Don Courville preaches on the life and character of Amos, emphasizing his humility, honesty, wisdom, boldness, and faithfulness as a prophet called by God. He illustrates how Amos, despite being a simple herdsman, was burdened with God's message for Israel and fearlessly proclaimed it, even in the face of opposition. Courville draws parallels between Amos's experiences and the Christian life, highlighting the importance of being yoked to Christ and bearing one another's burdens with love and compassion. The sermon encourages believers to embrace their calling and to share the hope of the Gospel with others, just as Amos did, while also recognizing the weight of God's burden for His people.

Starting with chapter 7 of Amos and verse 10. Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, Amos has conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land. Also Amaziah saith unto Amos, O thou seer, go flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there, but prophesy not again any more at Bethel, for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court. Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And the Lord took me as I followed the flock. And the Lord said unto me, Go prophesy unto my people Israel. Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord. Thou sayest prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac. Therefore thus saith the Lord, thy wife shall be in harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line, and thou shalt die in a polluted land, and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. We're looking forward to you ministering this morning to us from the word. We pray for any that do not know Jesus as their Savior that might be here with us or listening by radio, that they would know that you love them, that they must repent of their sin, and they must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, if they will be saved. We thank you for your grace to us in extending this wonderful gift of eternal life through Christ Jesus, for it's in his name we pray. Amen. I have a picture. I was talking to one of my little girls last night, and I asked her if she knew what a yoke was, and I tried drawing a yoke, and then she went into our bedroom, because up on our wall were a bunch of pictures, and she found a yoke. Now there you have an ox yoked with a donkey, and the little thing says, Christian, beware of an unequal yoke with those who are an unbelieving folk. Pretty good little rhyme. Now one thing about a yoke is that for us as Christians, if we're yoked to the Lord, it's a yoke of freedom. God has bound us to himself. When we stay in step with him, there's no pressure, there's no burden, but if we get out of step with him, we will feel the weight of the load. We will feel the weight and the strain on us of the yoke, but as long as we stay in step with him, his burden is light. As I was reading in Matthew, I don't know if I have that marked. I don't think I do. Matthew 11, 28, and 29. I might just slip back there real quick and read that, because we're going to go into the life of Amos this morning. Amos was yoked together with the Lord, and we're going to start off and go through several things as we mentioned, what was it, three weeks ago, since we've been gone for, we haven't been together for a while. I think we had said that there was something there. I didn't write this down in the life. Did I say it like this, in the life of Amos, of his character that was like Christ? Was it something like that? Anyway, I'm coming back to pick up on that, but there was something there that I wanted to share with you, but Jesus had said, coming to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest into your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So being yoked with Jesus, many people think they have this thing that Satan's put into their mind that it's going to be hard for you. It's going to be something unpleasant to have to get your life right with the Lord and get saved. But those of us that have truly been born again know that it is opposite of that, is a freeing and a releasing. We're freed from the burden of our sins. We find that being yoked to Christ is very pleasant, very enjoyable, very peaceful, even though the trials and experiences of life are still just as tough as they were before, maybe even tougher because now the enemy doesn't like us because we're not on his side. But there is an interesting thing about Amos. You see, Amos was not a professional prophet. And I don't think professional preachers and all that kind of stuff do us much good today. We need men that, wherever they're at, that are touched with God's Spirit. And as I've gone through the school systems, and many have this, the systems deaden us, bring us into their own little system. And they quench the Spirit by not teaching us the ways of God and teaching us the ways of man. Amos had the rare privilege of being a prophet that was not inhibited in any way. Now, Israel was on the north, Judah was on the south. He was from Judah, but God had called him to go up to Israel and prophesy against Israel. And the king up there, Jeroboam and Uzziah, those two, if you go back over to chapter one, it tells you the words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. So he's going specifically after Israel, the king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. And he said, the Lord will roar from Zion, and we go into these things. Now, let me just jump into this. When God is going to do something with you, I was going to get an olive. I was looking for some things for it, and I forgot to get the olive, bring it with me today. But some of you use olive oil to cook with or to eat or whatever. Now, you don't get that oil unless that olive has gone through a process. Now, I like to eat green olives. And as well as I understand the difference between a green olive and a black olive, besides being one green and one black, you can correct me on this. Is it true that the green olive