The day finally came when Jesus completely silenced the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Peter was standing a little behind the slightly raised teacher's dais and looking over the crowd, assuming his unconscious role as Jesus' protector and personal bodyguard. It was a thankless job in many ways, but he couldn't help himself. He was impatient for the tide of events to hurry on. Surely the approaching Passover was it! Jesus' whole manner, His growing seriousness, the time He spent in the night and early morning away from the others, the sparing way He ate and His weight loss showed that He was growing more deeply concerned about the near future.

Peter felt it would have to happen on the first day of Unleavened Bread, doubting if Jesus would do anything spectacular to interrupt the solemnity of the Passover sacrifice.

The crowd was restive but attentive. Here and there the groups parted to allow a Pharisee or scribe to exit, and Peter could see a small knot of men standing just inside the door talking quietly together. They were all Pharisees, judging by their robes, and they were angry.

"And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted," Jesus was saying, and then, lifting up His voice and standing, He pointed directly to the crowd back in the distance by the door and said loudly, "And woe unto you, you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! Because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men, you yourselves are making no attempt to enter God's kingdom, and you try not to permit anyone else to enter, either!

"Woe unto you, you blind guides!" Jesus shouted.

Peter's heart was beating faster. This was more like it! Now the Lord was standing there shouting, His voice fairly shaking with outrage, and He was gesturing, pointing to the men as He spoke. The crowd was so quiet you could hear Jesus' words echoing from the walls. Jesus kept on the pressure, saying loudly, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You tithe mint and anise and cumin, and yet you leave undone the weightier matters of the law: judgment, mercy and faith! These things you ought to have done, but you ought not leave the other undone!

"You blind guides, that strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

"You scrub and cleanse cups and platters to get them perfectly clean on the outside, but within they are full of extortion and excess. You blind Pharisees, first cleanse the inside of the cup and the platter so the outside can become clean also!

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you are like whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear beautiful but within are filled with the bones of dead men and of every uncleanness. Even so, you like to outwardly appear 'righteous' to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness!

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build the sepulchers of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the righteous, and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets!' You are a witness unto yourselves that you are the sons of those who slew the prophets, and you are exactly like they were! So fill up the full measure of your father, you snakes, you generation of vipers!"

"Fantastic!" Peter exulted.

This was a new Jesus to the people, in complete control, masterful, powerful, dominant! He was speaking with power. Gone now was any vestige of the willingness to be heckled, belittled or ridiculed. No, this moment Jesus spoke as if He owned the temple and was in complete authority! Peter found he had patches of gooseflesh on his arms, found his scalp prickling! This was a fantastic condemnation, after all these years, and the final silencing of these rotten, self-righteous, posturing religious leaders. Jesus was scathing them, His words lashing out like cutting whips, just as He had scourged the animals from this place, and He wasn't letting up!

"How can you escape the damnation of Gehenna fire?" He thundered.

"I send you prophets, men of wisdom, and scribes, and some of them you will murder and crucify! Some of them you will scourge in your churches, and you will persecute them from city to city so that upon you is come the blood of all the righteous that has been shed on earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the very sanctuary and the altar of the temple itself!

"Truly, I am telling you" (He was speaking now to the whole crowd) "all these things shall come upon this very generation!

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem," He said, voice breaking with emotion, gesturing widely, to encompass the whole city, "which kills the prophets and stones them that are sent unto her! How often would I have gathered your children together, even like a mother hen her chicks under her wings. But you wouldn't have it! So look now! Your house is left unto you desolate!

"Because I'm telling you, you shall not see Me from now on, until the time when you will say, 'Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!' "

Finishing this powerful speech, Jesus stood a moment, glaring at the Pharisees and looking over the people. Not a person spoke. The temple seemed to continue ringing with His voice, as if His personality pervaded every corner of this huge room. The Pharisees were blazingly angry, their faces as fierce as some starving hawk about to swoop down on a helpless field mouse. But they did nothing, said nothing.

Jesus stepped down, and, beckoning to Peter and the others, headed toward the temple treasury. The crowd began breaking up, a low murmur beginning as the stunned people began discussing all they had just heard.

They left the temple then, and some of the disciples commented about the huge stones, the gigantic columns and the walls.

Jesus answered, "See all these great buildings here? I'm telling you the days are coming when there won't be one stone left atop another!"

Late that evening, when they were back on the Mount of Olives, Peter was overawed by the sketch of gigantic happenings Jesus outlined for the future!

Why, it seemed the very elements of nature would be involved in the monstrous upheavals Jesus predicted!

Matt, busily scribbling notes, was overawed too. Luke was pensive, writing as fast as he could, as Jesus said, "There will come deceivers, so you had better take heed that no man lead even you astray! There will come false prophets, and even false Christs, and they will lead many astray.

"And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but don't be upset over that, because all these things I'm telling you must come to pass. But the end is not yet!

