Salvaged By God

One God Two Nations

Israel doesn't make sense unless you believe in something beyond the math. If this improbable, ancient nation is somehow still thriving, maybe God isn't a myth after all. Maybe He's still in the story. Maybe history isn't random. Maybe evil doesn't get the last word.

Chris Danielson

15 min read


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"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen as his heritage." (Psalm 33:12)

The same God who created and sustained Israel as his testimony created and is still sustaining the United States of America. And I say for the sole purpose of supporting the miracle that is the modern state of the Jewish people.

Israel: God's Testimony to the World

Let's start today with Israel. Go back a hundred years to the Balfour Declaration in 1917 when British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour expressed support for the creation of a Jewish state and that it could be and should be their ancestral home in and around Jerusalem, what was named by the Romans as Palestine. This national home for the Jewish people concept in the land called Palestine was officially approved of in July of 1922 by the League of Nations, which, of course, is a forerunner to the United Nations.

Know this. All throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it was widely accepted that America would and should support the creation of the Jewish homeland. Newspapers of the day all wrote about supporting it in moral terms, as if it was a no-brainer thing to do. In 1945, after centuries of anti-semitism in Europe that had culminated in the murder of 6 million innocent Jewish people, America doubled down on its support in creating the Jewish homeland.

For a miracle of a nation being born in a day, which is what the scriptures say, for that to happen, it would need America. Without the US of A, this miracle doesn't happen. And on May 14th, 1948, immediately after David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel's independence, Harry Truman officially recognized the state of Israel. Do you know how quick he did that? Before the internet and cell phone coverage, Truman astoundingly recognized the state of Israel 11 minutes after its creation. One reason he did so was out of a "deep conviction that the Jewish people deserve the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland."

This rapid recognition was a huge deal. Why? Because it affirmed Israel's right to exist. It set adversaries on their back foot straight away. It set the tone and example for the rest of the world to follow. Who is going to argue with the winners of World War II at that time? All of this cemented our alliance that is held to this day. The Israeli government knows this. They know that their creation is from God and they know that God created America to stand with them.

Why the World Hates Israel

So, with all this history, why is it that the world is still bent on hating the Jewish people? See, there's something about Israel that makes people uncomfortable. And it's not what they say it is, by the way. The hate-filled, they point to politics, settlements, borders, and wars. But scratch beneath the outrage and you're going to find something much deeper. A discomfort not with what Israel does, but with what Israel is.

A nation this small should not be this strong. Period. Even with USA help, it shouldn't be that unmovable. Israel has no oil, no special natural resources, a population barely the size of a midsized American city. Yet they are surrounded by enemies, hated in the United Nations, targeted by terror, condemned by celebrities, boycotted, slandered, and attacked.

And still they thrive like there's no tomorrow. They thrive in military, in medicine, in security, in technology, in agriculture, in intelligence, in morality, and in a sheer unbreakable will. They turn desert into farmland. They make water from air. They intercept rockets in midair. They rescue hostages under the nose of the world's worst regimes. They survive wars that were supposed to wipe them out. And they win.

And the world watches this and it can't make sense of it. So the fallen world does what it does best when they witness strength they can't understand. They assume it must be cheating, must be American aid, it must be foreign lobbying, it must be some sort of oppression, it must be theft, must be some dark trick that gave the Jews this kind of power. Must be blackmail because heaven forbid if it's something else. Heaven forbid if it's real. Heaven forbid if it's earned or worse if it's destined. Destined and completely in line with the word of God.

Israel as Divine Testimony

Israel is in a way God showing us he has been in control throughout all of human history. And the nation of Israel and the Jewish people testify to his presence and his power just by their existence. The Jewish people were supposed to disappear a long time ago. That's how the story of exiled, enslaved, hated minorities is supposed to end. But the Jews didn't disappear. They actually came home, rebuilt their land, revived their language, and brought their dead back to life in memory, in identity, and in strength. And all of that is much more than just help from allies.

The Jews still being a people is miraculous. So, it's not normal what we have seen. It's not political. It's biblical. There's no cheat code that explains how a group of people returned to their homeland after 2,000 years. There's no rational path. Think about it now. There's no rational path from the gas chambers to global influence. There's no historical precedent for surviving the Babylonians, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Inquisition, the Pogroms, and the Holocaust, and still showing up to work on Monday in Tel Aviv. How does that happen?

