Standing in the Gap: A Prayer for the Intercessors & Prophets

In The Prayer That Stopped God’s Judgment – Amos 7, we dive into one of the most powerful yet overlooked prayers in Scripture. Amos, a humble shepherd turned prophet, was chosen by God to deliver a heavy message of judgment against nations, including Israel itself. In the midst of God’s fierce declarations, Amos dared to pray a simple yet bold plea: “O Lord God, forgive… by whom shall Jacob arise? For he is small.” (Amos 7:2, 5).

In this episode of the PRESS Movement Podcast, we explore how one intercessor’s prayer moved God to set boundaries on His own judgment. Amos shows us that even when God is angry, He listens to the cries of His people. This prayer reminds us of the power of intercession and the heart of a God who would rather heal than destroy. If you’ve ever wondered whether your prayers matter, this episode will prove that prayer truly reaches every single situation — even the very judgment of God.

#ThePrayerThatStoppedJudgment #PressToPray #PowerOfPrayer #Amos7 #IntercessionMatters #StandInTheGap #PrayerLife #FaithPodcast #BibleStudy #PressMovementPodcast

Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Greetings everyone. Welcome to the Press Movement Podcast.

Thank you for joining me again in the book of Amos. I cannot believe we've made it this far. Thank God, as we are getting ready to head towards the New Testament in just a few weeks.

We're making a stop in the book of Amos today for the one prayer that we find in the book of Amos, which is actually in chapter seven, but I'm gonna give you a little background before we get there. Amos was a prophet who prophesied from the North. He's from Tekoa in Judah, which is close to Bethlehem.

He is a shepherd or a and other than that, there's no absolute information concerning who he is about his lineage, about his offspring. We do not affirmatively know all of that. There's some speculation, like I said, but scriptures do not say.

His name though means burden. And so I don't think there's ever a coincidence when it comes to God. I think he allows things, but it's not a coincidence.

And so looking at Amos, you would say he's one who either was heavy or could carry heavy things. And I would like to think he could carry heavy things when it comes to burdens, because this whole prophecy, him becoming a minor prophet, it seems to come out of nowhere. God didn't choose somebody who was in the lineage to prophesy, whose parent was a prophet before him.

No, he finds a herdsman. He finds who's willing. And I thank God for that because even today, I believe he finds who's willing.

And so as we look throughout the book of Amos, you do see that Amos' prophecy is not overall positive for Israel to hear. So again, it's not something that they're going to want to hear, but he's willing to do it anyway. In chapter one, as we look at Damascus, what's happening is God has decided that he despises the way they handled Gilead.

Essentially, he's punishing them for war crimes, saying, you obliterated a group of people. You went way over the top. And he's angry about that.

Now, scripturally, you can look back and you can see where God has ordained in the past, wiping out a population. But that decision is not ours to make, it's his. And he's making that very clear because he does this more than once in the book of Amos, comes for them for the way they've handled their enemies.

And so you see it with Damascus and how they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron. He said, but I will send a fire into the house of Ezio, which shall devour the palaces of Benidad. And he tells them how he's to destroy them.

Then he moves on to Gaza. And with Gaza, God's issue is they carried away the whole captivity to deliver them to Edom. Again, you took everybody in this.

You didn't even take the time to separate perhaps the children, the women, the innocents. No, you just rained judgment on everybody. And the thing about when God executes judgment, here he is not being unfair because even if he executes judgment against the whole people, he knows who he's judging.

You don't get to decide how to judge people that don't belong to you. It's kind of like beating other people's children. You don't get to decide their punishment.

When God tells you to fight like that, fighting like that makes sense. But if he's not leading you to fight like that, hold on, wait a minute, he's going to fight you. That is essentially what's happening here with Gaza and thus far with Damascus.

So in chapter 2, we move on to Moab. As God moves on to Moab in chapter 2 verse 1, his thing against them is that they burn the bones of the king of Edom into lime. They, again, you're fighting so recklessly.

You're going out of control. God has order. But as he gets to Judah in Amos chapter 2 verse 4, he said, I'm not going to turn away my punishment from them.

And he keeps saying the same phrase throughout the book of Amos. I will not turn away the punishment thereof. He is making absolute statements, putting his foot down, and he's got a list of people for Amos to tell.

Pausing here briefly, being Amos, being a nobody, so to speak, I would think this is somewhat intimidating to make such strong statements about what God is saying against everybody all at one time. It's kind of like choosing to fight everybody all at one time, but you do not see in any way Amos back down. And so we know the Lord chose correctly in choosing him, even though we don't know much about him.