"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom . . . "

"Then He won't suddenly bring peace!" Peter mused. "Then, it must be like I thought back in the beginning. We'll probably form some alliances with close neighbors. Rome will probably declare war, and we'll have a time of wars for maybe many years yet." His mind raced ahead with the possibilities. Would Jesus ask him to be some great general? Would they always succeed? Surely, with His supernatural powers they would win their battles! It would be like David's time and the time of Solomon's expansion all over again.

First, they would have to take care of the Samaritans and the gentiles up in the Decapolis, and those Syrians. Then there would be Egypt and Libya, all of northern Africa. Why, they might even take all of Asia before Rome could respond.

"And there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places," Jesus continued. "But all these things are just the beginning of tribulation. And before all these," He said, looking directly at Peter and the others, "they shall deliver you up to their councils and shall beat you, and kill some of you!"

Peter could only nod philosophically. But Lazarus had been brought back. Couldn't Jesus do the same for me? He thought.

"And they will deliver you up into their synagogues, and you will be thrown into prisons and be brought before kings and governors for My name's sake.

"Many false prophets will arise and deceive many. And, because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will wax cold. But he that endures to the very end, that person shall be saved.

"This good news about My kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come.

"And when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the Holy Place, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. And him that is up atop the house should not come down to take anything with him that is in the house, and those in the fields had better not return to the house for a cloak, because those will be the days of vengeance! Woe to those who are expecting a child or nursing in those days, and you had better pray you do not have to flee in the winter, or on a Sabbath day, because then shall be great tribulation, a time such as never before from the beginning of the world until then. And except those days would be shortened there wouldn't be any human beings left alive on earth!

"But for the sake of the very elect those days shall be cut short!

"And if any man say to you then, 'Look, here is Christ!' or 'Look, there is Christ!' believe him not. Because there will arise many a false prophet or false Christ, and they will lead many astray, even you very elect, if it were possible.

"You'd better take heed, because I have told you everything beforehand!"

It was a sober group who rolled into their blankets that night.

Peter lay awake what seemed like half the night, staring up at the winking stars, thinking of the vastness of the world out there, and even of the heavens.

Jesus' words spoke of massive upheavals, major nations warring against other kingdoms, the whole world at war! He said famines would come.

Peter thought of Beth and the children. His mind went back to their quiet days in Galilee, before this powerful, puzzling, magnetic, mysterious, lovable, frightening Man had told him, "I know you. You're Simon, the son of Jona. Come with Me and I'll make you a fisher of men! " Their lives had been difficult; it was not easy making a living off the fisheries industry, but it had been adequate, and they didn't want for food or a roof over their heads.

Now, for the past three and a half years, he had been traipsing all over the country and had experienced one emotional crisis after another. He had experienced triumph, joy, fear, disillusionment, worry, anger, hurt, bewilderment; every conceivable range of emotion had tugged at him.

He thought back to the feeding of the two large groups and their attempt to begin the march on Jerusalem. His mind went to the time when he had temporarily abandoned Jesus, only to have Him stride up to the jetty and ask if He could use Peter's boat as a speaking platform. He thought of his embarrassment when Jesus had called him "Satan" or something like that, and puzzled over that incredible scene atop Hermon when it seemed Jesus' skin glowed and he had actually seen a vision of men who had been dead for centuries! The storm, and how Jesus calmed it—and the time he walked out there and joined Jesus on the water!

The stars blinked at him as the cool night slowly passed, and Peter's mind whirled with thoughts of great naval battles, armies marching in faraway Europe and across Persia. He sighed and gathered his cloak closer around him. Would he himself be killed? Would Jesus send him to some far country to risk his life in raising up an army?

Just as he was finally about to drift off into uneasy sleep, he thought he heard Jesus stir, and, looking over that way, under the olive tree, was amazed to see Him rise, run His fingers through His hair, step into His shoes and walk away among the trees. According to the stars, and the faint hint of false dawn, Peter had been lying there for the whole night, and Jesus was up already, no doubt going off alone somewhere to pray.

Peter rolled over and tried to quiet his racing thoughts. Finally sheer exhaustion overcame him and he slept.

It seemed moments later that the clinking of pots and pans said someone was readying their breakfast, and Peter scratched his hand across his beard and tried to blink the grit out of reddened, tired eyes. The brightness of this clear but hazy dawn hurt his vision, and he stumbled out of his robes and went to the cistern for water.

Jesus had talked of vast signs in the heavens, stars actually falling and the sun blood-red or black as sackcloth and the moon not even shining. Peter had not slept much, his mind tormenting him with pictures of heavenly signs and miracles, the tumult of war, vast naval battles, the cry of helpless women and children, always with Beth's face or those of his children coming before his mind.

Somehow he had hoped there would be a time of almost instant peace; Jesus' teachings certainly spoke of such a time. And yet here was Jesus warning them again about a time of riotous turmoil, of danger, persecution, suffering, and even death.