Israel doesn't make sense unless you believe in something beyond the math. This is what drives the world crazy. Because if Israel is real, if this improbable, ancient, hated nation is somehow still chosen, protected, and thriving, then maybe God isn't a myth after all. Maybe he's still in the story. Maybe history isn't random. Maybe evil doesn't get the last word.

See, the Jews are not just a people. They're a testimony. They're a testimony. And the world can't stand it. Because once you admit that Israel's survival isn't just impressive, but divine, everything changes. Your moral compass has to reset. Your assumptions about history, power, and justice collapses. You realize you're not watching the end of an empire. You're witnessing the beginning of something eternal.

So the world denies it. They smear it. They rage against it. Because it's easier to call a miracle cheating than to face the possibility that God keeps his promise. And guess what? He's still keeping them. And don't let anyone fool you into believing that the church replaced Israel as God's testimony. We as the church are grafted in. It says so many places in the Bible. That is making God out to be a promise breaker which he is not.

America: Divinely Founded for a Purpose

So then what about America? What about our July 4th Independence weekend? How does this all play? Is Psalm 33:12 for real for America as it is for Israel? Without a doubt. Besides Israel, the founding of America is another total anomaly that points directly to divine intervention. God supernaturally founded this nation.

Here's the deal. We leave marks on everything we do. In fact, you won't be able to leave here today without leaving fingerprints and evidence behind that prove you were in this place, in this building for this specific event. Well, the fingerprints of God are unmistakably on the history of the United States.

America's Christian Foundation

The historical revisionists teach two things. One, that you evolved without God. And two, Christianity had little or nothing to do with the founding of America. And both things are completely wrong.

If you take a look closely, Washington DC has quotes and references to the biblical creation, faith, and in God inscribed in brass and etched in stones all over the Capitol. You go into the Capitol building in the rotunda, it's all around. The rooms have huge paintings depicting historical events. You look to the left and you see a painting of the baptism of Pocahontas. You look to the right and you'll see pilgrims praying for God's mercy before sailing to the new world with an open Bible right in front center of the painting for all to see.

Now the House chambers where the legislators vote on legislation and pass laws. Right above the doors of the House chambers, you will see marble reliefs of 22 of history's greatest lawmakers with their profiles working their way to a center picture. In the center picture, facing forward, the only one is Moses. Why do you suppose they did that?

Dr. Benjamin Rush was the very first surgeon general of the United States. He said, "The only foundation for a republic to be laid is in religion, and Christianity is the only true and perfect religion." Statements like that of Dr. Benjamin Rush were very common during the founding of our country. In fact, 93% (52 of the 56) signers of the Declaration of Independence were professing Christians. 95% of the authors of the Constitution were Christians.

If you take a deep look at the Declaration of Independence, it reads, "All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." By that one statement, we can conclude three very important things. One, we have a creator. Two, we are created equal. And three, our rights come from said biblical creator.

Biblical Foundations of American Law

In fact, the framers of our constitution cited two main reference sources. One was the Ten Commandments of the King James Bible. And secondly, Sir William Blackstone in his commentaries on the laws of England. So, who's Sir William Blackstone? Who's this dude? Well, he's an 18th century legal scholar in England. And he believed that the laws of England should be readily understood by the common man. So, our guys, our founding fathers wanted to adopt that same policy. And so what he did is he took all the English legal jargon in England and melted it down to the common man.

At the heart of Blackstone's philosophy was the ten commandments and his writings are filled with Judeo-Christian values. As a legal scholar, he taught that man is created by God and granted fundamental rights by God. There is no doubt man being empowered by their creator is the only context in which we must interpret the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And for most of us who are alive in 2025, a big chunk of our lives had been watching people try to remove that and still interpret the Constitution. And that's where we find a lot of our issues.

It's very telling that the constitution begins with the words "we the people." It reinforces the belief from our founders that each person's rights come from a biblical creator. Psalm 33:12 applies to us. Don't forget James Madison who authored the very first amendment says "we have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government but on the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the ten commandments." Psalm 33:12 applies to us. That's why our founders found it so necessary to continue to point to God in all they did. Why? Because blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.

