What is the verb for?

[AI translation] According to our common Bible reading guide, the Old Testament section is now the book of Ezekiel. Those of you who have been studying the Bible in this way will remember that the passage we are reading is a recent reading. God says things in it that we would not even think of without His warning, and therefore helps us to prepare for a spiritual Christmas in a truly spiritual way. Let us see what these things are !In the Christian life of each one of us there are sins which we do not often recognise as sins, which we do not often repent of, which we do not often confess, which we do not often regret. And yet I could almost say, on the basis of this very Word, that it is the greatest sin imaginable, the one that will justly bring God's judgment upon us if we do not repent of it. What is this sin? It is to not only do what God has forbidden, but to fail to do what God has commanded.
And we usually do not see this sin as great because it is a negative sin. It is not that one has done something wrong, done something wrong, but that one has not done something. He has omitted something. As long as someone doesn't do something specifically wrong, bad, evil, we don't consider that person guilty. He has not sinned in a positive way. He has not committed some positive sin! (If there is such a thing!) He does not have the stain of great sins upon him, no trace of sin. The general human opinion of him may even be favourable, even if his soul is otherwise empty and barren like a desert, and even if his life is barren and fruitless, like that of a tree which has only leaves but no fruit. It is precisely because the sin of barrenness is not visible among the foliage that it is a sin, not a glaring, shouting sin.
We are no longer so lenient in our judgments regarding the commission of positive sins. If someone's tree of life bears harmful, bad fruit, we point the finger. If someone is a drunkard, a burglar, a fornicator, a brawler, we look upon him with hatred, we are horrified at his sins, we avoid his company if possible. On the other hand, if someone has only sins of omission, only that his life is not bearing the fruits of repentance, but otherwise nothing bad could be said against him: we are willing to consider him a very decent person, even a good Christian. Especially if we ourselves are the ones who say: 'I hurt no one, I harm no one, I hate no one, I try consciously to do no wrong' - the negative virtue we are so soon content with.
Is God also so quickly satisfied with this, is He also judging us in this way? Is His wrath only directed against the perpetrators of positive sins like ours? Is it only thieves, fallen women, fornicators and tax collectors who bring shame on His Holy Name? In fact, we know that Jesus was far more angry with the otherwise precise, honest, but fruitless Pharisees who failed to practice the supreme requirement of divine law, love, than He was with the so-called sinners who actually transgressed the requirements of divine law. God will hold us accountable not only for the evil we have done, but also for the good we have failed to do, for the good we have neglected to do.
Do we think it's only a sin to spoil someone's pleasure? No! It's just as much a sin if I don't give someone pleasure when I could. Do we think it's only wrong to tempt someone to sin? No! It's just as bad if I don't try to lead someone out of sin. Do we think it's only a sin to make someone miserable? No! It's just as sinful not to help a wretch! Not only is it a sin to hate someone, but it is just as much a sin to not love a person worth hating! Moreover, the latter is even more dangerous, because it does not seem, or at least does not seem, as ugly and repulsive as the former. Just think what Jesus said: who will be sent to eternal fire at the last judgment? Who? We immediately think of murderers, cheats and other evildoers, don't we? But not Jesus! He says: "I was naked and you did not clothe me, I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was a prisoner and you did not visit me!" All good deeds omitted! Not bitter, poisonous fruit, but the absence of good fruit. Barrenness, fruitlessness!
Let us not think, then, that it is a trifling matter! Sometimes even in our earthly life there are moments when we get a taste of this charge of the last judgment, when we feel the charge of the good that is omitted to be unbearably heavy. But I have often seen and felt myself that when we die, the burden of what we have not done for and with him while we had the chance is heavy upon our souls! How terribly painful can the sin of irreparable omission be? And yet this is only a foretaste of the horror that will be wrought in us at the great judgment by Jesus' accusation that we have not borne the fruits of our lives that He is looking for in us! Oh woe - not to the unbelievers, but - to the fruitless believers, the spiritual eunuchs!
This is the very hard truth revealed to us in this Ezekiel's parable of the useless eunuch. "What is the vine of the vine among other trees, the venyigee?" asks the Lord of the prophet. And the answer is harsh, almost ironic. For surely the vine is a worthless tree above all other trees. From oak, acacia or apple wood, at least something can be made: tools, instruments, furniture, beautiful and useful things. Whatever the fruit, whether or not there is any: the wood itself can be valuable. But not the wood! The vine is a very valuable plant, but if it bears no fruit, it is good for nothing. In fact, it is downright harmful, because it sucks sap from other plants and prevents them from growing. An unproductive vine is absolutely worthless. Nothing can be made from the vine tree, not even a simple nail to hang something on. It is not the tree of the vine that is valuable, but the fruit. If there is none, it is only to be put on the fire and burned! See how painfully harsh is the judgment of God against the unfruitful vine, "Behold, it is given to fire to devour it" (Ezek 15:4) Oh that this Word would in due time judge our unfruitful, fruitless lives, in which so hopelessly few and stunted fruit is ripening to the glory of God! Would that we might be truly intimidated and grieved by this fruitlessness! Would that the Word would convince us of the awful greatness of this sin!
What is "fruit"? It is something that the tree does not produce for itself, but to be plucked from it. The tree itself has the least use for it, but rather uses it for the benefit of others. Fruit is something that the plant sheds of itself and from itself to feed others. Spiritually, it is the same way. In the words of the Bible, there is one word that sums up the fruit that God is looking for in us: love. And first of all, love manifested in spirituality, in the spirit, in thought and feeling. The kind I sensed, for example, in the words of a tram driver the other day, when he said: 'I understood from God's Word that the people I take in my tram are entrusted to me by God. I am responsible to God for them so that no harm will come to them, so that they will reach their workplace or home on time. Since then, I drive the tram with a different spirit and feeling." Then love, not only in emotion, but in action, in activity. As it was seen, for example, in the action of the old man who, in Pesthidegkút, struck people by bending down in the street to pick up every piece of broken tile or glass and pocketing all this worthless waste. When someone asked him why he did it, he replied that it was because he might cut the feet of small children playing or puncture a thinned tyre. This man even loved by deed the little barefoot street children he didn't know, and even the tires that kicked up dust. Small fruit, but sweet!
And precious fruit is the love that conquers more and more human lives for Christ. Like the sister of the woman who brought her debauched, drunken husband back to Christ, back to the church. Do we bear such fruit? Do we have such love, the warmth of which pervades us from within, the action of which is a blessing to those around us, and the power of which conquers, leading others, like the star of Bethlehem leading the wise men of the east to find Jesus? That otherwise worthless, useless venyige is there for the purpose of growing fruit that cannot be found on any other kind of tree. Now, if the vine does not produce that kind of fruit, then one might indeed question why it exists at all? Can the world do anything with it but execute upon it the judgment of God, which was pronounced in the words of the prophet Ezekiel: "Behold, it is given to fire to devour" (verse 4)?
And do you know why this fruitlessness is such a fatal sin? Because it points to something fundamental, a great flaw, a shortcoming. What? Jesus says: "Abide in me and I in you. As the vine cannot bear fruit of itself, but abides in the vine, so neither do you, but abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. " (Jn 15,4-5) The vine does not bear fruit unless it is attached to the vine, grafted into the vine, in contact with the vine, in communion with the vine. The vine derives all its strength, its life, its fruit-bearing potential from the vine. Nor can our lives bear fruit otherwise than as the fruit-bearing powers of Christ's life flow into us through our faith, our prayer, our engagement with the Word. And if these powers do not flow, then there is something wrong with our prayer, our faith and our listening to the Word. Our confession of faith says, "It is impossible that those who have been grafted into Christ by true faith should not bear the fruit of thankfulness." (see Heidelberg KT 64, Question and Answer).
Yes: for he who is truly in Christ bears much fruit. So he who does not bear fruit is not in Christ! He is not grafted into Christ! And that is: death! He may confess Christ as Lord, he may think of Him with prayerful reverence, he may love and support Christ's cause on earth as best he can, he may help to build His mother church - but he is not grafted into Christ! Putting a vine by the capital will not make it bear fruit. You must not be with Christ, but in Christ! The life of Christ can only flow into the one who is and remains in a living and vital relationship with Jesus Christ through faith, prayer and the Word, just as the vine and the grafted vine are to each other.
It is Advent. Our Lord is coming to us. He comes with His judgment on our barren lives to seek fruit, but He also comes with His grace on our barren lives to ripen fruit. We can choose now between judgment or grace. He offers himself to each one of us: "I am the vine, you are the branches: he who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit: for without me you can do nothing." (Jn 15,5)
Amen
Date: 12 December 1954.