was picked green and the black olive ripened up? Anybody know anything about olives? You don't know any more than I do, do you? But somebody over here in the face he's making doesn't like olives, period. You think that's true? I like green olives. I'll eat the black ones if they're served me. But either way, to get the oil out of the olive, the olive has to be what? Crushed. And then the oil comes out. And when God takes us through a crushing, at first, we're just a little uncomfortable. We're, you know, we begin to squirm a little bit, just like maybe you're sitting in church and maybe it begins to get a little warm and the heat begins to build up. You get a little bit more warm. You loosen your tie or you want to take your coat off. And then that's the way it is when God begins to work in our life. First of all, he just makes us squirm. Then he begins to put the pressure on us until more pressure is there. So finally, we think this is very uncomfortable. And then at some point, something breaks and God gets what he wants out of us. Probably just a yielding up to him to quit resisting him. But then when it breaks, when we break, then the flow of the Spirit of God is able to come out of our life. And God may take us through that many different times through our life as he doesn't usually deal with every area at one time. We may think we've got there. Finally, we've gone through maybe a few. Well, boy, I've arrived and whatever. But Paul said that he died daily. The Christian life, it's a continual thing. But when God begins to get you in that position and then he gets you crushed and broke, then out flows the blessing. Now, Amos was a prepared man for this mission. And I don't know what God's doing in your life, but I know that when God is doing something in your life or in mine, we can usually see something's going on. And the Lord has told us, and I'm going to bring these things back around, to bear one another's burdens. We're going to come back to this in a few minutes, to bear one another's burdens on how to do that. But I know God's been doing this in my life in the last few weeks. There's been more and more pressure and more and more pressure. And finally, something broke the other night. I began to see what God was doing. And then when I saw it, there was just a freeing on my spirit. When I saw something, we just we resist pain and we resist pressure. Many times without realizing that's the way God's going to bring some more olive oil out. Now, let's look at these character qualities that were in Amos, that were in Christ very quickly. The background again, he's been called to go up to Israel and go up there and preach against them. And we're going to learn something interesting about that. It was a very, the days that he went, he went walking into town. Here he comes. He's the prophet, got his suitcase, finds a motel, whatever. And then he starts preaching. They thought he was crazy. As usually prophets, they think they're crazy. Because he was saying, God is going to judge. God is going to judge us. God is going to get you. But they're looking around and said, boy, things are really good. They were very prosperous. They were living in luxury. And it didn't happen until 50 years later. 50 years later. And so you may be a message for somebody and they think what you say to them or whatever is just off the wall, but you just be faithful like Amos, let God take care of it. 50 years later, this happened. But right then, it didn't look like it. Like today, you know, many say, how can God do anything to our country? Look at all the prosperity, whether many of us that sense what God, the spirit of God is saying and we think can happen fast in our country. Now, the first character quality about Amos back in chapter seven, that'll be our text was his humility. He said, I was no prophet. And you can see that in Christ, of course, it said that he humbled himself. Says, I was no prophet. Verse 14, then answered Amos and said to Amazigh, I was no prophet. Now, it'd be like somebody I've I've been exposed to this somewhat in the in the area of training I went through the ultimate goal of a lot of the preachers, they wouldn't tell you out publicly, whatever. But if you talk to them, the ultimate goal of a lot of their education was to get honor. And that's why many kept on going and getting more degrees and more degrees so they could get that doctorate degree. I know one man that got the doctorate degree and he sold his soul to the devil. And every time I saw him after he switched, he had the countenance of Satan on him. It was just so awful. But I knew what he had done because I'd watched him go through the process. You're a prophet. Prophets. He said, I'm not a prophet. I don't have the doctorate degree. I don't have nothing like that. He was very humble. And that's why God took him out, because when there are a lot of prophets around. But a proud prophet can't be used. So God went and got one out taking care of the crops. Another thing, he was honest. He was very honest. And about Jesus, neither was there guile found in his mouth. Verse 14. He says, I was a herdsman, a gatherer sick of more fruit. He could have let it stand. Oh, I'm a prophet. They think I'm a prophet. He didn't see himself like that as a prophet. He saw himself as just an ordinary farmer boy. Something else about him, though, he was very wise. How do you know that? Well, I don't know if you read Amos or not. Now I have. But I noticed this about his preaching. In chapter one, go back to Amos and chapter one in verse three. He starts off, thus said the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus. And then he goes into the things about Damascus. You look at verse six, thus said the Lord for three transgressions of Gaza. And then he goes into all the things about Gaza. Now, if you'll notice, these are the enemies around Israel. Damascus, Gaza. Look at verse nine. Thus said the Lord for three transgressions of Tyrus. So he preaches against Tyrus. Here is Amos out in