Three Strikes - Yer Out!
Maybe you’ve seen those T-shirts and stickers with the words "No Fear." It’s the name of a
company associated with motor sport racing and NASCAR. I guess this could be the slogan of
the drivers....they supposedly drive and compete with NO FEAR. This attitude could have deadly
consequences when applied to any number of situations. Riding a motorcycle without a helmet.
Doing drugs. Bungee jumping. Mountain climbing. Driving on the highway. Breathing. But it’s
even worse when a nation’s people turn their backs to God and have no fear of Him and His
judgment.
Israel has been ignoring God. He’s been sending His prophets to warn them to get back on the
straight and narrow. But the people haven’t listened. The rich have been living in luxury while
the poor are downtrodden. They’ve taken for granted their status as God’s chosen people for so
long that they seem incapable of understanding their problem; of understanding that God might
be just a little bit upset with them. They continue to do evil in the eyes of the Lord. These are
words we’ve heard before all through the book of Judges; “...continued to do evil in the eyes of
the Lord.” They have no fear. And so God is preparing to bring judgement on them.
So God sends a sheep herder and a farmer to Israel to warn her. Amos did not come saying “I”
have something to tell you. No, he came and said, “This is what the Lord God showed me....”
You see, God was going to give Israel 3 more chances, kind of like in baseball where you get 3
strikes before you’re out. These are warning signs.
The Bible is full of warnings from God. Proverbs contains some of the Bible’s
strongest warnings against overindulgence. The prophet Samuel warned Israel
about the consequences of having human kings. When he was 480 years old, 120
years before the Flood, God warned Noah that the world would be destroyed by
water. Israel was warned not to worship the sun, the moon, and the stars. God
gave him a solemn warning through an unnamed prophet who came to Bethel from
Judah. In spite of this terrible warning from God, Jeroboam continued in his
evil way. Moses warned the Israelites that their courage came too late, and
that God would not support them, they went anyway--and were soundly beaten.
Moses warned the Israelites not to hate the Edomites. But for the rest of
biblical history, there were wars and hatred between the two nations.
Lot and his family found it hard to leave their adopted home of Sodom, despite
its immorality. Angel messengers warned them to hurry, not even stopping to
look back. Just before the dramatic crossing into the promised land, God gave
a clear statement of his priorities and a warning of what would happen if the
Israelites failed to obey. His words would one day come back to haunt them,
for they failed to carry out fully any of his orders.
These are just a few from the Old Testament. All these ignored warnings carry
with them consequences.
So ch. 7 begins with the approach of a swarm of locusts, which will destroy the harvest, leaving
the people to starve. That’s strike one.
Now our passage talks about The king’s mowings--which is the first-fruits of the mown grass,
taken by the king from the people. Kind of like taxes. The latter growth--namely, of grass,
which comes up after the first mowing. In the East they don’t mow their grass and make hay of
it, but cut it off the ground as they require it. So locusts come in a strip the land clean.
Amos sees this and prays to God to forgive them; to have mercy on them. And God relents.
Then he sees a vision of a great fire coming that will be so great that it will devour the great
deep. That’s strike two. Again he prays for mercy and God relents.
Now in baseball, when a hitter has two strikes on him, they say he has to “protect the plate”.
This means that he only has one strike left and he’d better be careful or he’ll get called out. He
had better be careful or he’ll get a third strike. But in reading our passage today, it’s clear that
the people of Israel weren’t “protecting the plate”. They had no fear. In 7:7 God shows Amos a
plumb line set against a wall, to show that the wall had been built true to plumb. And he says I
am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the
high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and
I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."
It is God who determines what is vertically straight in regard to righteousness and doctrine. The
plumb line shows vertical straightness, in other words what is in line with God in heaven above.
It is God’s plumb line, not man’s, that shows Israel was “out of plumb” with God.
God’s patience has a limit. He’s listened to Amos’ prayers up until now, but the time has come
to apply God’s building code to the structure of the nation of Israel. The right hand of the great
umpire is raised to call “Strike Three”. God is going to judge the sins of Israel.
God’s patience is a tricky thing. We see all this sinfulness going on and wonder if He’s paying
attention. We see evil and wonder why God hasn’t taken care of it. We see people getting away
with things and begin to think maybe it just doesn’t matter. That’s what the people of Israel were
thinking. But it does matter. God is patient. God is merciful. And let’s not forget that when he
revealed his name to Moses on Mt Sinai he said this: "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful
and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, ... yet by no means
clearing the guilty." “Slow to anger”. It doesn’t say “Never angry”. God is patient, but a time will
come when his patience will run out and he’ll come to judge the world. In 2 Pet 3:9, Peter tells
us this: "The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with
you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance."
Many times a batter will not swing at a pitch and the umpire will call it a strike anyway. And the
batter will turn and question the umpire on the pitch’s location or maybe even argue about it.
That reminds me of the story of Job. Do you remember how Job experienced those disasters that
left him wanting to die. But what did Job want most at that point? It wasn’t death. It wasn’t
healing. No, he wanted to talk to God face to face. He wanted to hear God’s side of events. He
wanted God to come and speak to him about these disasters that had come upon him so unjustly.
That’s such a normal human response isn’t it? To want to question God about the disasters we
experience or the state of the world. But what if God is inaccessible. What if he’s withdrawn his
word from us?
God’s word is so important to us. It’s the source of our knowledge of salvation, it’s the guide for
our lives, the plumb line against which we measure how we live, it’s the source of the truths we
know about God and the world. But its actually of no value to us unless we use it, unless we read
it and take notice of it. Unless we take the truth, that word of God and apply it to our lives, to our
behavior, to our relationships, we might as well not have it at all. In the end it will be as useless
as if we hadn’t had it in the first place.
But that isn’t the end of the story. The people of God are about to be judged, but they’re still the
people of God. They’ve failed in the way they’ve related to God but they still have a relationship
with him. Kind of like in baseball. You’ve just taken a called third strike and “yer out!” You
have failed in this at bat. Grab some bench. But hey, there’s always the next at-bat or the next
game. You’re still a part of the team. You may “strike out” once in a while, but you’re still a part
of the team. God has called “strike three” on Israel but they’re still in the game, still on the team.
God’s covenant with his people isn’t wiped out by this act of judgement. READ: Amos 9:8-10
God says “I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob”. Hey, they’re still on the team. The coach
just isn’t too happy with them right now.
Our situation of course is somewhat different from that of the people of Israel in Amos’ time.
Our salvation no longer depends on our obedience to God. We know that Jesus dying on the
cross has cleansed us from sin and that we’re ready at any time to stand before God in the
righteousness given to us by Jesus Christ. But there is a warning here, not to take for granted
God’s grace and forgiveness; not to take for granted God’s word revealed to us in the Scriptures.
We don’t know how many strikes we have on us already. It may be one or it may be two. If it’s
two, we had better “protect the plate”. We’d better be real careful. We’ve been warned by the
umpire...........and God.