The Faith of Our Founding Fathers

There's a lot of people who had a profound impact on our country. Like Noah Webster, you know his name. He wrote the first American dictionary. His textbooks were used for more than a hundred years to teach American children. He is a graduate of Yale and he started the first law school in the United States. He's called the author of American scholarship and education. The father, he's the big dude. So, I guess we can all agree this guy was pretty smart. I mean, guy wrote the dictionary.

You want to know what Noah Webster said? The father of American education said this: "Our continued success is dependent upon our educating the youth of America in the principles of the Christian religion." We should ask ourselves, is this what we're doing as a nation? Of course not. We used to, but it changed.

This country was founded on Christian principles by Christian men. That's a fact. A lot of people believe that many of our founding fathers were deists or universalists. Let's look briefly at a few statements by some of the founding fathers just to kind of give a vibe and a feel for the mood at the time.

Sam Adams wrote a tract widely read by the colonists called "The Rights of Colonists as Christians." In it, Sam Adams said the rights of colonists as Christians may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the New Testament.

On the day the vote was taken for independence, it was taken on July 2nd, 1776. It was signed on the 4th. After the vote was taken, those men knew that they had put their lives, their family, and their property on the line. And it was a very eerie moment. It says that Sam Adams rose to his feet and spoke these words into the stunned silence to close the proceeding of the day: "We have this day restored the Sovereign, capital S, to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven, and from the rising to the setting sun, may his kingdom come."

This was not a political rebellion. They were looking for the coming of Jesus Christ on these shores. Did you know that they had slapped on themselves a requirement of unanimity? Had any state voted against independence, they would not declare it. In a political rebellion, majority rule works out just fine, right? This proves they were not hasty. By signing, they were laying it all on the line, their property, their safety, their fortune, putting it all out there. That's easy for guys like me to maybe think about doing, but what's hard for me is to think they were putting their families' lives on the line as well. And some of the founding fathers' families got killed for this whole deal because they believed in something.

Patrick Henry, author of the famous "give me liberty or give me death" speech. One of his greatest quotes was this: "America was not founded by religionists nor on any religion but on the gospel of Jesus Christ." How's that for a blunt statement from one of the founding fathers?

John Adams, our second president, said, "Our Constitution was designed for a holy and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."

So I ask you, is it possible? Is it possible that the founding fathers had an outlook of people who would base their existence on the holy scripture and leave open the understanding that the power of God's word there still could be some misunderstandings amongst each other? Could it be that they wanted to downplay a lot of their secondary doctrine with each other that the power of God and his word would win out in the end? This possible conclusion would leave open the possibility of some historical errors in labeling them deists because they thought to not fight over doctrine. They thought to have freedom amongst each other. They wanted to focus on the major things and let the minor things be of own personal convictions.

Divine Intervention in America's Founding

Secondly, and this will get you more fired up to study history and to be an American than anything else, and that is, is there any evidence that God supernaturally intervened in America's founding, or is that just hyperbole from guys like me? Divine intervention, if you will.

I don't know how many of you have ever thought about it, but we had absolutely no chance to win the war for independence. None. It's been said that it would be the equivalent of a room like this playing the Super Bowl champions in a football game with your life on the line. The odds were against us. In fact, truthfully, it was not physically possible.

We were outgunned, outmanned, out-supplied, and out-generaled with the exception of Washington, Benedict Arnold and a few other brilliant commanders. The British Army and Navy were the finest fighting force in the whole world at that time. They were highly trained, highly skilled, highly disciplined, highly motivated. We truthfully never had a chance.

We had 11,000 American troops up against over 21,000 crack British Army regulars. 5,000 of our 11 regiments were raw recruits from the state of Connecticut. They had not had one hour of drill. They were absolutely raw. No training whatsoever. They would fight like madmen, but it was hopeless from the start.

The Miracle at Brooklyn

The afternoon of August 27th, 1776. The end is near. The Continental Army is trapped beyond repair. With the entire British army across our front, backed into a semicircle with our backs to the East River in New York. There's no escape. All the British had to do was mount one final charge, and it would all been over. Washington and his staff and the entire army would have had to surrender.

Now, by this point, after a fierce battle, 1,500 of our men were down, dead or wounded. Another 1500 were taken prisoner. We had only 8,000 effectives. Now, in the middle of the afternoon in August in New York, with your back to the river, you had three or four hours of daylight left. The British had plenty of time.

