means, no matter what culture and morality may fill the earth, no matter to what extent advance may be made in art, in science, nor no matter how safe a place the world may be made to live in, no matter to what heights of natural morality and righteousness man as man may attain, the judgment of God against this system of man called the world is certain, and that He will arise in His majesty to shake terribly the earth, and that only the things that are built on God can remain, the Church will suffer and be rejected even as was her Lord. The Church is to be faithful to the testimony of Christ and enter into the fellowship of His sufferings. The day of her triumph will come. She is yet to rule over the world. The hour and the circumstances are fixed. Listen, I pray you, to the words of the Spirit as He speaks through the Apostle Paul: "When Christ who is our life shall appear--then (and not till then) shall ye also appear with Him in glory." Only when Christ shall come to take to Himself His long deferred rulership can the Church enter into her rulership over the world. In the fifth chapter of the Revelation you have the new song of the Church, the song of redemption and rule. This is the triumphant song; it is a song of praise addressed to the Son of God Himself: