The Lord shows Amos a vision of a disaster He is planning to visit upon Israel. "This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts after the king's share had been harvested and just as the late crops were coming up." (Amos 7:1)
The king took his share first; it was a form of taxation. The remainder of the harvest was for the citizens to keep. But Amos saw swarms of locusts approaching just as that latter harvest was coming up, meaning the people wouldn't get their share. This would cause a great famine and the sight of the swarms alarmed him.
Amos becomes even more alarmed when, in his vision, he beholds the locusts destroying everything that came up. "When they had stripped the land clean, I cried out, 'Sovereign Lord, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!'" (Amos 7:1-2)
We should all have a heart like the prophet's. He is grief stricken at the thought of famine. He is moved with compassion for the hardship this will cause. His heart breaks thinking about the growling bellies and about the lives that may be lost due to malnutrition. When he cries out in sorrow I think he cries out involuntarily. He knows the people have forsaken the Lord and that the Lord has a right to judge them but I think he involuntarily cries out for the Lord to relent in spite of their sin. None of us can presume to tell the Lord what to do, especially where judgment for sin is the issue at hand, but in a spirit of compassion and love we can ask Him to have mercy. We can cry out urgently, "Lord, please forgive! Lord, please relent from this judgment! Give them another chance!"
It may be that Amos refers to the nation as "Jacob" instead of "Israel" because it's the more personal name. The Lord renamed Jacob as "Israel" and now the great nation that sprang from Jacob's descendants is known by that name. But Jacob was a man---a man the Lord chose before he was even born---and in using his name I think Amos is reminding the Lord that it's not just a nation at stake but individual lives at stake. I think also he is reminding the Lord of the promises He made to Jacob and that the Lord has an obligation to fulfill those promises and not to allow all the descendants of Jacob to be destroyed.
The Lord knew all along, of course, that Amos would intercede for the people. He knew all along that He would hear Amos' heartfelt prayer and withhold the locust plague. "So the Lord relented. 'This will not happen,' the Lord said." (Amos 7:3)
Why did the Lord show Amos this vision in the first place? Was it to stir up love in the prophet's heart? Was it to demonstrate to Amos how much the Lord loves mankind and how much it pains Him to have to apply discipline for man's sins? Would the Lord have relented if Amos had not cried out for mercy? I don't think anyone fully understands how prayer works. I don't think the human mind can completely grasp how intercessory prayer and the will of the Lord work together. We just know that somehow these two things do work together. And that should encourage us not to let up on praying for those who don't know the Lord. Jesus' brother James said, "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." James 5:16b)
When he says "righteous" he doesn't mean "perfect", for no one is perfect, but he means the one who is in fellowship with the Lord. An example of this is the Christian praying for the unbeliever. The one who is saved by faith in Christ is the one who is "righteous" in that example. The Lord listens to the prayers of His children. While it's true that the unbeliever can continue resisting the Lord (because he has free will), who knows whether our continued prayers will somehow break down his resistance? Our prayers, working together with the Lord's desire to see the person saved, can be powerful and effective.
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