Of all the treats Americans could set their eyes on today, Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation ranks among the most thought-provoking and beautiful.

“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies,” proclaimed Lincoln. “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” (emphasis mine).

What a sublime example of humility and hope. Lincoln was at the helm of a nation embroiled in a civil war of “unequaled magnitude and severity.” It was a time of discouragement and despair. America’s future hung in the balance. Yet humble Lincoln encouraged his people to count their blessings, and to not forget the “source from which they come.”

Lincoln knew that despite the war, America was on the road to becoming a great nation. “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,” he stated. America was growing, expanding, pushing into new frontiers, producing bountiful crops, marching toward greatness—even as civil war raged.

And Lincoln understood why: “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” (emphasis mine).

America’s 16th president saw God’s role in the “great things” unfolding within his nation. He considered America’s growing physical and material wealth “gracious gifts from the Most High God.” And he intended Thanksgiving to be a yearly reminder of the role the “Most High God” played in shaping American history!

Abraham Lincoln was an avid student of the Bible. Although we don’t know how familiar he was with the book of Genesis and the details of the birthright promise God made to Abraham, it’s clear that Lincoln wholeheartedly believed America was a divine product of God’s creation. He was right!

This “birthright promise” is a key theme in our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, written by the late Herbert W. Armstrong. We are first introduced to this promise in Genesis 12:1-3: “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show you. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

In The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Mr. Armstrong explained that this promise comes in two stages, “one purely material and national; the other spiritual and individual.” While the spiritual phase of this promise—the promise of grace through Christ—is given lots of attention, Mr. Armstrong explained that the “birthright promise,” that “most amazing national and material promise to Abraham,” has been “almost entirely overlooked.”

When Abraham Lincoln discussed the hand of the “Most High God” in American history, he was, in essence, talking about this birthright promise! In fact, this promise is key to understanding world history, and especially the history of the United States. “These are not casual, incidental, unimportant promises,” wrote Mr. Armstrong, referring to the birthright promise. “These are basic—the foundation for the establishment of the greatest world powers ….”

God reveals further details about the birthright promise in Genesis 17. “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Eternal appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. ... Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee” (Genesis 17:1-5).

Notice, Abraham’s inheritance of this promise was conditional upon faith and obedience. Abraham fulfilled those conditions when he proved himself faithful and obedient to God by showing that he was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac (Genesis 22). After that display of faith and obedience, noted Mr. Armstrong, “the covenant [or birthright promise] no longer was conditional. Now it became unconditional.” From this moment, God was bound to fulfill His promise of national greatness to Abraham.

Before Abraham died, the birthright promises were conferred to his son Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5), who, before he died, conferred them upon his son Jacob (Genesis 27:26-29; 35:10-12). In due time, Jacob passed the same promises down to his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 48), two of the 12 tribes of Israel. The reason God rescued the Israelites from Egypt and took them to the Promised Land was that He wanted to fulfill His promise of national and material greatness to Abraham.

Mr. Armstrong identified Leviticus 26 as the “very pivot of the Old Testament,” the “basic prophecy of the Old Testament.” Why? Because in Leviticus 26 God informed the Israelites—including Ephraim and Manasseh, inheritors of the birthright promise—of the conditions for receiving their inheritance. Although God’s promise to Abraham became unconditional after Abraham’s display of faith and obedience, God imposed conditions on the Israelites for them to inherit the promise in their time. In this chapter God made it clear that if the Israelites obeyed Him, particularly the Second and Fourth Commandments, He would lavish them, in their time, with the blessings of the birthright promise (verses 1-14).

But notice! If the Israelites refused to obey God, He would withhold the birthright promises from Ephraim and Manasseh for 2,520 years (verse 18). As Mr. Armstrong explained thoroughly in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, that delay began in 721 b.c., when Israel, including Ephraim and Manasseh, was taken captive by the Assyrians.

Although God delayed fulfilling His promise to Abraham, He was bound by His word to shower Abraham’s descendants, specifically Ephraim and Manasseh, with the birthright blessings. And He did—right around the year 1800—2,520 years after Ephraim and Manasseh had been taken into captivity.

America and the British Commonwealth are the modern-day descendants of Manasseh and Ephraim, respectively. If you’re familiar with their history, you know that each began to emerge as a major global power beginning in the early 19th century. “We should face the facts today,” wrote Mr. Armstrong in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, “and know that we were given all this vast unprecedented material wealth because God promised it, unconditionally, to Abraham.”

Abraham Lincoln, though he may not have recognized all this history, knew that American greatness was an act of God. During an address on March 30, 1863, during which he declared a day of prayer and fasting, he stated (emphasis mine):

[I]t is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God … 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 blessings of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in number, wealth and power as no other nation ever has grown: But we have forgotten God! 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 these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

What a beautifully stirring and prescient invocation!

Abraham Lincoln is widely ranked among America’s greatest presidents. He is respected and admired by millions. President Obama has even identified himself as a pupil of Lincoln’s. So why don’t more Americans take the example and admonition of one of their national heroes to heart?

Thanksgiving affords us the opportunity to walk in Lincoln’s footsteps, and to see that beneath American greatness lies God’s spectacular promise to Abraham!

To learn more, join 6 million others and request your copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Of all the treats Americans could set their eyes on today, this work by Mr. Armstrong ranks among the most thought-provoking and beautiful.