Hello boys and girls, this is Aunt Frenita
Today's story is called, 'A Community Celebrates.'
The memory verse is from Psalm Chapter 145, verse 7
It says
They celebrate your abundant goodness,
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
The message is, God's family celebrates His love together.
Think about the best celebration you ever had.
It may have been a birthday or Christmas.
What made it so special?
King Josiah and the Israelites
had a very special celebration together.
Let's read about it.
Josiah had acheived much during his reign
The Israelites broke down their idols,
and the Book of the Law had been found in the temple.
After reading the Book of the Law,
Josiah wanted to celebrate the people's decision to follow God
The Passover had not been celebrated for many years.
So he decided to gather everyone together
for a big community celebration.
Normally, people celebrated the Passover feast with their families
or neighbors.
Josiah recognized that not everyone would be able to afford
to sacrifice an animal.
So he gave 30,000 sheep and goats!
And 3000 cattle!
Other leaders wanted to help too.
They gave thousands of animals for Passover offerings.
The Passover celebrations was to remind the Israelites of their time,
as slaves in Egypt.
Pharoah the Egyptian king, refused to let the Israelites go.
So God sent 10 plagues
to force Pharoah to set the Israelites free.
The plagues were terrible
Water turned to blood
Frogs were everywhere
Darkness, lice, and hailstones added more pain
But the tenth plague was the worst.
It would involve taking the life
of the firstborn of families in Egypt.
However, God had instructed Israelite
families to sacrifice a lamb.
And put its blood on the door posts.
It was to be a sign
When the angel saw the blood,
he would pass over that house.
If the angel did not see the blood on the door post,
the firstborn would die.
The Israelites obeyed God.
So that night when the angel came,
he took the life of the firstborn of every Egyptian family.
The Passover feast also showed people how
God would save them from their sin.
The lamb sacrificed during the feast
represented Jesus, the Messiah.
Who would die on the cross for everyone's sins.
The Passover feast included special food
The people ate unleavened bread - bread without yeast.
It was a flat bread.
At the time of the first Passover,
there was no time to let the bread rise.
Yeast also reminded the people of sin
And how it could come silently into their lives.
The lamb was roasted and eaten with bitter herbs
The bitter herbs reminded the Israelites of the hard time they had as slaves
When the Passover day came,
all the priests stood in their places to celebrate the Passover for the people
They divided all the people into family groups.
Then, they sacrificed the animals,
roasted them, and gave the meat to the people.
No work was allowed during the Passover.
The people enjoyed plenty of food and wonderful music.
After the Passover,
the people celebrated the feast of unleavened bread,
together for 7 days.
All this time was spent
in celebration of God's goodness.
He had saved His people
And they would never forget it.
This podcast is read by Frenita Buddy
For gracelink.net
Created and produced by Falvo Fowler
Post produced by Faith Toh at Studio Elpizo
The theme music is by Clayton Kinney
Animation and artwork by Diogo Godoy
The audio engineer was Karel Holness
For more information please visit, gracelink.net.