Is it wrong to invest in the stock market?
Hi, welcome to today's little lesson.
We've got a great question to answer today about investing in the stock market.
Some Christians are very concerned about that for a couple of reasons, and actually for
a couple of very good reasons.
One of them would be investing in a company, a business that is doing something, producing
a good or a service that's not so good, particularly something that would be offensive to God.
I think it goes without saying that the Lord would not want any Christians investing in
and therefore profiting by a company that, for example, what they do is pornography,
right?
Right.
If they're harming people by their service, quote on quote "service" that they're providing
and people are paying for, or harming people by the goods, quote on quote "goods", wrong
name in this case, that they're manufacturing, then Christians don't want to be in partnership
with that and profiting by that.
I personally would never want to invest, for example, in a cigarette company.
I mean, honestly, what is there good to say about the whole cigarette industry?
It causes people to get lung caner and to die prematurely.
So you don't want to be invested in some cigarette manufacturing company, all right?
Another reason that Christians are concerned about this, and rightfully so, is because
Jesus talked about, don't be laying up your treasures on earth, but be laying them up
in heaven, because where your treasures are, there is your heart also.
But I don't think that Jesus meant by that that we shouldn't own anything on this earth,
right?
I happen to own this shirt, and I own these glasses, and I own those pictures on the wall
back there, and this murphy bed over here that you see.
You know, we have to have a place to sleep, we have to have a place to live, we have to
have clothes to wear, and so obviously we have to decide what we actually need and what
we really don't need.
And all the things that we really don't need, it would be best to take the money that we
would use to buy those things and lay the treasure up in heaven, because it's yours
forever then.
That's the best investment, right?
You know, anything that you invest on this earth, anything that you accumulate on this
earth, one day you will not be the owner of it.
But if you invest in heavenly treasures, as Jesus said, you never lose them.
So that's the best investment.
Everybody has to draw the line and wrestle with, you know, what should be laid up in
heaven and what should be kept on this earth.
So why would anyone want to invest in the stock market in the first place?
Well, simply because it's a potential means of saving, and better than that, it's a potential
means of investing so that the value of what you invest eventually goes up, and so in the
end you have more than what you started with.
Now let's consider a couple of facets of that.
One thing is of course, why would you want to save up?
You know, what would be the reasons?
What would be valid reasons for saving up?
Well, one is to prepare for things in the future that you might otherwise not be prepared
for.
Things happen.
Calamities happen.
You know, it's just wise to be prepared.
One thing that's going to happen to all of us is that we're going to get older.
In fact, right now you're getting older, and if you notice, I'm getting older too.
One day we eventually die.
We'd all like to think that Jesus is going to return before we die and so therefore we're
not going to go through old age, but I notice that most people in human history have gone
through old age and its accompanying challenges.
I just wheeled my own 86 year old father out of my house where he lives, in his wheelchair,
out to the car, so he could go to his regular therapy session that's trying to help him
once again be able to walk, which he hasn't been able to do since he had a stroke some
months ago.
So it's a good thing my dad was somewhat prepared for this time in his life financially or else
he would have been forced to have been a burden on somebody else.
So saving for old age can be an act of love and an act of love toward the very ones that
you love the most, your own family members, because they're the ones who are naturally
going to assume responsibility for you in your latter years.
Okay?
Now the stock market specifically is not a good short term investment, because it goes
up and down, and stocks of individual companies, their value goes up and down all based on
the fear and the greed of all the rest of the stockholders.
So if you're going to get into the stock market, you've got to think in terms of a length of
time that makes sense, where you have a reasonable chance of not losing your money.
The stock market goes through bull and bear phases where sometimes it's generally going
up and sometimes it's generally going down.
You don't want to get on that at the wrong time, because then yours goes down and it
would have been better that you had never invested.
So that's why a lot of people use the stock market to invest for retirement, and because
if you start early, in your 20s or 30s, you then in the end, the chances are it's going
to be worth more than what you put in it.
I have more to say on this in our next little lesson.
But something that I think that I've felt I needed to avoid in my savings plan for my
elderly years, is investing in mutual funds.
Although it's very wise to spread your investments if you're investing in the stock market over
a wide range of stocks, because then if some go down others will probably go up, and you
have a better chance of not losing your money, you've got a better chance of actually making
some money.
But the trouble with mutual funds is, someone else is in control of which companies they
invest in, and you might inadvertently through a mutual fund be investing in some companies
that are doing things that God hates, okay?
The products they manufacture are not good, you know, the services that they provide are
not good.
Those companies I think are a minority, but people are sinful and they buy sinful products
and sinful services, and we don't want to be a part of that profiting over that.
Okay, all right, more to say on our next little lesson.
Thank you so much for joining me.
God bless you.