Part 5 (1/2)

_I aht _There is no doubt that I ain?_

There was nothing to eat in the wilderness, and Jesus grew hungry He looked around him, and saw that the stones were shaped like loaves of bread

There seemed to be a voice inside him which was not his own The voice said:

”_If you really are the Messiah, you oughtn't to be hungry If you really are the Messiah, you would just have to say the word and these stones would be turned into bread Then you would have plenty to eat for yourself, and, besides, you could go and give bread to all the hungry folk out there who are waiting for you to help them_”

It was very quiet in the wilderness The voice spoke up again

”_But maybe you are afraid to try Suppose you said to the stones, 'Stones, beco happened! That would prove that you weren't the Messiah, wouldn't it?_”

Jesus shook his head, to get rid of the thought Some words from the Scriptures came into his mind ”_Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of thetricks with stones It would not matter if he did turn the in the world People , but there were bigger things in life than that People ht to do was to make the country prosperous, but that would not help theht That was not the kind of Messiah he was going to be

But as the best way to prove that he was the Messiah? The teain

”_Maybe the best idea_,” it said, ”_is to go to Jerusalem and climb up on the tower and ju to coh that way! And nothing would happen to you It says in the Scriptures that God will send his angels to hold you up and keep you fro off the Teain Jesus shook the thought away, and again he thought of what the Scriptures said

”_Thou shalt not teo and put God to the test, to see whether he will keephurt And it won'tsensation in Jerusaleht way at all

There ain

[Illustration]

”_There is so else you could do What the world needs is a ruler like you Everybody says that the Messiah is going to be a world ruler, great and good Don't let the people down! You are a great eneral, a governor, a king_”

Jesus thought, _That's Satan te!_

He spoke out loud:

”Go away from me, Satan! For the Scriptures say, 'Thou shall worshi+p the Lord thy God, and hireat quietness ca that he needed to do right away He was the Messiah, but he did not need to make the country wealthy He did not need to jump from the Temple, and he did not need to co that he would have to do, but he could not tell anybody about it yet It was going to be his secret for a while But so Someday it would be understood

And noas time to be on his way He had been in the wilderness forty days, and that was long enough He found the trail back to the outside world, and soon he was on the road to Galilee

When Jesus got hoan to preach to people in the streets What he said at first was very much like what John the Baptist said:

”Give up your sins, and begin to live a new life, for God has come to rule over you!”

But the crowds that heard Jesus were not so large as those that went to the Jordan to hear John

Jesus needed some followers noould be with hi he had to tell them John the Baptist had his followers; ”disciples” hat they were called Jesus began to look for disciples of his own