1. The first pitch was a fastball of grace.
2. The second pitch was a fastball of mercy.
3. The third pitch was a changeup of affliction.
AMOS 7:1-9
I think everybody here knows how much I enjoy sports. Mostly football, but I like other sports too. I like watching NASCAR. I’m a frustrated basketball player so I enjoy watching college basketball. I say I’m a frustrated basketball player—I love to play the game, but I don’t play it very well. My brain works like Michael Jordan, but my body works like Michael Moore. Another sport I really enjoy is baseball. As a matter of fact, my wife and I both like baseball. Of course, she wouldn’t have anything to do with it until our son started playing. Probably my favorite part about baseball is watching how good pitchers will work a hitter. I remember when John Smoltz was the closer for the Braves a few years ago. If the Braves had the lead, he would come into the game in the 9th inning. When he really needed a strikeout, you could just about mark down what he was going to do. He would throw a 98 mph fastball right past the batter for the first strike. Then he would throw another 98 mph fastball. Usually, the hitter would begin to catch up to it and foul it away for the second strike. Then he’d throw his strikeout pitch. He’d throw a 75 mph changeup. Of course the batter would swing and miss. The difference in speeds would almost make his strikeout pitch unhittable. No batter in the league wanted to be down two strikes to John Smoltz. It was a terrible position to be in. In our passage tonight, Amos reports three interactive visions he has with the Lord. Each vision begins the same way. God shows him something. Then the differences in the visions come out. In the first two visions, God threatens judgment on His people, Israel. In each case, immediately after seeing what God could do in judgment, Amos interceded on behalf of Israel. And in each case, God responded to Amos’ intercession by staying His hand of affliction. That wasn’t the case the third time. Instead of interceding for Israel, God now asks Amos to be a witness to His standard, their sinfulness and the devastating affliction He was going to bring on them. Israel missed each opportunity God gave them. Each time Amos interceded, God held off on afflicting them. Finally, He had enough—He afflicted them with almost complete destruction. God is faithful to respond to the intercessory prayers of His people. But only up to a certain point. We don’t know when that point is, but when it is reached, He will no longer offer gracious and merciful opportunities to repent. And when that happens, He offers His final opportunity for repentance—He afflicts. In a sense, God offers repentance to His people like a baseball pitcher offers runs to a batter. He throws the ball across the plate in order that the batter might hit it. But if the batter misses the first two pitches—look out. Here comes the strike-out pitch. The analogy isn’t perfect because it breaks down on one point. In a baseball game, the pitcher doesn’t want you to hit the ball. But God wants you to repent. So He sends His pitches right down the middle of the plate. He sets them up so anyone can hit them. So anyone can turn to Him in repentance. All we have to do is swing. But when we don’t swing on the first two, His strike-out pitch is devastating. As we sit here tonight, I don’t want any of us to strike out. I want each of us to make the swing of repentance on the first pitch God gives us. And if you fail to hit the first pitch, I want you to hit the second one. Don’t wait for God’s strikeout pitch. In order to keep from striking out we’re going to do a little scouting report tonight. Anytime a big-league hitter is going to face a pitcher, he scouts him. He looks at the kinds of pitches he throws. So we’re going to do a scouting report on God tonight. We’re going to look at three pitches God uses to bring His people to repentance. The first pitch He uses is a fastball of grace. Look with me at Amos’ first vision in verses 1-3:
AMOS 7:1-3
God’s first pitch is a fastball of grace. As I said, each of these visions starts the same way. They start with God showing Amos something. He shows him the possible affliction He’s going to bring on Israel. Understand that these were prophetic visions—they were prophetic in the sense that they hadn’t happened yet—at least in the way we look at things. God was giving Amos a glimpse into the possible future. God looks at the past, present and future differently than we do. That’s one of the reasons we have such a hard time understanding things like God’s foreknowledge and things like predestination. You see, we can’t help but look at things from a perspective of space and time. That’s what kind of creatures we are and that’s how we look at things. We have no other frame of reference to go by. But God is outside of time and space. As a matter of fact, He created time and space, so He is certainly not limited by them. So, from Amos’ perspective, the prophesies he receives from God are dealing with the way things could be or will be. But from God’s perspective, those prophesies are dealing with the way things are. Getting a handle on that helps us to understand how God can at one point in time threaten to bring affliction on His people and then at a later point in time relent. And have both actions stated in the past tense as if they’ve already happened. So, the bottom line is, don’t get wrapped around the axle about the whole idea of God repenting. For one thing, the word “repent” here isn’t like we use the word “repent”. It doesn’t carry the idea of repenting from sin. Instead, it carries the idea of relenting. “I was going to do something, but now I’m relenting from that decision.” It’s actually closer to the idea of God changing His mind than it is to our concept of repentance. But that doesn’t quite cut it either. Because God never changes—anything, including His mind. The only way we can hope to understand it is to say that God is using the language of time and space to try to describe an event that happened in His eternal counsel—outside of time and space. Verse 3, and later on in verse 6, are examples of trying to use finite words to describe an infinite God to finite brains. So God allowed Amos to step out of time and space for a moment and showed him a vision of locusts. And it wasn’t very pretty was it? If you think taxes are high now, you should have seen them then. How it would work is this way. Israel had two crop harvests. 