But as you get to Judah in Amos 2 and 4, he says, for three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof. Again, the same phrasing. They despise the law of the Lord, have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err after the which their fathers have walked.

So he says, I'm going to send a fire on Judah and devour the palaces of Jerusalem. Mind you, in this list today, we've been talking about mostly war crimes. This tells you how intensely God looks upon you when it comes to following what he said, that he believes it is a crime.

It is against him and it's something he's willing to fight about. He has such a problem with because they rejected, they despised his law, they decided not to do his law, and now they're teaching people against what he's told them. We have to be very careful when we go to dilute things that we felt the Lord once gave.

Perhaps it's somebody's tradition in the church or the old way of doing things. I hear a lot of things about we've got to be new, we've got to be with the times, we've got to be progressive, but we have to be very careful in that always. Because in our progression and in our speech, it is possible to cause somebody else to err, and God does not look at that lightly.

He puts it right up there with war and war crimes. He moves on then to Israel. And Israel, he said, they sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes.

Basically, you're not treating the right people right, and the weak people who don't have anything you are taking advantage of and treating them like a commodity. God does not take lightly how you treat the least of them, so to speak. And I did put least in air quotes, because I believe if we measure least by what people have, that is a complete fallacy.

But just for the point of conversation, what society may deem the least, or in terms of socioeconomic status, they may be the least. God cares how you treat people, how you make them feel. And because they were taking advantage of the poor, God was willing to fight about that.

They were taking advantage of the poor, and they wouldn't treat the right people right. He spends quite a bit of time talking to Israel. Those are his people, and he's angry with them.

So go back, look at it, because God is not playing with them. He plans to bring them so low that the Bible says, It doesn't matter how strong you are, how fast you are, how skilled you are, and it doesn't matter if you're just willing to fight, you're going to fall. You're going to run away, and he says naked.

You're going to run away embarrassed in that day. That is how he's talking to Israel. I'm going to publicly expose you, and there's really nothing you can do about it.

And so as we move on to Amos chapter 3, he is not done with his list. This sounds like God had planned for a minute and taken a lot, and now he's going to handle it. And even saying that phrase, I believe sometimes we can feel like God may be slow to fight for us, but when he's ready to fight, he's ready to fight.

And he's taken account of everything all of these nations have done, and it's now time to push back. As we get to chapter 3, there's a couple verses in chapter 3 that really stand out to me. He tells them, As he's still talking to the children of Israel, he says, in Corinthians.

But essentially what God is saying is that there has to be some commonality for us to progress. If we don't have something we can agree upon, if there's nothing with which we can make a truce, there can be no unity. There can be no progress.

We cannot move forward unless we have decided to come together. Well, that word agreed means to assemble, to set, to appoint, to designate, to cause, to meet, to be set, to be placed before. We've got to come to a place where we're settled.

You can't move forward as long as there is complete discord. There's no settling here. And sometimes it takes God to actually get us to the place where we can come to agreement.

But this time he's talking relative to himself. Can two walk together except they've agreed? I can't be with you right now. You've got to come to where I am.

That's what the Lord is saying. But he also says in verse seven, he sets a principle. Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealed his secret unto his servants, the prophets.

I like this scripture and it stands out because it shows you how God thinks that he wants his prophets to warn the people. He wants to talk about things before he acts. That alone to me shows that there must be hope of mercy.

It doesn't mean I'll always have mercy, but there must be hope of mercy. There's somebody God wants to know he's doing this, whether it's so they can survive and testify about them or they can intercede is up to him. But either way, he doesn't have to send out an alarm before making a judgment.

He sends out the alarm because those that will hear it can respond accordingly and change or make a stand or position themselves to help much people be saved. The purpose of an alarm is not to stop what's coming. Think about that.

When we talk about a fire alarm or we talk about the alarms that wake us up in the morning, those alarms do not actually make us change the time, change the circumstances. None of that. Those alarms are indicators that moving forward right now and responding to what's happening in this moment is urgent.

God allows his prophets to see and to tell because he wants the church to know what's coming and how you respond is urgent. So he sends these alarms saying, wake up, wake up, wake up in the form of prophets so that we won't miss the moment and end up in what he's saying he's going to do. He wants to deliver somebody from judgment.

