Produced by Mark C. Orton, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed. [Illustration] The King nobody wanted By NORMAN F. LANGFORD _Illustrated by John Lear_ THE WESTMINSTER PRESS PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHT, MCMXLVIII, BY W. L. JENKINS * * * * * CONTENTS 1 Waiting 2 A King Is Born 3 Growing 4 Jesus Goes to Work 5 A Busy Time 6 Friends and Foes 7 Slow to Understand 8 Jesus Is Strong 9 Refusing a Crown 10 The Way to Jerusalem 11 Nearing the City 12 In Jerusalem 13 The Last Night 14 The Last Day 15 The Victorious King * * * * * ABOUT THIS BOOK _In a very real and interesting way_, THE KING NOBODY WANTED _tells the story of Jesus. Where the actual words of the Bible are used, they are from the King James Version. But the greater part of the story is told in the words of every day._ _Since you will certainly want to look up these stories in your own Bible, the references are given on pages 191 and 192. You will discover that often more than one Gospel tells the same story about Jesus, but in a slightly different way. In_ THE KING NOBODY WANTED, _the stories from the Gospels have been put together so that there is just one story for you to read and understand and enjoy._ [Illustration] 1. Waiting Two thousand years ago, in the land of Palestine, the Jewish people were waiting for something to happen--or, really, were waiting for someone to come. "When will he come?" was the question they were always asking one another. "Will he come in five years? next year? Or is he already on his way?" They were waiting for someone, and when he came they would call him "the Messiah." If they spoke the Greek language, they would call him "Christ." The people thought he would be a great king. They had one king already. His name was Herod the Great. But Herod was not the kind of king they wanted. Herod was hard and cruel. He poisoned and beheaded those who made him angry. He was not a Jew by birth. The Messiah, when _he_ came, would be a good king. He would be a Jew himself, and a friend to all the Jewish people. One of the prophets said he would be like the shepherds of Palestine, who watched their sheep night and day, and carried the small lambs in their arms.