Good morning, our Fire-starter comes from 2 Kings 23. Our Fire-starter thought is: what a passover!!!!
Our Fire-starter verse is verse 22.

What is the passover? Passover is when the Jews celebrate the victory God gave to the children of Israel in Egypt of the killing of the firstborn. They were told to put the blood of the lamb on the door post so when God smote the firstborn they would not be like the children of Egypt.
You can read about the passover in Exodus 12.

Something I want to draw out this morning is that they had a great passover when they were completely right with God.
Verses 22-23 indicate that the passover was different in the eighteenth year of Josiah. You might say, I wonder why? If you read our text, he is getting rid of the problems in Jerusalem and Judah.
He is cleaning house!
See the problem we have is we are not willing to allow God to clean house in our life and so we don’t have great services at church or we don’t get as much out of the word of God like we ought to.
Friend, it went a whole lot better when they cleaned house.
I’ve learned by experience when I get sin out of my life my worship to Christ is a whole lot better.
You say, I am not enjoying Church as I used to. Friend is there sin in your life?
My Bible is not much to me like it used to be. Is it because you are putting other things above it.
See Josiah got rid of the high places, the groves, the priest, and the sodomites, and when he did this they had a lot better passover. Why? Because Christ was in preeminence!!!!
I’m telling you this morning, you will have a better walk with God if you ask him to remove all the idols in your life and all the things that stand in your way of seeing God do something great!!!!
The Bible states that he got rid of the sin and there was a great passover.
I want to encourage you this morning to get back to enjoying the things of God and you can have the best devotional life and walk with God that you have never had before if you would do just like Josiah did and put away things that were hindrances to having a great passover.

I am encouraged reading Hebrews 12:1 why? Simply because it encourages us to lay aside the weights and sins that easily beset us! Notice what the verse says,
Hebrews 12:1 KJV
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

It’s easier to run the race with hindrances laid to the side!!!!!

May you be encourages this morning to serve the Lord!!! I hope you have a wonderful day and a great walk with God!!!!

2 Kings 23:1-37 KJV
And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. [2] And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord. [3] And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant. [4] And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el. [5] And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven. [6] And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people. [7] And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove. [8] And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-sheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city. [9] Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren. [10] And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. [11] And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire. [12] And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. [13] And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. [14] And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men. [15] Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove. [16] And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. [17] Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el. [18] And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria. [19] And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el. [20] And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem. [21] And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant. [22] Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; [23] But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem. [24] Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord.