Angelic Visitations And Supernatural Encounters Order Printed Copy
- Author: Micheal Van
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About the Book
"Angelic Visitations and Supernatural Encounters" by Micheal Van explores various firsthand accounts of encounters with angels and supernatural beings. The book delves into the mysterious and miraculous experiences of individuals who have been visited by angels, offering insights into the spiritual realm and the presence of divine beings in our lives.
Mosab Hassan Yousef
Mosab Hassan Yousef (Arabic: Ů
ؾؚب Řس٠ŮŮŘłŮ; nicknamed "The Green Prince"; born 5 May 1978) is a Palestinian who worked undercover for Israel's internal security service Shin Bet from 1997 to 2007.
Shin Bet considered him its most valuable source within the Hamas leadership. The information Yousef supplied prevented dozens of suicide attacks and assassinations of Israelis, exposed numerous Hamas cells, and assisted Israel in hunting down many militants, and incarcerating his own father, Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef. In March 2010, he published his autobiography titled Son of Hamas.
In 1999, Yousef converted to Christianity, and in 2007 he moved to the United States. His request for political asylum in the United States was granted pending a routine background check in 2010.
Biography
Mosab Hassan Yousef (later Joseph) was born in Ramallah, a city 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) north of Jerusalem. His father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was a Hamas leader who spent many years in Israeli prisons. He is the oldest of five brothers and three sisters.
When Yousef was growing up, he wanted to be a fighter because that was according to him what was expected of Palestinian children in the West Bank. Yousef was first arrested when he was ten, during the First Intifada, for throwing rocks at Israeli settlers. He was further arrested and jailed by Israel numerous times. As his father's eldest son, he was seen as his heir apparent, and became an important part of the Hamas organization.
Yousef said he saw the light after a stint with his dadâs comrades in an Israeli jail during the mid-1990s. At Megiddo Prison, he witnessed Hamas inmates leading a brutal year-long campaign to weed out supposed Israeli collaborators. "During that time, Hamas tortured and killed hundreds of prisoners,â he said, recalling vivid memories of needles being inserted under finger nails and bodies charred with burning plastics. Many, if not all, had nothing to do with Israeli intelligence. âI will never forget their screams,â he continued. âI started asking myself a question. What if Hamas succeeded in destroying Israel and building a state. Will they destroy our people in this way?â
Yousef's doubts about Islam and Hamas began forming when he realized Hamas' brutality, and that he hated how Hamas used the lives of suffering civilians and children to achieve its goals. Yousef was held by Shin Bet agents in 1996. While in prison, he was shocked by Shin Bet's interrogation methods, which he considered humane, when compared to how Hamas operatives tortured imprisoned suspected collaborators. He decided to accept a Shin Bet offer to become an informant.
Espionage career
Beginning with his release from prison in 1997, Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "The Green Prince" â using the color of the Islamist group's flag, and "prince" because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement's founders. The intelligence he supplied to Israel led to the exposure of many Hamas cells, as well as the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Jews. He has claimed that he did not inform for money, but rather that his motivations were ideological and religious, and that he only wanted to save lives.[13] In order to thwart any suspicions of collaboration, the Shin Bet staged an arrest attempt, telling the Israel Defense Forces to launch an operation to arrest him, and then provided him intelligence allowing him to escape at the last minute, after which he went into hiding for the rest of his career.
Yousef says he supplied intelligence only on the condition that the "targets" would not be killed, but arrested. This led to the detention of several key Palestinian leaders, including Ibrahim Hamid, a Hamas commander in the West Bank, and Marwan Barghouti. Also, Yousef claims to have thwarted a 2001 plot to assassinate Shimon Peres, then foreign minister and later President of Israel. According to his former Shin Bet officer, "Many people owe him their lives and don't even know it."
Conversion to Christianity
According to his story, Yousef met a British missionary in 1999 who introduced him to Christianity. Between the years 1999 and 2000, Yousef gradually embraced Christianity. In 2005, he was secretly baptized in Tel Aviv by an unidentified Christian tourist. He left the West Bank for the United States in 2007, and lived some time in San Diego, California, where he joined the Barabbas Road Church.
In August 2008, Yousef publicly revealed his Christianity, and renounced Hamas and the Arab leadership, thereby endangering himself and exposing his family in Ramallah to persecution. Yousef has also claimed that his aim was to bring peace to the Middle East; he hopes to return to his homeland when there is peace.
Yousef has stated that despite his conversion to Christianity, he is "against religion", and does not adhere to any denomination of Christianity. He has stated, "Religion steals freedom, kills creativity, turns us into slaves and against one another. Yes, I am talking about Christianity as well as Islam. Most Christians I have seen, seem to have missed the point, that Jesus redeemed us from religion. Religion is nothing but man's attempts to get back to God. Whether it is Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, animism, any ism. Religion can't save mankind. Only Jesus could save mankind through his death and resurrection. And Jesus is the only way to God."
Autobiography
Yousef's co-authored autobiography, Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices, written with the assistance of Ron Brackin, was published in March 2010.
Yousef's brother Ouwais denounced the report about his brother's activities, saying: "It was full of lies; it's all lies." Ouwais also revealed that the last contact between his family and Mosab took place more than a year before the news of his spying. Sheikh Hassan Yousef, Mosab's father, while in an Israeli prison, disowned his son for spying for Israel. The Haaretz report on Yousef was described by Hamas MP Mushir al-Masri as "psychological war being waged against the Palestinian people... [it] did not deserve a response".
