Behold a sower went out to sow. But before he cast a single seed, he got down on his knees and tested the soil. Here it was too dirty and there it had too much clay and over by the way it was too distant to consider. He tested more soil and decided it was unlikely to receive his seed positively and after a little while came to the conclusion that all the soil around him was infertile and so he went back and sat on the porch until he nearly starved. When his master returned, he was cast off the estate and punished for wasting his seeds and not trusting in their power.
Therefore, hear the parable of the soil tester: When anyone confronts his duty to share the gospel seed with others, he takes it in his heart and mouth and considers where he might sow it in the interest of being fruitful. Sadly, his master never instructed him to waste time testing the soil, but he believes it to be practical and wise to whittle down the field to a few likely spots. Yet all he sees are people in sin; he’s looking for people that don’t seem to need the gospel to share the gospel with! And he is surprised that he can’t find any!
The soil tester turns up his nose at the man with tattoos and the coworker who is trying to quit smoking. He judges everyone under the age of 30 to be too wild and everyone over the age of 30 to be too old to change their ways. At the end of the day, the soil tester has not sown a single seed, but he feels justified because it is the soil’s inadequacies that are to blame. When Jesus returns, however, he is found to have wasted his opportunities as a poor steward of the seeds and he is cast into outer darkness as an unprofitable servant.
