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