ON FRUIT BEARING.

The following beautiful language is found in Isa. 51:3:  “For the Lord shall comfort Zion:  he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall he found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.”  Zion is a metaphor signifying the church of God.  It is, therefore, the church which the Lord will comfort and whose wilderness will be made an Eden.  But what is the church of God?  This is a very important question; one which all people should fully understand, and one which is very easily answered.  You will learn at once by reading Eph. 1:22,23 and Col. 1:18,24 that the church is the body of Christ, and in 1 Cor. 12:27 we are plainly told that Christians are the body of Christ; they are, therefore, the church of God.  Dear reader, if you are a Christian, you have been born of the Spirit; you have passed from death unto life; you have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light; you have been created anew; you are, therefore, a member of the body of Christ, and all such members make up the church of God.

The children of Israel were the church of God in the old dispensation, and he dwelt in a tabernacle or temple they built for him.  In this more glorious gospel dispensation those who have been born of the Spirit and made pure in heart are the church of God.  In this Holy-Spirit dispensation we do not build temples for the Lord to dwell in; for “know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 1 Cor. 3:16.  “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” 1 Cor. 6:19.  In this blessed gospel day Christians are the “habitation of God through the Spirit.”  If you are a Christian, God dwells in your heart; your body is his glorious temple.  This is a most stupendous thought, but it is true.  In your soul is the sweet heavenly manna, the budding rod, and the ark of the covenant overshadowed by the cherubim of glory.

When God created man He placed him in a garden which He had planted eastward in Eden.  In this garden God made to grow every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food; also, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil were in this garden, and a river to water it.  It is said that God “walked in the garden in the cool of the day.”  That was in the day of literal things.  We are now in the day of spiritual things, when our bodies have become the temple of God through the Spirit, and our hearts his lovely garden.  It is in this garden he dwells; it is there he walks.  See 2 Cor. 6:16.  When the south winds blow and the spices flow out he comes into his garden to eat his pleasant fruits; he gathers the myrrh and the spices, he eats honey and drinks wine and milk.  See Cant.