the middle of the square, probably. And he's come there to preach a message to them. But he starts off by preaching against the enemies. So he hits Damascus. Big old shout. Hooray, preach it, Amos. Preach it, that a boy. And so then he hits Gaza. Boy, you're right on the target. Those old rascals over there, Gaza, God's going to get them. And so he goes down the line. Verse nine. Tyrus. Yay. And he says all the things that God's going to do against Tyrus. And you come down to verse 11. Thus said the Lord for three transgressions of Edom. All the things that God's going to do to Edom. Yeah, that a boy, Amos. Get him. Preach it. Preach it, preacher. You know all this stuff. Verse 13. Thus said the Lord for three transgressions of the children of Ammon. And then verse one of chapter two. Three transgressions of Moab. All the way around. Boy, they're really rooting him on. And then he hit Judah. Remember the kingdom had been split? Judah down to the south, his homeland. Verse four of chapter two. Thus said the Lord for three transgressions of Judah. For for I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they have despised the law of the Lord. And have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked. But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem. And I can just imagine these self-righteous, because that's what they were. He's going to hit them on their hypocrisy. Saying, boy, that's it. Get them, God. Get them down there in the south and Judah. Those old sinners. And then that was his wisdom. He went all around. Got everybody surrounding them. And then he hit Israel. He had their attention. And then in verse six. Thus said the Lord for three transgressions of Israel. And for for I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes. And he goes into things about them. And then all of a sudden, his ratings on the national popularity chart, went from top 100% down to zero. Amos has already flipped his lid. Now, he was a pretty good preacher. But he was very wise in the way he did it. Now, if we're going to talk to unsaved people and share the gospel with them, I believe that's one thing we need is the wisdom of Christ and how to share. Many people have been turned off of Jesus because of unwise witnessing. You know, the Bible says, ye shall be witnesses. That means that you yourself will be the witness. How you live, how you dress, how you talk, how you carry on yourself out at work and go in different places. You are a witness. Then, of course, what we say. But many think what I say and how I live doesn't matter. And it does. It does. So he used wisdom. He was very wise. Christ is the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians says. Now, one other thing. He was bold. Now, we've got that figured out real quick. He was bold. He was uninhibited. But you want to know why he was so bold? Tells us in Amos that he feared God. That's why he was so bold. Look at 7, 16, back to our main passage. When he got done explaining to the king that he was not a professional prophet, he didn't have the training or whatever that prophets got. He was just a farmer boy. He lit right into him. Didn't back off, didn't back off one inch, didn't even bat an eyelash. Because in verse 16, the king had said, Go prophesy unto, he said in 15, Go prophesy unto my people Israel. Now, therefore, verse 16, Hear thou the word of the Lord. He was very bold. Hear thou the word of the Lord, thou sayest prophesy not against Israel and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, thy wife shall be in Harlot. Do you tell the king that? In the city, thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword. Never backed off. He was very bold. One other thing. There was another verse on that too. If you want to see his boldness in 4, 12, it was all over the place. In verse 4, 12, Therefore, thus will I do unto thee, O Israel, because I will do this unto thee. Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. Very bold. That's where we get that phrase. Prepare to meet thy God. Very bold in proclaiming what God was going to do. You know, it was said about Jesus in John chapter 7. He speaketh boldly. He speaketh boldly. Made me wonder, well, what are the Pharisees speaking like? You see, the Pharisees cannot speak with boldness because they were trapped in this system of training, of having the fear of man. So if you have the fear of man, you'll never have boldness with God. Because if you have the fear of man, there'll be something you won't say. There'll be some places you will not preach in a certain way or whatever. You'll have restrictions on you. No restrictions on Amos. Prepare to meet thy God. Didn't care if it offended him. One other thing. Two other things. He was faithful. How do you know he was faithful? 40 times in the book of Amos. How many chapters? Seven, eight chapters, nine. Forget it. There's nine chapters. 40 times, nine chapters. 40 times he said that. He was faithful to his task. That was the fifth character quality. His humility, his honesty, his wisdom, his boldness, his faithfulness. Thus saith the Lord to his master. Then the sixth one. And the sixth one we're going to camp around and do a little bit of observing of it. Because you may not have noticed this about Amos. And I wish you'd all read the book of Amos. I should have probably gave you an assignment required reading to read the book of Amos by the time we got back. But Amos had, and I believe for all of us, there'll be probably one aspect of our life that will reflect the character of Christ the most. And maybe we might call that our gifting. That the spirit of God gives us. If that's the case, what would really be the gifting of Amos? This prophet taken out of the fruit farm from being just a farmer boy, a shepherd. What would have been probably the deepest character quality in his life that would have been observed above all things? I believe it would have been this. That he bore in his heart and on his life the impression of a man with a burden. He