This year marks 250 years since America’s founding. Millions will be celebrating, and there is reason to celebrate. In fact, there is an inspiring spiritual dimension to America’s founding and rise to greatness—though most people are unaware of it.

Do you know why America became great? Most people cannot answer that question. Our forefathers could answer it, but today we cannot. That is the biggest problem America faces today!

Last year, President Donald Trump said, “Together we are going to ensure that America’s 250th anniversary is the single greatest year in the history of our country.”

Has 2026 felt like the “greatest year in the history of our country” so far?

What made our nation great in the past? Why do we seem to lack that greatness today?

A Terrific Question

When George W. Bush was campaigning for the presidency in 2000, he was asked by a Russian reporter: How do you define America’s national greatness?

That is a terrific question. Every American ought to be able to answer it.

President Bush gave a rather long answer. He said we have to love each other, to educate our children, and to have a strong military. But those things don’t explain our national greatness.

Our forefathers would have answered quite differently.

Most Americans probably don’t realize why people from other nations even ask that question. Those who ask it often come from poverty-stricken nations plagued with indescribable problems. The world has been puzzled by how America came to possess such power and wealth, more than any nation has ever had! Most Americans take these blessings for granted. We grew up in wealth and are surrounded by it. We don’t think much about it.

The fact that our people can’t explain our national greatness is terrible news! If you don’t know why you became great, how can you possibly remain great?

I can show you from your own Bible that we have a God-given responsibility, both collectively and individually, to explain our national greatness! And we are failing in that responsibility. If we don’t correct the problem soon, we will not remain great.

In fact, we have lost most of our greatness already because we don’t remember where it came from.

Some people attribute our wealth and power to American ingenuity; others, to luck. But many Americans today feel guilty because we have those advantages! We should not feel guilty about that—we ought to feel guilty because we don’t know why we have those advantages and because we don’t use them the way they should be used!

‘We Have Forgotten God’

Abraham Lincoln knew why America had all this wealth and power. To this day we talk about Lincoln’s greatness, and he certainly was a great man. Yet people don’t really know what his message was, what he believed and stood for!

In 1863, during the Civil War, the nation was divided and very weak. America’s fate hung in the balance.

Lincoln faced the crisis of his time by calling for a day of prayer and fasting. He made the most astounding proclamation I have ever read. On March 30, 1863, he wrote about how America became great and why: “And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. …

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God” (emphasis mine).

Even in his day, the people were drifting from God and the Bible! How much further are we from God today? The greatness of our country depends on answering this question honestly!

Lincoln continued, “We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.”

Lincoln was right: It was God who gave us all that wealth and power—yet Americans took credit and lost sight of God!

If Lincoln had been asked that question, he would have given the correct answer: We became great because the hand of God made us that way!

Lincoln’s solution was a dedicated day of drawing close to God. The whole nation prayed and fasted. The great God answered that prayer and saved the nation!

That is our history—some of the most inspiring history you will ever read. It is your history and mine. In a sense, it is the history of our entire world to the extent that these blessings started flowing out of America.

America had been split in two, with the two sides at war with each other! If not for Lincoln’s leadership in that war, America would have remained two separate nations, each very weak. World history would have unfolded very differently.

But the nation was saved from that fate—because the people appealed to God.

America in Lincoln’s day didn’t just talk about God. To a certain extent, they turned from their wicked ways. The nation as a whole repented of one particular sin that divided them. Slavery was really one of the greatest sins ever committed by a nation. But the slaves were freed by Abraham Lincoln. He knew slavery was a sin against God, so he put an end to it.

We must repent and turn from our many sins! (article, page 20).

You may not realize it, but conditions in America today are many times worse than they were under Abraham Lincoln. We are not yet in a full-blown civil war, but we are dangerously divided. We have serious problems and sins people didn’t even imagine in those days, and we face far greater calamity!

Yet there is no Lincoln in sight! Do you believe any politician today would ever make a proclamation like Lincoln did?

Politicians may still talk about Lincoln, but what did he say? What did he believe? Do we believe the same today? Or have we forgotten God, as they had during the Civil War? We certainly have!

People invoke Lincoln’s name yet will not talk about his message. In many ways, a lot of Christianity does the same thing with Jesus Christ. Most churches talk a lot about Jesus, but they don’t tell you the full truth about His message. This is another sign that we have forgotten God!

Blessings to Curses

America has serious problems: political divisions, rank moral perversions, assassination attempts, extreme corruption, domestic crime, weather disasters, wars abroad. The national debt just surpassed the gross domestic product, meaning we owe more than our entire economy can produce in a year! And every effort to stop the overspending fails, so the debt keeps growing. We don’t even try to pay it down. Instead, we ignore it.

On the surface, the stock market and the economy look good. And so our politicians look at the surface and talk superficially—like they did in 1929 before the stock market crashed and a depression descended upon America and upon a world that was so interconnected with and dependent on America’s economy.

But the problems under the surface are many times worse today than they were a century ago. And the consequences of the coming economic crash will be far more catastrophic!

That is a monumental problem. But it’s not our biggest problem. The biggest problem is that we have forgotten God!

When God blesses, He also warns that if you turn away from Him, He will curse you. Wouldn’t you say America is being cursed by God today? We surely are, and we are about to be cursed even more! Our problems are exceeding our ability to solve them.

I can tell you one way we are cursed, and I will be very frank: We do not have a Lincoln today who will talk to us the way he did and make a proclamation like he did. If a leader did, he would probably lose his office!

To his credit, President Trump has called on the nation to pray. But he has not called on the country to repent, to humble themselves and turn back to God the way Lincoln did. He did read 2 Chronicles 7, which calls for God’s people to “turn from their wicked ways,” but he has given no indication he believes this is a desperate need for America today.

What leader has the courage today to bring America to its knees the way Lincoln did? Nobody does that—but that is the only way we can possibly solve our problems!

I could take you through all four of the major prophets and all 12 of the minor prophets and show you that every one of them has the message that Lincoln had: Our sins show that we have forgotten God! As a result, we are facing a problem much bigger than a civil war. If you think that isn’t true, read those prophecies!

It is an affront to God for Americans to take credit for our blessings! In Hosea 2:8-10, God is wrathful at Israel for not acknowledging its blessings came from Him. Perhaps America’s greatest sin is ingratitude to God for making America great!

‘In the Last Days’

The late Herbert W. Armstrong explained America’s greatness in his landmark book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. This book shows why we became great. (For a free copy, just ask and we will gladly send you one; see back cover for details.)

Mr. Armstrong wrote in that book concerning America and Britain: “No other nation or combination of nations possessed these blessings of the birthright—for we held more than two thirds—nearly three fourths—of all the raw materials, resources and wealth of this entire round Earth, and all other nations combined shared among them only a small part.” How do you explain two nations possessing almost three quarters of the world’s wealth? The only explanation is that those blessings came from God!

Abraham Lincoln knew how it all began. Why don’t we know it today? Why don’t we fear God the way Americans and the nation’s forefathers did in the beginning of America’s history?

Genesis 49 is a prophecy for our day. It begins, “And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days” (verse 1).

Right here in the Bible’s first book is this great prophecy: God tells us what will befall the nations of Israel in the last days.

But who is Israel today? If this is an end-time prophecy, we must know who Israel is to know what awaits them!

Believe it or not, some of America’s forefathers knew! Did you know that when they came into this land, many of them, especially the leaders, called themselves New Israel?

Why? Because they were Israel—modern-day descendants of biblical Israel!

Genesis 49 tells you about Israel and how and why it would become great in the last days!

Look how God defines national greatness in this prophecy: “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)” (verses 22-24).

Who are the descendants of Joseph today? Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and they were to receive spectacular birthright blessings. The expression fruitful bough signifies prosperity; bow symbolizes great military power. God says they would be materially rich and possess fearsome military might—in the last days.

Which nations have had the strongest economies and military power in this end time?

How many people, even religious people, talk about these prophecies? Jesus Christ said that we must live by every word of God (Matthew 4:4). The only word available in His time was the Old Testament. He certainly was talking about Genesis 49. But who in the end time can explain who these nations are?

No two countries have been greater in this end time than America and Britain! Joseph is a prophetic term for end-time Ephraim—the “company of nations” that is Britain—and Manasseh—the United States of America.

These verses in Genesis 49 explain the reason for our nations’ greatness. These two powers were made strong by the mighty hand of God!

We must be able to correctly answer questions about America’s greatness! We have a responsibility to give God’s answer.

The Name of Israel

Look at the context of that Genesis 49 prophecy. Genesis 48 describes Joseph coming before his aged father, Israel, to have him bless his two sons. His father told him how God had blessed him and had told him, “Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession” (verse 4). Israel then said that he would extend that blessing to Manasseh and Ephraim.

Details about this blessing appear in the rest of this chapter. In giving the blessing, Israel said, “God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them …” (verses 15-16). The name of Israel was bestowed on these two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. In the last days, the descendants of these two brothers will be Israel and possess the birthright promises of Israel—blessed above all other nations on Earth!

This wonderful truth about Israel, and who it is today and why it is great, is marvelous, irrefutable proof that God exists! It is also the greatest single proof the Bible is the inspired Word of God! What a shame that so few understand this truth.

The Key to Prophecy

Recall the original promises God made to Israel’s grandfather Abraham. “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. … And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee” (Genesis 17:1, 6).

This is not a spiritual promise—it is physical. We must not spiritualize it away: He is talking about physical nations and kings in the last days.

Mr. Armstrong explained this thoroughly in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. He distributed more than 5 million copies of this book during his lifetime. People wanted to understand the source of America’s national greatness, and he proved it to them from the Bible.

That book provides the vital key to understanding the prophecies of the Bible. Most of mankind lacks that key and, as a result, does not and cannot grasp prophecy! “That key,” Mr. Armstrong explained in this powerful book, “is knowledge of the astonishing identity of the American and British peoples—as well as the German—in biblical prophecies.”

As he proved in that book, modern America is biblical Manasseh, and Britain is biblical Ephraim. We are the modern-day nations of Israel! And the latter-day prophecies that apply to Israel apply directly to the U.S. and Britain today!

This reality explains—in astonishing detail—where the power and wealth of these nations came from and why those blessings came when they did.

It also explains why those blessings are being taken away and replaced by curses. Look at Britain: It went rapidly from leading the most powerful empire in world history to being a small third-rate power. And America is following that same trajectory.

God will curse us more and more if we don’t wake up and see where we are going and what this all means!

National Greatness

When someone asks us to explain America’s national greatness, we should know clearly, without qualification, that our national greatness can be explained with one word: God!

The mighty hand of God gave us all the blessings we enjoy. He gave us our power. It’s in your Bible, and you can easily prove it. It is a deeply inspiring, wonderful story, and it is irrefutable truth!

It was God who made us great—and that reality points to the greatest single proof of the veracity of the Bible and of the active existence of the all-powerful God!

America’s 250th anniversary ought to point us to God and why He blessed this nation!