In their 2010 hit single “The Catalyst,” Linkin park opens the song with the following lines [1]:

God bless us everyone.
We’re a broken people living under loaded gun.
And it can’t be outfought;
It can’t be outdone.
It can’t out matched;
It can’t be outrun.
No.

Later on in the song they sing the following lines [1]:

God save us everyone,
Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?
For the sins of our hand?
The sins of our tongue?
The sins of our father?
The sins of our young?
No.

It is clear from these lines that Linkin Park believes that judgment is imminent for the sins of our people. This is a common belief (not hard when one looks around), and one I happen to share. Without widespread repentance leading to a national revival, I believe this nation will face God’s judgment within my lifetime. Linkin Park deserves credit for being morally sensitive to the times and recognizing the signs of judgment, and they deserve credit for being more sensitive to such matters than the majority of my fellow countrymen. Nonetheless, their assumptions about the workings of God’s judgment are incorrect.

We must note, though, that their misunderstanding is a common one. It is one so common that it is noted twice, for the same disaster, within the Bible. The disaster is the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587-586BC, and the lament about children suffering for the sins of their fathers is recorded in the books of Ezekiel and Lamentations. We will examine these scriptures shortly, but let us first examine why a generation under judgment seeks to blame their suffering on their sins of their fathers and not their own sins.

When people are judged or suffer, their first response is to point fingers at others. As someone who (like nearly every other human being) shares this tendency, I do not say this to condemn others but rather to point out an unpleasant but consistent aspect of our own natures. In the case of a society facing judgment, it is easy to point the fingers at other people. We point the fingers at our leaders, who brought destruction on us, not realizing that we enthusiastically supported their aims and carried out their evil orders, or voted them into office knowing their goals, ambitions, and agendas, or not caring about them because of our own selfish interests. We point fingers at our forefathers for their sins, and ignore our own. Such is the behavior of societies facing judgment, not only now but for time immemorial in the past as well.

Why is this so? For one, if we can show others as sinners as bad as ourselves, or worse, we feel as if their lack of judgment and our judgment is unfair. We can then position ourselves to feel like the victim rather than the actor of deliberate evil, as we so often are. As I examined in my Bible Study on Habakkuk [2], this problem is a serious one relating to God’s judgment, in that God often uses those who are more evil to judge those who are less evil? How is this fair?

What human beings claim when disaster or judgment strikes is along the lines of Linkin Park’s song. Ezekiel 18:2 phrases it in the following proverb: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Lamentions 5:7 phrases it as follows: “Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their iniquities.” Ezekiel 18:3 records God’s reply to this sort of specious reasoning: ““As I live,” says the Lord God “you shall no longer use this proverb in Israel.”” Later on in Ezekiel 18, God makes it perfectly clear that sons are not punished for the sins of the fathers, nor are fathers punished for the sins of the sons. The soul that sins shall die, and the soul of the righteous shall live.

So, we would appear to be at an impasse. God claims that He judges only the wicked souls while those who are suffering judgment claim that they are being judged for the sins of their fathers. How do we judge between the two cases in a fair fashion? For one, let us note that the two parties are not of equal standing. After all, we are the creation of God and our Creator can do whatever He likes with us, and does not owe us an explanation (as often as we, and I speak for myself as much as anyone else, would want one). So, let us admit from the outset that God does not owe us an explanation to Him, even though we owe one of ourselves to Him, since we are not the equals of God but rather His subjects and His creation.

That said, there is an explanation for what God does when it comes to judgment. A large part of the book of Romans is spent on precisely this issue relating to the rejection of the Jews and the choice of the Church to be the recipient of God’s promises to Israel. To summarize Paul’s lengthy argument in the book of Romans, because all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (see Romans 3:23) and therefore all are worthy of death (see Romans 6:23), any mercy or grace that God gives is undeserved. God can give grace, or deny it, to any people or society or generation that He chooses. All are unworthy of it, and yet for any of us to survive God’s grace is required because of the fact that we all sin very frequently.

In short, all are worthy of judgment, but God chooses to show mercy to some who are unworthy of the mercy and not show mercy to others, as He chooses. He also chooses to set terms for how people may approach Him—in faith, in obedience to His standards, in repentance for God’s forgiveness. He has the right to do what He pleases, but nonetheless He acts in a far more merciful way than He is often accused of behaving. He does not punish us for the sins of our fathers—He punishes us, when He punishes us, for our own sins. Those are enough for us to be condemned, if we do not repent.

And God never judges without a warning. Nonetheless, we have been warned. Even our rock bands, like Linkin Park, are seeing that the handwriting is on the wall (so to speak) and are responding accordingly. Clearly, without a prompt response we have all been warned, whether it is by religious people or even the more morally sensitive among our creative types like musicians and writers. If such people who are sensitive and outgoing about their perceptions can recognize that judgment is in the air, the time to respond is limited. The canaries in the coal mine are already dying—it is time to get out of the mine. If we fail to respond to the warnings we have, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The other consequence of the way that God judges is that God leaves a righteous remnant purified through destruction. The purpose of judgment is not to destroy the wicked, for God feels no joy at the destruction of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23), but desires that all should repent and be saved (see 1 Timothy 2:4). The righteous remnant of wicked civilizations, including our own, will be refined by fire so that God can start again with a people who has been purified of moral corruption, at the loss of property, family, and years eaten by the locust. But those who endure shall be saved, for the fires are not for their destruction but so that their dross and impurities can be removed and so that they can be purified, made worthy to be precious metals and jewels in His kingdom. It is better to suffer fires now for our refinement than to suffer fires later because of condemnation. Sometimes we have no choice but to endure the fires others escaped in this life. We cannot choose what times we live in, only how to deal with the times we have been given to face.

[1]

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/habakkuk-a-bible-study/