was a man with a burden. Not his burden, but God's burden. He was a man with a burden. And that was why he was preaching with all of these other character qualities because God had impressed his burden into his spirit. And he had to go. This is sort of like it says in Corinthians that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. Christ came down and did it. And then we have been given the commission. And we are witnesses not because we have to, but because we are a witness. He was burdened because he was impressed with God's spirit. Now, how do you know that? How do you know that he had this burden? I believe he did because of his illustrations. He was a farmer boy, and he had all these illustrations as he went through there. I wrote these down over here, just his visions. The devouring locust, the consuming fire, the searching plum line, the summer basket of fruit, then the Lord at the altar. Five visions that were in this book. But he used illustrations. For instance, let me show you this. In chapter 8, where was it? In chapter 2, look at 13, verse 13. Behold, I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves. Now God is saying this, but I believe Amos is preaching this message like it's his message too, because God has put it in him. And so he comes out, and he's saying these words that God has put into his heart. And then he comes to these, I am pressed, I am pressed under you. God is saying, I'm pressed under you. And Amos felt this pressing too. Do you ever feel the things that Christ feels? If you have His spirit, you will. He says, I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves. Now, let me ask you this question. What does the name Amos mean? Burden, exactly. Burden. I did a little, I got my dictionary out. Noah Webster's 1888 and looked up. You know, we sing that song, burdens are lifted at Calvary, but Calvary also some burdens can be found there. You take up your cross, and for Christ, you may have a burden. It means to carry. First three definitions. One, to carry. He was carrying God's burden. The second definition was to carry with difficulty that which is grievous, worrisome, or oppressive. The third definition, now get this, meant a birth, a birth. And you can see the correlation there as it's taken in with a mother that's going to, a woman that's going to bring forth a child, birth it. Then she becomes a mother, but it can become a burden carrying that baby for nine months at certain times. Some women go through a heavy burden. Some give their life. Some have their bodies affected for the rest of their lives. But a birth. Now, it's just like the olive. You put the pressure on it, and then the oil is birthed out of the burden. So out of your burden, there will be the birth of something. And think about this to give you some illustration maybe. In Galatians 6.2, let's turn over there. Galatians 6.2. I don't think we should miss this because I think we miss it sometimes. We see the passage, but we really don't get the spirit of the passage. Galatians 6.2, and we'll start off verse one. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. And I might make a note here. The spiritual man has the ability not only to see the need, but has the ability also to know how to set the captive free, to proclaim liberty to the captive. The spiritual man has learned how to pray. The critic, the hypocrite has just learned how to see the need and maybe point out the need and maybe even make himself feel a little bit good because he doesn't have that need. But the spiritual man sees that need and feels that need and senses what the spirit of God wants to do. Maybe he'll never even talk to him. Maybe he'll never even see him or whatever, but he knows how to pray. Now, verse two, bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Do you remember what the law of Christ is? It's the law of love. The Lord said by this, all men know that you're my disciples, if you have love one to another. So suppose you see a brother with a burden. Let's use this for an illustration. Suppose two men are working. They're both Christians. And suppose one's working for another one. And so that means that he's his employer or whatever. But suppose the one that's working for the other one has a burden, has a need. His responsibility of working for his friend, his labor in Christ or whatever, is to be diligent, to do what he can to help him. But his master, so to say, the one, his boss, also has a responsibility to bear his employer's burden as the employer would have a responsibility to bear his boss's burden since they're one in Christ. And Paul talked about this later on. Now, suppose when it came payday, he had a hundred dollars coming to him and his employer knew that all he needed to pay him was a hundred dollars, but he knew that his brother had a need. Then what he would do, because he has the spirit of Christ in him, he knows how to bear his brother's burden. Instead of writing out the check for a hundred dollars, he would write the check out for the need, not according to the ways of the world. And do you know this is what Jesus meant when he said, by this shall all men know that you're my disciples? When they see this unusual type of love, this is different from the way of the world. This is how we bear one another's burdens. When people come into our church, we come together, we will be real in every sense of our heart and our soul and our mind towards one another. Just like Ananias and Sapphira, when they came in, they were not real. Just like that, the Spirit of God, old Peter the prophet, was after them. Because they were giving, but it was not out of love. The rest of the giving was out of love, sacrificial love, deep giving. And this is the type of thing that impressed the world to where thousands of people became Christians when they saw it. Do we see this? Now, we can't do anything else about everybody else. But by the Spirit of God, as we grow and God keeps adding to our church, we can practice biblical Christianity. And it won't hurt. If it hurts, then you are out of the yoke with Christ. You have slipped and maybe you're pulling. You know, you heard the saying, give till it hurts. As a Christian, it doesn't hurt to give. We love to give. And I'm not really preaching about giving money or giving whatever. I'm preaching about the spirit that Amos had of bearing God's burden. This is the same spirit where he says, bear ye one another's burdens. God may have a burden for you to bear for him. Or he may want you to bear a relative's burden or a friend or a neighbor or somebody in this fellowship. But he says, bear ye one another's burdens. And so fulfill the law of Christ. And you come all the way down there and look at verse 9 and 10. 