100% of the first harvest would go to the king. The people could keep the harvest from the latter growth. But in this first vision, God sent locust to consume their crops as soon as the latter growth began to appear. So, basically that meant that as they were finishing up all the food they had left over in their pantries, they didn’t have anything to replace it with. It meant they would slowly, painfully starve to death. Well, Amos couldn’t bear the thought of that. So he interceded in prayer on their behalf. He with God that He would forgive them. Amos had been telling Israel all the things they had done to offend God. He had told them of their sins. But they had refused to ask forgiveness and repent. Well, Amos knew he couldn’t repent for them. But he could beg God to forgive them. Will God forgive if there is no evidence of repentance? No, but He will extend His grace. And that’s what He did here. Even though Israel showed no signs of repenting. Even though they refused to heed any of the warnings God had given them. Even though they wouldn’t seek God’s forgiveness themselves, God still extended His grace to them. Why? Because one man prayed. One man interceded on their behalf. Amos asked God to forgive them. He wouldn’t forgive them because they hadn’t repented. But He did extend His grace. He lobbed the fastball of grace over the plate in order that they would make contact and repent. But they refused. It wasn’t like they swung and missed. God’s fastball of grace is such that if you swing, you hit it. And when you hit it—when you take advantage of His grace—you turn to Him in repentance. But Israel let God’s fastball of grace go by without swinging. Strike one. So, God delivered His second pitch—the fastball of mercy. Look with me at Amos’ second vision in verses 4-6:
AMOS 7:4-6
God’s second pitch is a fastball of mercy. This vision starts the same way as the first one did. It starts with God showing Amos the possible affliction He’s going to bring on Israel. Except this time, instead of just afflicting their food, He’s going to afflict everything. One of the most fearful pictures you can conjure up in your mind is fire. I don’t know that you can imagine anything more painful than being burned. You think about the wildfires that they have every year out west. Imagine a wildfire quickly moving through the forest consuming everything in sight. Except instead of just a regular wildfire, this one is supernaturally supercharged. A fire that not only destroys the fuel it consumes, it destroys bodies of water. It boils rivers and ponds dry. That’s the affliction that God shows Amos. Picture that horrifying vision in your mind. Hear the screams of all living flesh being destroyed. See the gruesomeness of complete and total annihilation by fire. If God showed you that was what He was going to do to America, what would your response be? If God showed you that He was going to pour molten lava over America, what would you do? I’ll tell you what Amos did. He prayed. Once again, he interceded on behalf of an unrepentant people. But this time, notice that he didn’t ask God to forgive them. He had asked that once, but God won’t forgive unrepentant people who don’t call out to Him for forgiveness. He won’t apply forgiveness to an unchanged heart. So, Amos knew better than to ask again for God to forgive them. Instead, this time he begged God for mercy. He left out the request for forgiveness and went straight to pleading for God’s mercy. The picture of destruction that God painted was so awful, Amos couldn’t do anything else. So he figuratively took hold of the horns of the altar and cried out to God for mercy. And what did God do? He showed mercy. Israel didn’t ask for it. Israel didn’t repent. They continued on in their prideful, self-sufficient ways. But because Amos cried out to God for mercy on their behalf… because he interceded for them… God showed them mercy. He lobbed the fastball of mercy over the plate in order that they would make contact and repent. But they still refused. They didn’t even swing at it. Because if they had swung at God’s mercy, they would have hit it and turned to Him in repentance. But, just like God’s fastball of grace, they let the fastball of mercy go by without swinging. Strike two. When a batter has two strikes against him, it’s called a pitcher’s count. It’s called a pitcher’s count because he’s about to throw his strike out pitch. Well, Israel was down two strikes to God. They had passed on His grace and His mercy. So, now it was time for God’s strike out pitch. When you refuse God’s grace and mercy, His last resort to get your attention is with affliction. So, God delivered His third pitch—the changeup of affliction. Look with me a Amos’ third vision in verses 7-9:
AMOS 7:7-9
