The United States is the greatest single nation that has ever existed in the history of the world.

But this certainly wasn't always the case. Eighty-five years after its 1776 founding, the fledgling American power suffered a bitter, divisive civil war that could have destroyed it—a war that resulted in the death of nearly 2 percent of the nation's population.

A remarkable leader arose at that time—Abraham Lincoln, whom many historians consider to be the nation's greatest president ever. By his tenacity and courage, he led the nation with great conviction, preserving the Union so that it could fulfill its divinely appointed destiny. Still, today it's vital that we recognize that America has a prophetic role in the world that was foretold thousands of years ago in the Bible.

Lincoln's recognition of the Source of national blessings

Three months after the bitter and brutal three-day battle at Gettysburg, Penn., in July 1863, President Lincoln issued the first-ever proclamation for an American national Thanksgiving Day. In it, he spoke of the national blessings the nation continued to receive even during the time of the most catastrophic war in its history, stating:

"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God...

"Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore . . .

"No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy."

Lincoln had believed for many years that America's blessings were from God. In a Jan. 27, 1838, speech in Springfield, Ill., he stated: "In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American People, find our account running, under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity [healthfulness] of climate."

America replaces Britain in global ascendancy

In the first half of the 20th century, the British Empire was the world's preeminent power. Its navy ruled the seas. The empire's vast territories—such as Canada, South Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Australia and New Zealand—spanned the globe such that it was famously said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire."

Few realized how quickly that would change and a new superpower arise. Allied with America, the British Empire fought and won the Second World War. Yet after the war, Britain was deeply in debt and no longer able to sustain its empire.

America began to flex its muscles globally. President Dwight Eisenhower pressured Britain to surrender the Suez Canal back to Egypt as enticement to keep Egypt from straying into the Soviet camp. Piece by piece, Britain's empire began to disintegrate as nation after nation sought and gained independence. Within a few short years that great empire was a shadow of its former self.

In its place a new power arose. America became the dominant financial power in the world, with the dollar replacing the British pound as the international reserve currency. Blessed with a temperate climate, vast and fertile lands for agriculture, abundant mineral resources, many navigable rivers flowing with fresh waters, peaceful neighbors to the north and south, and oceans providing a barrier to invasion from east and west, the nation quickly grew to enjoy global supremacy.

The amazing truth, however, is that America's ascendance to greatness was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy!

Promises of national greatness

So where is America mentioned in the Bible?

Much of biblical prophecy deals with nations and events at the end of the age—the time in which we now live. Would it make sense for God to exclude the greatest nation in the world from His prophecies of great nations of this time?

One of the most prominent individuals in biblical history is Abraham, to whom God promised great blessings—blessings he would not see during his physical life, but which would be fulfilled in his descendants (Genesis 17:1-8; Genesis 22:17-18). Later God repeated those promises to Abraham's son Isaac, telling him those promises would be fulfilled through his descendants (Genesis 26:2-5).

To Isaac was born a son named Jacob, whom God renamed as Israel (Genesis 32:28); he would go on to have 12 sons from whom would spring the 12 tribes of Israel. The great blessings God had promised to his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham would be passed on through his descendants (Genesis 48:3-4; compare Genesis 27:27-29; Genesis 28:1-4).

Joseph, one of Jacob's 12 sons, was sold by his jealous brothers to a caravan of traders (Genesis 37:25-38), who took him to Egypt and sold him as a slave to Potiphar, an officer in the Egyptian pharaoh's court (Genesis 37:36).

Later, through a chain of God-directed events, Joseph became second-in-command over all Egypt when he was 30 (Genesis 41:37-46). Shortly thereafter Joseph married, and his wife gave birth to his firstborn son, whom he named Manasseh, and then another son, Ephraim (Genesis 41:50-52).

When Jacob, the grandfather of Manasseh and Ephraim, neared the end of his life, Joseph brought these sons to him to have them blessed. It was customary in those days that the firstborn should receive the greater share of material blessings. Reuben was Jacob's eldest son by his wife Leah, but Jacob bypassed him because of wrong he had done and instead bestowed the firstborn blessing on the two sons of Joseph, the firstborn by his wife Rachel (Genesis 48:8-22; 1 Chronicles 5:1). Thus Joseph's sons would become the primary heirs of the promises originally given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And what did those promises entail? Notice what God had told Abraham: "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations . . . I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.

"And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God" (Genesis 17:4-8, emphasis added throughout).

God expands His promises of greatness

God later expanded those promises, telling Abraham: ". . . I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice" (Genesis 22:17-18).

But Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did not see those promises fulfilled in their lifetimes. That would come much later, primarily through the descendants of Joseph.

A number of generations later, shortly before his death, God's great servant Moses foretold what would happen to the descendants of Joseph: "And of Joseph he said: ‘Blessed of the Lord is his [Joseph's] land, with the precious things of heaven, with the dew, and the deep lying beneath, with the precious fruits of the sun, with the precious produce of the months, with the best things of the ancient mountains, with the precious things of the everlasting hills, with the precious things of the earth and its fullness, and the favor of Him who dwelt in the bush [the burning bush, i.e., God]'" (Deuteronomy 33:13-16).

Moses was affirming what Jacob had said earlier of Joseph, that "in the last days" God would "bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb," blessings that would extend to "the utmost bound of the everlasting hills" (Genesis 49:1; Genesis 49:25-26). The firstborn blessings promised to Joseph were incredible!

Furthermore, Jacob had been told that national greatness would be realized among his descendants through "a nation and a company of nations" (Genesis 35:11). And in Jacob's blessings on Joseph's sons, it was further clarified that Joseph's son Ephraim would become the company or "multitude of nations" (Genesis 48:19), while Joseph's son Manasseh would become the great single nation (same verse).

