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by Nathan Buck

Would you take a moment for some honest, open reflection? I am asking you to consider for a moment the role we may have played in where the world is today.

Read Habakkuk 1:5-11. Notice God says he is doing something no one in that day would have imagined. Because of the rebellion within Israel and their unfaithfulness, He says He is going to raise up the Chaldeans. Who are they?

God describes them this way. Their own strength is what they worship, it is their god. And they take, destroy, plunder, and satisfy themselves at the expense of others. They are merciless people. They are the terrorists of the day. They are ISIS. The Chaldeans will still be accountable for their violence and destruction, but they will be given access and permission to rampage through Israel. It was a consequence for Israel, who had turned away from God. They committed the violence and evil Habakkuk was boldly crying out to God about in the previous verses.

Israel had stopped being a community of people who cared for the weak and the poor; they stopped loving each other as they loved God. Israel had begun to tear itself apart. The courts were corrupted, the violent and unjust were in charge, and those who follow God were being controlled so that even good judgement was being corrupted.

Does that sound that much different than today?

Do you realize that Islam comes from the region of the Chaldeans? Islam claims to come from the lineage of Ishmael - the first son of Abraham, born to the servant Hagar, when Sarah believed she could not have children. God called Abraham out of his native land, to go to a land God would show him. (Genesis 12-15) Abraham was the one God chose to work through as He began His work to rescue humanity. And where was Abraham when God called him? He was in the land of Ur of the Chaldeans.

It is easy to see the parallels of how God describes the Chaldeans and ISIS and every Islamic terrorist group. I believe Islam teaches the principles of the god(s) of the Chaldeans, cloaked in the religion Muhammad created around them. Feel free to do your own research on the subject and the history.

An important question, based on this look at Habakkuk, is did we do this? Have our choices as a people, as a nation, brought us to this place where we are experiencing the rise of ISIS? Our courts are corrupt, the poor are patronized, the wealthy are demonized, the righteous are accused of hate, and the violent/corrupt/perverse are celebrated as brave. Could it be that God is once again raising up the “Chaldeans” in order to let us experience the violence we have denied we are committing, and to allow us to taste what it is like to truly be without God's protection?

If so, the rest of Habakkuk may be worth continuing to explore, because Habakkuk had as hard a time believing that God would do that as we do. As a nation, and as the Church, we MUST recognize where we are flippant in our morality, where we have morally denied God, where we have sanctioned murder of the innocent, and where we have contributed to the hurting of the children, widows, poor, weak, and outcast.

At the beginning of this post, I asked you to approach this with an open heart and mind. Please take time to humbly go to God and ask Him to search out any offensive way in you. Ask Him to show you how to surrender the places you have denied Him and to start living His way. Ask God to show you the people He desires you to care for and the injustice you are to fight to correct. Ask Him to restore your moral compass and to clarify your understanding of what is truly good and truly evil. And ask God to withhold ISIS and to have the Church rise up to show the true nature of God in such a way that even ISIS would surrender and be saved.

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