They are to trade not in their own interests, but in their master’s interests, with his money. ‘Occupy till I come’ – get down to business with these things that I've given you. This is analogous to living for Christ in this world. Charles Wesley expresses it this way: ‘Be this my one great business here, with serious industry and fear, eternal bliss to ensure.’ You have been given this awareness, this knowledge, this information, and you have got to invest it. If you have ever read any of the biographies or the accounts of World War II on behalf of fighter and written by fighter and bomber pilots, they are pretty well all the same. They tell you how they prayed and they tell you how everybody prayed in times of great fear and trembling and danger. All the crews, all the pilots; even those who would never admit it, even those who didn't want to be seen, confessed that they did pray in fear. It's a basic, inescapable human instinct to believe in God and even to turn to him in moments of extremity and distress. We all have our pound. We have our degree of awareness of the being and the presence of God. However vague, however small, we have it.
You have got to act on it. You have got to take steps so that it grows. If you have a terrible pain, you go to the doctor and you get it investigated. It may frighten you. You have got to find out about it. If you have got a family and you lose your job, you have got to support your family. You investigate another job. You go and find out what you can do. Where can you be employed? If you have a soul – and you have – and you know it, and you know there is a God in heaven, and you know something about him, you have got to take that knowledge and say, ‘I must find out some more. I must build on this. If there's a God, what is he like? Can I know Him? Somebody has told me he is holy, he is righteous, and we are sinners, cut off from him. What can be done?’ I take that knowledge that I have got, that pound as it were, that amount of information and privilege and awareness that God has given me, and I ‘trade’ with it. I strenuously try to build on it. What have I done with what light God has given me?
Is there someone, and you know that you must repent. You know that there is an experience for you if you come to Jesus Christ and give yourself to him. You somewhat glumly listen to the gospel message, and your eyes glaze over. What do you do with it? Somebody comes to you and gives you a large sum of money. What do you do with it? Nothing? Here in the gospel are great treasures of information: that there is a God, that he is merciful, that there is a Saviour, that there is a transforming experience for those who come to him, that sin can be forgiven, that hell can be averted and heaven can be secured by Jesus Christ. What are you doing with all this? If we come to him and repent and throw ourselves on his mercy and yield our lives to him, we will be forgiven. Are you acting on this information? Are you ‘trading’ with it? Are you doing something? The information acted upon, appropriated, leads to immense blessing, wonderful things. What effect does it have on you?
What about this Bible? Will it tell me about God? Can I invest in its truth, in its message? There is nothing like it. It is clearly divine revelation; it is clearly from God. Some people deny that, and they level all kinds of criticisms at it, and they don't know what they are talking about. The contradictions they claim are there, are not there when you inspect them. The things they likely say about the Bible, only show that they are not familiar with it, and don't understand it. There is nothing like this word of God, this book of God. It is about one person from cover to cover. It is a produce of the divine author and of great genius. It’s about Jesus Christ. It's about the fall of man. The only way you can explain man is to take account of man's fall recorded in the Bible. I have a moral consciousness. I know right from wrong. I have these standards locked into me, and yet I cannot keep them. I am a weak individual. Every man and woman is proud. Every one of us falls into lies. Everybody does selfish things and wrong things. Everyone is drawn to materialism and the worship of things. How do we account for it? We have the standards before us, but we don't have the power to obey. We are sinners by choice; we are weak. Only the Bible explains it. There's no literature in the world outside the Bible that explains the circumstances of human beings. The Bible tells us about God and his mercy. It promises Christ from the first book. It talks about him. He is like the great cable running right through the Bible. He is mentioned all the way through: expected in the Old Testament, he comes in the New Testament. The Bible tells us everything we need to know about God, his holiness, how he can forgive sin, why Christ had to come, why he had to die on Calvary to make an atonement – there was no other way to reconcile sinners with their God. It explains it all to us. There is a revelation, and it is a perfect and an understandable revelation. It will tell you about your soul and your need and how Christ has provided for your need. It explains how he calls sinners to himself and how he will convert you and change you all together and dramatically. These are wonderful things. Will you ask? Will you inquire? Will you research it? Or will you reject it? That is what this parable is challenging us about.