Good Samaritan Baptist Church Pastor Ed Rice

February 27, 2003

TO: Penn Yan Chronicle Express

Dundee Observer

Finger Lakes Times

Dear Sirs,

Your paper graciously announces Church related news in your paper. If there should be room on your Church news page please publish this short article I wrote for my folks. Thanks for considering this.

From The Desk of Pastor Rice.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. (Prov 21:31) As I write this we are poised on the brink of war and my military heart wishes I were still in the USAF. I spent 23 years in support positions, however, and never faced a serious weapon aimed at me. Should the USA go to war with madman Saddam Insane? Only if we are prayed up. A short study of Israel's wars in the Bible shows that God uses war to accomplish his purposes in nations, both God cursing nations, and God fearing nations. My concern, as our young men don battle fatigues, is that we are neither of these. The USA has become placidly godless. When we strike out militarily against an axis of evil, an enemy of Jehova God, (and these Muslim and communist evils are just that,) I am not sure that we, as a nation, are striking with the power and blessing of God. The God we kicked out of our schools, our military, our politics, our courts and our pledge is watching our war preparations, but I am not convinced He is behind them. Without that assurance, our nation goes off to fight an enemy of God, with wrong motivation, wrong purpose, and likely the disastrous results which are well overdue a nation that spurns the God and Father of Jesus Christ our Lord. Because they ignored him, God let His chosen people, Israel, face humiliation and defeat in battles against God's enemies. We are not mightier than they in our spiritual preparations for war. He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy. (Psalm 147:10-11) Christians should be on their face before God as our ill prepared 'Christian' nation wades into a war with an enemy of God, and an enemy of His Son, Jesus Christ.

God Bless you.

Pastor Ed Rice

This Suday come here the preaching of God's Word, by one who believes the whole thing.

Sincerely Yours

Pastor Edward G. Rice