For some reason, nobody ever explains. They never mounted the final charge. They backed off. They did nothing. They disengaged. They pulled back. Both armies posted sentries. Night fell, nothing happened.

The next morning, it started to rain. A cold, hard, pelting rain from the northeast, driven by a stiff northeast wind. The British fleet lay anchor southwest the east river two miles waiting for the wind to shift so they could sail up the river and complete the encirclement. There was a stiff northeast wind. It was in their face and they couldn't move all day.

Washington called the staff together in the afternoon of August 28th and he said, "I have a plan. We are going back across the river to evacuate. We're going to evacuate back to the way from which we've come." He meant across the East River by small boat to the tip of what is now Manhattan. His officers argued with him. They said, "It is impossible. It can't be done. Better to sell our lives in the trenches and take as many of them with us as we can." George said, "No, my mind is made up."

Took them a few hours to get ready. And the evacuation began under the cover of the storm. Now, just by coincidence, of course, members of some of the last regiments from the battle two days earlier now were men from the north shore of Massachusetts Bay. They were from Salem and Marblehead. And they were expert oarsmen. They knew how to put the oars in without a wash.

Do you know why this was important? Because two hours into the evacuation, the storm died down. The wind came, the moon came out on a hot, calm, still August night. You know how sound travels on water, right? If the British Navy two miles south had heard the sound of rowing, they would have launched the longboats and captured the entire army. But they never heard a thing all night.

The real miracle though happened at dawn. And what happened then is recorded in both army's diaries, but Major Van Telmage on our side tells it best. He wrote, "Just as the eastern sky began to lighten from black to purple, streaks of red and orange, just as the light began to rise, every American eye was anxiously on the eastern horizon. Why? Because several thousand troops were waiting on the Brooklyn shore. As soon as it became light enough for the British to see, they would all be captured."

Telmage wrote, "Just as the light rose, a dense fog rose out of the earth." And he said, "I recall this peculiar intervention of divine providence perfectly well." The fog hung like a blanket between the American lines and the British lines and formed a corridor across the East River to the tip of what is now Manhattan. Talmage says, "We tried until late morning."

Gets even better at the very end. Telmage tells us the fog lifted at the same moment the last boatload of Americans left the Brooklyn shore. The British guard saw what was happening, ran down to the shore, and fired a couple futile musket shots, but they fell just short as the last boat was just out of range. 8,000 Americans got away scot-free. The British wrote in their diary, "The hand of God is against us."

You better believe it. The hand of God created this nation. And all throughout our history in the modern times, we are being told that what I just shared with you mattered not. So I point you to Colossians chapter 2:8. It says, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceits after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ."

America's Divine Purpose

One of the most enduring images from America's founding is the wood carving of a snake chopped up into eight pieces with the caption "join or die." Benjamin Franklin used this picture in 1754 that was printed in every newspaper in America. Franklin hoped it would inspire them to join together and created a united government, one still under the authority of British at this point. But they would not be able to face this threat on their own. No state could do it by themselves. They had to stay unified. And our need for unity is just as real now as it was nearly 250 years ago.

So I believe and I declare that God supernaturally created the United States of America far enough west to be its own thing and did so with freedom and liberty endowed by God himself as the forefront and at the foundation. And I'm saying that the purpose of creating the United States of America was to eventually be a safe haven for Jews and support the Jewish state.

Do I really believe that? Do I believe that we were created intentionally to be there in 1948 in the leadup to it to make sure that the miracle could happen that God promised he would do in the book of Isaiah? Absolutely I do. Our God is a God of order of purpose.

Also, America starting in the 1800s but really accelerated after 1948 became the biggest missionary sending country taking the gospels to the ends of the earth. Coincidence? I think not. All of this is why I say our national survival depends on supporting Israel.

Our Response Today

As citizens of heaven before we are citizens of America or any other nation for that matter, our perspective on culture and country should be filtered through the lens of God's word. If you are soundly saved and you've surrendered your life to Christ, that's how you roll. That's how you should roll.

As a result, where America lines up with scripture, we can and should be proud to be Americans. Where it has deviated from God's truth, we should be ready and willing to speak out and hold it accountable. It gets a lot easier to see America objectively and to recognize its faults without losing sight of its blessings when as an American, we know the foundation of who we are and how we came about.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. We are victorious in Christ. So, let's live like it.

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