After the joy of the harvest, the time of seed sowing is again here. Life leaves little room for dreaming. One must think of tomorrow's bread, and that is why the sower repeats his ritual gesture—throwing away the seed from which will emerge the new harvest.
Following in the footsteps of Jesus, the divine Saviour, our evangelists and our Bible instructors are also ready to sow the seed. They know that the sheaves will be all the more numerous if the seed sowing has been accompanied by more sacrifice and generosity.
Preparation for Sowing
The farmer knows that in order to obtain a good harvest he should first of all be careful as to the quality of the seed he sows. All the work of preparing the soil will be in vain if the seed is inferior. In this domain all economy is loss; one must use the very best. At times the sower throws into the furrow the grain he desperately needs to nourish his family. "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him" (Ps. 126:6). There is no harvest without renunciation, no joy in autumn without work in springtime.
The evangelistic worker who will have success will be he who knows how to improve to the maximum the quality of the seed that he prepares to scatter in people's hearts. He will have watered it with his tears, together with his prayers. During the months preceding his evangelistic effort, he will have thought of the subjects he would handle, the publicity he would produce. He will have looked around him, he will have reflected. Many times he will have asked himself: "What are the subjects that God wants me to remind men of, in order to turn them from their vain distraction and bring them back to the true sources of life?"
He who week after week must appear in public and speak to sinners on_ behalf of God must know what to say to them and how to say it. A Catholic author has said that "the [Adventist] evangelists are preoccupied with arousing an interest and hanging their message onto the great ideas that are haunting the men of their time." Is there not in that remark a whole program for our evangelists? We have a well-defined mission: to proclaim that the end of all things is at hand, that the kingdom of God is at the door, and that in these last moments of the destiny of the world each man should prepare to meet his God. But how to hang that gospel onto the ideas that haunt the men of our time? There is a question that merits our full attention.
Jesus spent thirty years of His life observing around Him, meditating, praying to be capable of "hanging," tying, His message to the things that occupied the minds of His contemporaries. He wanted to speak of confidence and hope for the lost, of the acceptance or rejection of salvation, of the hidden influence of the Spirit, of the supreme value of the kingdom of God, of the vigilance needed, and of a thousand other spiritual subjects. How did He succeed in interesting His hearers in "hanging" spiritual things onto material things?
The parables reveal the answer to us. He spoke of birds, of sheep, of seed sowing, of leaven, of the pearl, of the fish net, of the virgins who fell asleep, and of a multitude of other things by which heaven was revealed to earth and earth was illuminated by the glories of heaven. In order to listen to such a Master, people left their occupations and even went to the desert; men abandoned their profession to become His disciples. Can one not well suppose that if Jesus were to come to teach men of the twentieth century, He would make use of lessons that can be drawn from the discoveries of the present time, from the technical marvels such as radio, television, aviation, and a thousand other things of which modern life is composed? Certainly He would not fail to "hang" His message onto the ideas of our time. The good seed is always the same: the Bible, which we must broadcast in accordance with the counsels of the Spirit of prophecy and those of experienced brethren, making proof of understanding and delicacy toward the souls to whom we address ourselves.
Sowing at the Right Time
It is said that "he that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap" (Eccl. 11:4, 5). How many winds and clouds Satan tries to raise up in the soul of the evangelist to prevent him from sowing in time! The preferred target of the enemy is without doubt the preacher of the gospel. He seeks to trouble him in his intimate being with the battles, the weaknesses of the flesh, the anguish of spirit, that are the lot of all living beings. Who has not had the apostle's experience, expressed in this cry of anguish: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?" (2 Cor. 11:29). And aside from these interior conflicts there are also the struggles and tests within the family, in the church, in the immediate environment. All these risk distracting the preacher from the sacred duty of seed sowing.
Let him then think of the peasant. Neither wind nor clouds stop him; even family difficulties take second place when the moment of sowing arrives. Early in the morning he takes the grain, goes to the fields, and begins work, for he knows that the time is short. It is enough for him to throw the seed into the furrow. God, who is faithful, will do the rest. That farmer is a man like others; he is a husband, a father, a citizen of his country; but at the hour of seed sowing he is above all and before all else a sower.
Leaving Results to God
There is no doubt in the mind of the sower as to the result of his labors: from the depths of the ages comes to him the assurance that the sowing will produce fruitage. We also must believe that the Word will make converts. It has the power to do so. And if at times it seems to us that the harvest is not so abundant as we would wish it to be, let us remember that if the seed is good, the soil is not always good. In the parable, three fourths of the soil was unfavorable. But the sower goes out nevertheless. He does his duty and receives the recompense for it. Our duty is to sow, then to wait with patience and faith. Even the dangers that seem to threaten the sowing: snow, cold, rain, heat, the very death of the seed, can with the blessing of God be transformed into so many factors contributing to the reaping of a magnificent harvest. The Bible gives us the assurance that "while the earth remaineth, seedtime, and harvest, . . . shall not cease" (Gen. 8:22). And that holds as true for the things of the spirit as for material things.
May nothing, then, turn us aside from the work of seeking, with God, for good seed, and guarding it from all external contamination that might render it sterile. May nothing hold us back from going over the fields that the plowshare of grief and pain has made ready to receive the seed. Let us throw into the furrows the words of eternal life, accompanying them with prayers. "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him" (Ps. 126:6).
