Go with me, please, to John, Gospel Account of John, the 15th chapter again.

This week we've been looking at what we're calling the fruitful branch.

The fruitful branch.

In John 15 and the first verse.

Hallelujah.

We see Jesus teaching us about the vine and the branches, using a natural example to reveal the

mystery of himself and us, how things work.

And I want to read this out of the, I guess it would be the T-E-V, if y'all can find that,

today's English version.

And one reason I want to do that, they'll have that on the screen for us, we'll start in

verse one, but because of how it and others do the same thing, translate the word that's

translated to abide here, it translates it consistently one word because the King James

doesn't do that. And when you read it with consistency you

realize how much emphasis the Lord is placing on this word in the King James

abide abide abide abide it's some dozen times in just a handful of verses in this chapter.

Same one chapter.

So the word abide, if you look it up, it can be translated, it is translated, remain, is translated,

dwell, is translated live, it's translated continue, and one of the words I like best is either to stay or, like we've already said, to remain.

I think we'd say today, stay.

Stay.

And we need to ask ourselves, if you're born again and you are in Christ,

why would the Lord need to tell you to stay in me?

...