God’s third pitch is a changeup of affliction. For those of you who aren’t baseball fans, let me interpret the language a little bit for you. A straight fastball is the most basic pitch you can throw. Anybody that can hit, can hit a straight fastball. Somebody once said that major league hitters can hit a bullet with a broomstick—as long as it’s straight. But that’s not the case with a changeup. A changeup looks exactly like a fastball when it comes from the pitcher’s hand. The only problem is, it’s way slower. It’s way slower and it curves. It can be a devastating pitch for a hitter. In this vision, God starts His changeup the exact same way He started the two previous fastballs. He starts by showing Amos something. But look what He shows him. He shows him a wall built perfectly straight and true. God holds the plumbline against it to show Amos how perfectly it was built. What He was showing Amos is the perfect provision He had made for Israel. He had built them straight and true. He had given them every opportunity to serve Him the right way. He had called them out. Even though there wasn’t anything special about them, He called them out and made them special. He delivered them. He protected them. He gave them guidance. When they asked for the Law, He gave it to them. When they demanded a king, He gave them one. He sought their repentance by giving them law, leaders, judges, prophets, priests and kings. But they still refused. So He sought their repentance by affliction. God showed Amos the plumbline against the true wall He built. And He asked Amos to be a witness to it. He said, “What do you see.” And so, instead of Amos interceding on behalf of Israel, Amos testified as to the perfection of what God had done for Israel. Even Amos’ intercession was quieted. So, once God had His witness, He told how that plumbline was His justification in afflicting Israel. God’s plumbline showed that He had dealt with Israel perfectly. He had given them every opportunity to turn to Him. He had withheld His affliction by pouring out His grace on them. They refused. He had withheld His affliction by being merciful to them. They still refused. So now His affliction would come. It would come by completely removing His presence from them. It would come by destroying all the hope they had in the muddled up religious systems they had built. It would come by destroying all the confidence they had in their military security. But even that horrible affliction had a purpose. God’s strikeout pitch wasn’t designed to get them out of the game. It wasn’t designed to permanently cast them away in judgment. As devastating as it was, even it was designed to bring them to repentance. But the sad thing about it is, it is designed to bring them to repentance after the affliction. By the time God gets to His strike out pitch, you’re out. No amount of intercession will stop God’s affliction. No amount of pleading for grace. No amount of pleading for mercy. The same thing happened with Jeremiah. Turn with me to Jeremiah 7:16-20:
JEREMIAH 7:16-20
What? God telling someone not to pray? The fact is, there comes a point when God will no longer listen to intercession. There can even become a point when God forbids intercession. At that point, the intercessor becomes the chief witness against them. When does that happen? I don’t know. But I certainly wouldn’t want to find out, would you? What these visions tell us is that it is a very dangerous thing to pass on God’s grace. It’s a very dangerous thing to pass on God’s mercy. It’s a very dangerous thing to stand in the batter’s box and wait for God’s strikeout pitch of affliction. I am afraid we are nearing that point in our nation. God has poured out His grace on America for a long time. He has showed His mercy upon us for a long time. But every day, our nation continues to turn our back on Him. As Christians, we are supposed to intercede in prayer for our nation. But the vision of the plumbline shows us that there comes a point that God no longer hears intercession. The passage in Jeremiah shows us that there comes a point when God can even forbid intercession. There comes a point when God’s intercessors will become the chief witnesses against the nation. But that’s the nation. What about us here at our church? What do these visions tell us here? They tell us the same thing. It’s a very dangerous thing to pass on God’s grace and mercy. Is there sin in this church that God is relenting from punishing? Relenting because of the prayers of the people who continually intercede for this church? If so, He will not hear those prayers forever. If we ignore unrepentant sin in this church, God will stop hearing the prayers of intercession. When? I don’t know. I don’t want to find out. If there is unrepentant sin in our church, I want us to do what Israel failed to do. I want us to swing. I want us to swing for God’s grace. I want us to swing for God’s mercy. Swing for it by repenting. Repenting individually and corporately. Publicly.
Have you sinned against this local body of believers? By sinning against this body, you have sinned against the Body of Christ. And when you sin against the Body of Christ, you sin against its Head. You sin against Jesus Christ Himself. Have you sinned against Jesus by sinning against one of your brothers or sisters here tonight? If you have, swallow your pride and go to them. Ask their forgiveness. Come to the altar together and pray for each other. Have you sinned against Jesus by your unfaithfulness to His body? Have you sinned against Jesus by your slanderous words against His body? Have you sinned against Jesus by your indifference to His body? However you have sinned against His body, tonight is the time to deal with it. Tonight is the time to repent of that. Repent while we are still under God’s grace and mercy. Repent before we fall under God’s affliction. God has set a plumbline in our midst. How will we respond?
