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OBEY HARVEST PRAYER (23 OF 35)

by Steve Jones

Scripture: Matthew 9:35-38
This content is part of a series.


Obey Harvest Prayer (23 of 35)
Series: OBEY EVERYTHING
Steve Jones
Matthew 9:35-38


SERMON SUMMARY: This sermon addresses Jesus' command to be pray that workers be sent into the harvest. We obey this command by 1) Being AWARE of the need, 2) Having COMPASSION for the people, 3) Seeing the POTENTIAL and, 4) PRAYING the prayer.


INTRODUCTION: As far as I know, there is only one town in America that has erected a monument to a BUG. The town is called Enterprise, Alabama. Does anyone know what the bug is? That's right, it's the boll weevil. The boll weevil is not even one of nature's prettiest bugs. In fact, the elephant-snouted beetle, which feeds on cotton bulbs, is downright ugly. But in Enterprise, Alabama, the boll weevil has been honored with its own monument. The town erected a Greek-inspired statue with a 50-pound version of the bug on top on December 11, 1919, with the monument's plaque reading: ''In profound appreciation of the Boll Weevil and what it has done as the Herald of Prosperity, this monument was erected by the Citizens of Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama.''

For all intents and purposes, the boll weevil has been anything but a friend to U.S. farmers, costing them $23 billion in crop loss. Particularly hard hit has been cotton, which was a major source of income to the U.S. south in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So how did the boll weevil become the ''herald of prosperity''? Because Enterprise farmers smartly decided to stop planting all cotton in the mid 1910s, and diversify, to crops such as peanuts. At the peak of the bug's destruction in the South in 1919, Coffee County had become the country's largest peanut producer. Farmers also added other crops like potatoes, sugar cane, and tobacco. While the rest of the South was spending millions battling the boll weevil, trying to recoup lost crops, Enterprise found financial success in its change of agricultural focus. And at least some of the credit goes to the tiny interlop ...

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