And that is why it is such a crime that most of what we call prophets today actually only say good things because alarms are not sent to just tell you the good. They're sent to make you aware that this moment is crucial. He tells them in Amos chapter 4, something I thought was actually just in a movie, I'll confess, when they're like, prepare to meet your maker.

I don't even remember what movie that was, honestly, but I've just heard that phrase where they're like, prepare to meet your maker. God tells them, therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel. And because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

The word meet means to encounter, befall. It's also translated as against, to come, help, seek, wait. Now the wild thing about this to me is you can definitely say based on the Bible that Israel has already had encounters with God, but that's not what he's saying.

He's saying, y'all don't know me like that. Y'all don't understand what y'all kicking against. You thought you knew me, prepare to meet me.

These are fighting words. These are the kind of words people say when you get triggered and somebody thought they knew you, so they were playing games, but they're about to know you know you. That's what God is saying.

Prepare to meet me, Israel. They should be very scared right now. I don't want to be like Israel.

I don't want to be the person who has to keep getting told stuff over and over and over and over. He goes on in chapter five to let them know, basically, I hate what you call worship. 521 through 23, I hate, I despise your feast days and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them. Neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me by the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy vials.

Stop your music. Stop your offerings. Stop your incense.

Just stop all this stuff you say you're doing to me. I hate it, is what God said. He is now not wanting to come to church with you.

How bad is it when God says you don't want to be at your church? In chapter six, he comes against them in chapter six because there's some that chant to the sound of the vial and admit to themselves instruments of music like David. They're playing the songs like they used to play and thinking they're writing this new stuff unto him and they're chanting the sounds to the vial, which is something he just mentioned in chapter five. He said they drink the wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief They're going through all the motions of looking like we are these wonderful church people offering God this.

He said, but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. They don't understand that God is angry. They don't understand the condition of the people.

It's not vexing to them this burden of where we are. He plans to deal with that to all those going along like it's normal and chilling. He said now shall they go captive with the first that go captive and the banquet of them that stress themselves shall be removed.

That word banquet means the cry. He's not even trying to listen to them in Amos six verse seven. You think everything's ha ha hee hee.

We're just going to keep going. No, he wants you to stop and repent. So Amos asked a question and this question is the prayer in Amos chapter seven.

And he actually asked it in verse two and verse five with the same results. And he says, Oh Lord God, forgive I beseech thee by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small. The Lord repented for this.

It shall not be said the Lord does have the Lord God showed unto me and behold the Lord God called to contend by fire and it devoured the great deep and did eat up a part. Then said I in verse five of chapter seven. Oh Lord God cease I beseech thee by whom shall Jacob arise for he is small.

Amos' whole prayer was God how can we recover from this? You're going to leave us with no place of recovery. And for that God repented and he said okay I'm not going to do that. What he did say Amos what seest thou in Amos seven and eight.

And I said a plumb line then said the Lord behold I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel and I will not again pass by them anymore. A plumb line is something you would drop down in the water. It has a weight at the bottom and it would help you measure how deep the water is.

So what God is saying is I've set a line for myself now because Amos asked him to. He said I've set some boundaries for myself that I've decided not to cross. Amos you're right I was about to destroy everybody but because you asked I'm drawing some lines on how far my judgment will go.

Didn't say I'm going to alleviate judgment but he did set boundaries for himself. And Amos is not talked about as much as perhaps a Noah or a Moses or even an Abraham. But you do see God with all of them set boundaries even on how he was willing to judge.

Whether you're talking about Sodom and Gomorrah and him talking to Abraham or Noah when he was going to destroy the earth but he decided to spare Noah's family. Or Moses when he said I'm going to destroy the people and Moses stood in the gap and said no Lord have mercy. You know he said Moses I'll start over with you and Moses is like please no.

God likes to talk to the prophets who can actually intercede for the people because at the base of it he loves the people but he gets angry and when he hears someone who's clean come before him and say God hold on please you're going to destroy us beyond what we could recover. We're too small to recover from what you're saying. The heart of God is moved because he's a good father.

Today I pray because I talk to many people and I go different places and I've been involved in churches and I'm seeing so much that is happening in our assemblies that reminds me of this book of Amos. Because of these things I am praying that God gets this message to somebody who says I will stand in the gap for this generation, for this people, for this body. I pray that you're willing to cry out God have mercy.

God clean us up. God don't judge us like you could and I pray that you know you can pray that because prayer reaches every single situation. God bless you.

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Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook. Did you know that when you are quiet your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and were wondering how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice. It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have.

You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer, is designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit PressToPray.com.