10 specifically. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. And I went through the book of James this morning. My devotions, I just went through it. Very early this morning. And just letting the spirit of God hit me because James is very, very strong on this. Faith without works, you get faith. Is there any evidence in your life? Burden bearing, bear ye one another's burdens. You know what Amos did? By bearing this burden that God had for Israel. You see, God loved Israel. He didn't want to whack them and wipe them off. He was sending Amos as his love messenger. And the last thing Amos did for them in all of his preaching, he hit all the enemies and everybody's, hooray, he hit it. Then when he hit them, whoa, wait Amos. And then the priest, actually, the priest was the one that got him ran out of town. Came and told some lies about him to the king. The king came over and said, don't do this. He turned and said, I'm not a prophet. Your wife's going to end up being a harlot and your children are going to die by the sword. You know what they did with him? But before they did it, he did this. He gave them hope and encouragement. The last book of Amos, 9, 11, 12, he gave them hope and encouragement. A true prophet of God may preach the doom, but he's going to give the hope and the encouragement that God extends to them. And this is how you can discern whether or not someone that is preaching the gospel and sharing Christ really has the spirit of Christ. Do they also have the hope and encouragement along with, you're going to die and go to hell. But you don't have to. God loves you and I'm praying for you. I'm weeping that you will repent and receive Christ as your savior. I'll never forget my first witnessing experience. I was not too sharp at it, but I never forgot it. And I learned a lot from it. I was in the seventh grade. We were in the locker room, the old smelly locker room in junior high. And there was one guy there, he was this much taller than me. His name was James. I think he had flunked about five or six times growing up. So he was about five years older than everybody else in there. But he hadn't gave up, he was still in there. And he had the raunchiest mouth. And he was just, he shouldn't have been there with us younger guys. I don't know what made me say it. But I looked up at him one day and I said, James, you're gonna go to hell. I've learned a little bit about it since. You know what James did? Maybe you heard this story before. He reached down and grabbed me around the neck and picked me up. And I thought I'm gonna go somewhere. I mean, he's holding everybody by the neck. And then he sat me down. I decided I needed to sharpen up on my witnessing techniques a little bit. No kidding. But I didn't do it with love. Now, if I did it with love, maybe it would have broken. But because I just was tired of hearing him say that. And I wasn't always that bold, whatever. That was probably more stupidity doing it. But Amos gave them hope and encouragement. I never did get to the gospel with him. I didn't have a chance. I just said that and then he grabbed me. Give them hope and encouragement. Let's pray. Father, we have this yoke. This picture of this yoke. And you said that your burden is light. I pray this morning that as maybe we have a burden that you've given to us to bear. And maybe like Amos, it's not too popular. It's not too comfortable. It's not too popular. But whatever it is you've caused to do. Father, I pray that we would do it with humility as Amos did. And we would be honest as Amos was. With no guile. But yet that we would do it with wisdom. And that we would bear our burden with boldness. And with faithfulness. And with joy. Because we understand from you, as you had the burden of the sins of the world. That you endured the cross. You despised the shame for the joy that was set before you. And so Father, I'd ask that thou would encourage us as a body this day. As we learn to grow together. We make our mistakes together. And we learn to understand each other more. As we move on ahead into this. The days that are ahead of us. That there just be more and more love flowing out of our hearts as we grow. And as we share our burdens together. We bear one another's burdens. There just be such a fragrance of Christ in our lives. Not only here as a body. As we meet together for church. For fellowship and worship. But as we go out. That there would be this testimony of others. There's something about them. There's something there. There's something about their love. And how they work together for each other. How they share with one another. How they care for one another. That I need. And that we would have that testimony that the early church had. Of their love for one another. Lord, I thank you for each one here. I thank you for their love. For me and my family. How they care for us. How we know that we have a body. A fellowship. That will encourage us. That will endure us. At times. And that will understand. Thank you for the word from Amos this morning, Lord. Thank you for the man of God. That you took. Right where he was. Diligent in his business of farming. And taking care of the flocks. So he could be also faithful and diligent. In the business that he had for you. Thank you in Jesus name. Amen.