Jeremiah 46:20-24

“Egypt is a very beautiful heifer;
but destruction out of the north has come.
It has come.
Also her hired men in the middle of her are like calves of the stall,
for they also are turned back.
They have fled away together.
They didn’t stand,
for the day of their calamity has come on them,
the time of their visitation.
Its sound will go like the serpent,
for they will march with an army,
and come against her with axes, as wood cutters.
They will cut down her forest,” says Yahweh,
“though it can’t be searched;
because they are more than the locusts,
and are innumerable.
The daughter of Egypt will be disappointed;
she will be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.”

One of the problems that I have with stock market trading is illustrated in this prophesy. If you were to look at Egypt’s 10 year chart, you would see that investing in it would have looked like a pretty good risk. It had good medical facilities and according to this prophesy, it had one of the largest armies. This passage appears to be also telling us that they had contracted soldiers from other countries to help them as well. The country itself had been going strong for many years and was a power to contend with. If Egypt had sold stock, I would think that it would have been trading at a lower rate because of all of the political unrest in the area. It would probably have looked like an extremely good deal. The problem I have is that even when something looks this good, it is absolutely no guarantee that it will continue, even for one more year. If Egypt would have had their own stock market, the entire market was about to close because they were about to be destroyed by a distant power.

In this passage, God says that it doesn’t matter how beautiful they are or how many troops they have or how many people live there. They were about to be completely taken over by Babylon. Past performance was no guarantee of future results.

I think that the reason the stock market is so frustrating to me is that it doesn’t come with a guarantee. Even our banks are not secure because they are affected by governmental changes as well. Our savings accounts could be similar in function to what Egypt was to Judah. They may affect our decisions when God tells us to do something that seems unusual. What we should always do is simply obey God, but when our own understanding starts to interfere with what God’s says, we make very foolish choices. It’s important for us to trust in God for our well being instead of our own means. Then we will be secure, even if our entire bank account is threatened. That’s because God loves us and He will tell us what we should do next.