The Last Temple Discourse

175:0.1Shortly af­ter two o’clock on this Tues­day af­ter­noon, Je­sus, ac­com­pa­nied by eleven apos­tles, Joseph of Ari­mathea, the thirty Greeks, and cer­tain other dis­ci­ples, ar­rived at the tem­ple and be­gan the de­liv­ery of his last ad­dress in the courts of the sa­cred ed­i­fice. This dis­course was in­tended to be his last ap­peal to the Jew­ish peo­ple and the fi­nal in­dict­ment of his ve­he­ment en­e­mies and would-be de­stroy­ers—the scribes, Phar­isees, Sad­ducees, and the chief rulers of Is­rael. Through­out the forenoon the var­i­ous groups had had an op­por­tu­nity to ques­tion Je­sus; this af­ter­noon no one asked him a ques­tion.

175:0.2As the Mas­ter be­gan to speak, the tem­ple court was quiet and or­derly. The money-chang­ers and the mer­chan­dis­ers had not dared again to en­ter the tem­ple since Je­sus and the aroused mul­ti­tude had driven them out the pre­vi­ous day. Be­fore be­gin­ning the dis­course, Je­sus ten­derly looked down upon this au­di­ence which was so soon to hear his farewell pub­lic ad­dress of mercy to man­kind cou­pled with his last de­nun­ci­a­tion of the false teach­ers and the big­oted rulers of the Jews.