A. Arabs are descendants of Abra ham, even as are the Jews. From Ishmael, as God promised have come the Arab people. They settled out in the back country of the Middle East, growing to be a great nation. When the Jews were taken into cap tivity by the Assyrians and the Baby lonians, the Arabs just naturally gravitated toward this area of the promised land. Until the time of our Lord there were Arabs in Palestine. They worshipped in Samaria and other places. When the Jews were driven out in 70 A.D. the Arabs again took over the land where the conditions largely prevailed until 1948. To sociologists and politicians this is a tremendously complex ques tion. Students of the Word of God realize that the land has been given to the Jews in perpetuity forever. The Holy Land will be a continuing problem for the whole civilized world until the time when our Lord comes again. Here His kingdom will be set up for one-thousand years in Jerusalem.
Q. Lake Stevens, Wash.—' “What do you think happened to Christ physi cally on the cross? What about the torment o f the rich man in Luke 16? Can you tell me about the putrifying sores mentioned in Isa. 1:6? When it says that Christ’s visage was marred more than any man, what does it mean?” A. Death by crucifixion must have been fabricated in the pit of hell. It did not touch the main areas df the body such as the brain, the hqart, or the heavy viscera. These pdor victims would writhe in agony for sometimes longer than a day. It was supposed to be a mercy to break some of the limbs in order that the victim would die. When they came to do this for the Lord He had al ready delivered His spirit to the Father in a sovereign manner. He was put to death on the cross. His human spirit was separated from His body. His divine Spirit was not affected at death. Our Lord suffered all the agony a soul could possibly endure. He died to provide salva tion for all men. Jesus suffered not just in the physical realm. That would be bad enough, but it was worse that He should be separated from the Father. His was much more than just the torment of the rich man who was a sinner in a fal len body. Christ felt a full thrust of the cup of God’s wrath in His sinless body. The putrifying sores cannot be compared either to Messiah’s suf fering. His physique was marred with an agony no man could ever know. It was all done because of His love for us. Q. Phoenix, Ariz. — “Will you please tell me how the Palestinians came to settle on the Holy Land which was given to the Jew s by God? While the Israelites were scattered throughout the nations because o f their idolatry and unbelief, why did the Lord al low the Arabs to settle there?”
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