But again, these awesome promises were not fulfilled in ancient times. They were not fulfilled in the lifetimes of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph or Ephraim and Manasseh. Nor were they fulfilled in their descendants in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in ancient times. Those kingdoms never came close to the levels of greatness and power foretold by God. So if God is faithful to what he has promised, we must look elsewhere in time—"in the last days," as Jacob had said in Genesis 49:1.

"The fairest portion of the earth"

What nations best fit these biblical descriptions? Careful consideration of history and geography reveals that Ephraim, prophesied to be a company of nations, became the nations of the British Empire and Commonwealth, while Manasseh became the great single nation of common heritage with Britain, the United States of America. 

Indeed, we can see confirmation of the promised blessings as applied to the great single nation of Manasseh in an assessment of the rich agricultural lands of the Mississippi Valley, the vast wheat and grain fields of the American Midwest, the fruit lands of the Pacific Coast and Florida, the fertile soil of California's Sacramento/San Joaquin Valley, the great forest lands of the East and the Pacific Northwest, the rich gold and silver fields Americans once mined, the vast treasures of coal, the iron ore deposits of the Lake Superior region, plentiful pasture lands and the most abundant supply of fresh water of any nation in the world!

In addition to all this, the United States in the mid-20th century produced more than half of the world's petroleum!

These and other national riches enabled America to attain the highest standard of living in the world. The ultimate bestowal of this great blessing was not fulfilled in totality until the latter centuries of our current age. America reached the apex of her blessings in the 20th century.

America, as President Lincoln noted, was given "the fairest portion of the earth." Lincoln was affirming, perhaps unknowingly, the promise that God had inspired Jacob to speak and that Moses repeated several millennia previously. Indeed, in all the history of man, no nation has been blessed nor prospered as abundantly as has the United States of America!

A covenant people and the Promised Land

As noted above, Israel had 12 sons. But his two grandsons—Ephraim and Manasseh—would particularly bear his name. In pronouncing the blessing, Israel stated, "Let my name be named upon them" (Genesis 48:16). Though all of the sons of Israel were his descendants, very often when the name "Israel" is used in scriptural passages that followed this special pronouncement, it is Joseph's two sons who are given honorable mention.

As God's chosen people, He made a covenant with the Israelites. It was initiated at Mount Sinai where the Lord gave through Moses what was essentially a national contract, which was based on the Ten Commandments, written by God with His finger on tablets of stone. They were now the covenant people.

Forty years after the covenant was initially made at Sinai, Moses reminded the Israelites of their agreement with God (Deuteronomy 29:1). He delivered an exhortation to his successor Joshua, telling him he must lead the Israelites into the land God had promised to give them (Deuteronomy 31:7; Deuteronomy 31:23). This is commonly referred to as the "Promised Land" or the "land of promise."

God had earlier promised Abraham that He would give this land to his descendants (Genesis 12:7). He later affirmed the promise to Isaac (Genesis 26:3), and yet again, He repeated the promise to Jacob.

As restated to Jacob, the blessing would include "the fatness of the earth" (Genesis 27:28). This statement goes beyond the land of Canaan, which Israel received shortly after coming out of Egypt. The "fatness of the earth" foreshadowed the bestowal of the choicest real estate portions of the globe, not just of the Middle East.

Ancient Israel did inherit, as a result of God's promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the land of promise—formerly called Canaan—which was a fertile and productive land for that part of the world. However, it was only a foretaste of the far greater national riches their descendants would receive "in the last days."

The Source of modern Israel's wealth

Before ancient Israel entered the Promised Land, God told them, "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers as it is this day" (Deuteronomy 8:18). That all wealth ultimately comes from God is an eternal, immutable principle. "The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts" (1 Samuel 2:7, New Revised Standard Version).

U.S. Founders Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson proposed that a new seal represent America as Israel (see "The Colonial View of America as a New Israel"). Though their recommendations were not adopted by the Congress, they were quite appropriate given the way that God blessed the American people with the riches of a continent that dwarfed the riches given to ancient Israel.

King David of Israel, exalted and wealthy, knew that his and his nation's blessings were from God: "Riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all" (1 Chronicles 29:12, NRSV). God gave riches and honor to David because he yielded to God, sought His will and put his trust in God over the course of his life. He was a man "after [God's] own heart" (Acts 13:22).

Departure from God a self-imposed destruction

Early in the existence of the United States, a major part of the leadership and citizenry sought God's will as best they understood it. Christianity and the Bible played a major part in the early years of the American nation.

Abraham Lincoln, perhaps America's most biblically literate president, read the Bible from his youth and throughout his life. In his second inaugural address, he made 14 references to God, several biblical allusions, and direct quotations from the Psalms and Matthew. He called the Bible "the best gift God has given to man."

America today, having lost its way by drifting away from its biblical foundation, sorely needs to return to the Bible. The nation is rapidly declining and will eventually fall unless it repents. This collapse is in the process of being triggered internally.

Lincoln foresaw that this would be the case: "At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us in a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined . . . could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Could a nation die by suicide? It's sobering and frightening to contemplate. Yes, America does exist by God's divine grace. But the nation is testing God in its growing national sins. It stands in danger of pushing at God to the point that He removes the blessings He bestowed on the nation as promised.

Bible prophecy contains dire warnings for America at the end of this age. Part of the purpose of these prophecies is to shake people to wake up and repent—turn from their own selfish and arrogant ways and humbly turn to God. And although a nation hell-bent on doing things its own way apart from God is unlikely to change course, you as an individual can certainly change if you yield to Him. We pray you will have the wisdom to do so!