How long would it take?

Years?

Surely such a global conflict would last for a long time, maybe even beyond Peter's lifetime. He sighed tiredly, combed his tangled hair, splashed icy water over his face and felt it coursing down his chin under his beard.

That morning was a bad one for Peter. He felt like his eyes were full of trail grit, and his head seemed to continually ring with Jesus' exclamations of "Hypocrite!" and the strong things about wars, earthquakes and death that He had taught yesterday.

Luke had gotten up early and was busy at his notes when Peter ambled over and collapsed against a pack saddle to talk. Luke had copied down the whole prophecy and was adding a point that he explained to Peter.

"What he said about Daniel is important, Peter," he said earnestly. "Remember Antiochus Epiphanes and how the temple was desecrated?"

"Sure. Everybody does," was Peter's tired response.

"Well, Jesus said something just like that was going to happen again—that apparently, instead of Him taking over right away, He may begin a revolution that results in the Romans coming here and destroying the temple all over again!"

"But why?" Peter said incredulously. What kind of a revolution is it that results in another sack of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple?"

"He seems to believe all this will be replaced by an even greater, larger, more beautiful one. Remember how He said that we would see the powers of the heavens shaken, and the sign of the Son of Man coming with clouds and great glory?"

"I have added a warning here," he said, showing Peter his note scroll, "because if anyone reads what He said later I want them to really think about this reference to the 'abomination of desolation' He made. See? I said, 'Let him that reads understand.' "

"Yeah, I see," Peter said, "but I still don't quite get it. You mean we will have to leave Jerusalem, and that the temple will be completely destroyed?"

"Sure, we will. That's what He said! He said there would be a time of greater world trouble than ever before, and that some of us would even be killed!"

"But He also said 'not a hair of your head would perish'!" said Peter.

"I Yes, but He only meant some of us, not all of us," countered Luke.

"Well, if we're going to bring about such a reaction from the Romans, then when do you think the war will be finally over?"

"I'm not sure exactly. But if I could figure out when the 'times of the gentiles' are to be over, I think I could tell you. "

"Do you think that's what He meant about Jerusalem being trodden down of gentiles?" Peter asked, rubbing his aching eyes.

"I know it!" Luke responded, rolling up his notes and carefully placing them in his pack. "He said it would only be after some great destruction here that His Father in heaven would intervene, and then some great miracle—the greatest in all of history, like millions of people actually seeing Jesus up in the skies surrounded by billions of angels or something—would happen, and He said it could happen practically any time."

"Well, not just any time," Peter countered. "He also said there had to come a lot of preliminary things, like wars and famines.

"I didn't mean like right this minute, but He warned many of these things would happen before the end of this ,generation! "

"That's true. I think I may have missed part of that. Can I read over your notes later, Luke?" Peter asked, knowing that he might be asked questions by Jesus and not wanting to be caught short.

"Sure, you can. I'm having a special copy made by a scribe right here in Jerusalem. He's a friend of Joseph of Arimathaea and can be trusted. Besides, Joseph wants to have a copy, and that way he's willing to pay, since I couldn't have afforded the copy work."

"Who knows? I might even try writing a little of my own thoughts down sometime," Peter said. "But I don't know where I'll ever find the time."

"Peter," Luke said.

" Yes?"

"Something terrible is going to happen to Jesus this Passover; I know it in my bones. He is more detached, more remote, more serious than I have ever seen Him."

"I know. I've seen the same thing, and I was so upset by the long, powerful message last night, especially about the wars, all the suffering—I keep seeing my wife and family involved, I guess, but do you think He isn't capable of handling everything, or even performing some fantastic sign to set it right?"

"Probably," Luke said without conviction. "But He seems very preoccupied with something, and I've had to write about what He said, remember."

"That's right. So I suppose you have a way of remembering what the rest of us tend to forget."

"Not that I am worried much," Luke responded. "But when He said what He did about being 'lifted up,' do you know what He meant?"

"No. I supposed He meant exalted, or placed up on a high place where everybody could see Him, like up on the corner of the East Wall or someplace."

"He might have. But I keep thinking about the scroll of the Torah, and the brazen serpent of Moses. There is a tradition, you know, that a great man must die for the sins of the people. "

"I've heard of such traditions, but would a man who has raised the dead—and, remember, I was there at Nain and right there at Lazarus' tomb—would such a man fear death, or ever submit to it?"

"I just don't know. But we'd better keep our eyes open because something's up. Even John feels it, and you know how close he is to Jesus."

"Well, I just can't believe He meant it when He said He would be delivered up within two days to be 'crucified.' I think He must be intending to perform some great miracle to turn all the people to Him, even all the chief priests and the Pharisees," Peter said.

"I know. That last statement about being crucified I was afraid to even include. Matt said he wrote it down, and he claims Jesus was definite, that He said in only two more days! "