Deportation threats and political asylum
For a time, Yousef was threatened with deportation from the U.S., after his request for political asylum was denied, since statements in his book about working for Hamas were interpreted as "providing material support to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization", despite Yousef's explanation that they were "intended to undermine the group". His case then proceeded to the deportation stage, despite Yousef's advocates' warning that he would likely be executed by the Palestinian Authority if deported to the West Bank.
On 24 June 2010, Shin Bet handler Gonen Ben Itzhak, who for 10 years worked with Yousef under the cryptonym "Loai", revealed his own identity in order to testify on behalf of Yousef at an immigration hearing in San Diego. Ben-Yitzhak described Yousef as a "true friend", and said, "he risked his life every day in order to prevent violence".
Partially as a result of this, Immigration Court Judge Richard J. Bartolomei, Jr., ruled on 30 June 2010, that Yousef would be allowed to remain in the United States after being fingerprinted and passing a routine background check.
He is a frequent guest speaker on various American news channels, where he talks about the atrocities committed by Hamas.
Films
A documentary adaptation of Son of Hamas titled The Green Prince, directed and written by Nadav Schirman, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for World Cinema: Documentary. The Green Prince will be re-made into a live-action feature film.
Yousef is collaborating with US-based actor and film producer Sam Feuer in the production of two films: a feature film adaptation of Yousef's book Son of Hamas and documentary The Green Prince, and a historical depiction of the life of the Muslim prophet Muhammad based on the accounts of eighth-century historian Ibn Ishaq.
Views and controversies
Some elements of Yousef's story have been questioned. Former Shin Bet Deputy Chief Gideon Ezra described Yousef's claims as "too good to be true", and stated that, "there are hundreds of collaborators like him. He is not unusual. He just decided to write a book about it." The conversion to Christianity narrative promoted by Yousef and his book publishers remains unsubstantiated as well. Critics have alleged that Yousef claimed he was a Christian (for a longer period of time) in order to help secure asylum in the United States. This tactic is common for Muslim immigrants seeking to avoid deportation to countries where apostasy laws exist. However, he has since become an active figure in evangelical non-denominational Christianity in America, and has appeared on programs such as The 700 Club. Interest in the book from Christian readers helped make it a New York Times best-seller. During an appearance on The 700 Club to promote his book "Son of Hamas", he was welcomed and interviewed by host Pat Robertson.
At an "End Times Prophecy" conference in 2010, hosted by California-based evangelist Greg Laurie, Yousef told the crowd in attendance that Islam is "the biggest lie in human history." He further suggested at the conference that the Quran should not be legal in the United States ("banned on American soil").
In May 2016, talking to a Jerusalem Post conference in New York, Yousef claimed that at one time that he was working for, and being paid by, Israel, the United States, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, all at the same time. He went on to say that Islam as a whole is comparable to Nazism, and must be defeated.
why godâs will isnât always clear
If God wants us to âwalk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to himâ (Colossians 1:10), why doesnât he give us more specific guidance in our decisions? The Spontaneous 95% Consider all of the decisions you make during a typical day. Most are quick and spur-of-the-moment. John Piper estimates âthat a good 95% of [our] behavior [we] do not premeditate. That is, most of [our] thoughts, attitudes, and actions are spontaneous.â Thatâs true. And itâs a bit unnerving when you think about it. The majority of the decisions that end up becoming the bricks in the building of our lives are just âspillover from whatâs inside.â Even if we do stop and pray about such decisions, it is very rare that we discern Godâs specific leading regarding what we should wear, what or where we should eat, if we should respond to this instance  of our childâs sin with correction or forbearance, if we should put off that time-consuming errand till tomorrow, or whether we should check our email again . The Massive 5% But what about the other 5% of our decisions? Some of these are massive and life-shaping. Should I marry this person? How much money should I give away and where? How much should we save for retirement? Should we adopt a child? Should I pursue a different vocation? Should we homeschool or not? Should I pursue chemo or an alternative cancer treatment? Should we buy this home? Which college should I attend? Is it time to put my elderly parent in a nursing home? Should I go to the mission field? Shouldnât we expect God to direct us more explicitly in these? A Concealing Design âGod doesnât always make his will clear because he values our being transformed more than our being informed.â The answer is no, not necessarily. Why? Well, the short answer is because he is God, and we are not. âIt is the glory of God to conceal thingsâ (Proverbs 25:2). His wisdom and knowledge are unfathomably deep, his judgments are unsearchable, and his ways are inscrutable (Romans 11:33). Considering all the factors in play in the universe, it is likely no exaggeration that there are trillions of reasons for why God directs the course of our lives, and he prefers to carry out his purposes in ways that confound, surprise, and humble humans, angels, and demons. There is a tremendous glory that God displays when, without tipping his hand to us in advance, we suddenly recognize that he was working his will all along when we couldnât see it. And he is also merciful to withhold information from us that he knows we arenât ready to know, even if we think we really want to. A Revealing Design But one reason why God usually doesnât give us specific guidance in our sometimes perplexing decisions is that he places a higher priority on our being transformed than our being informed in order that we will be conformed to the image of Jesus (Romans 8:29). Thatâs why Paul writes, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2) What does this mean? It means that God has a design in the difficulty of our discerning. The motives and affections of our hearts, or ârenewed minds,â are more clearly revealed in the testing of ambiguous decision-making. In Scripture, God reveals to us everything we need to know to live godly lives (2 Peter 1:3) and to âbe complete [and] equipped for every good workâ (2 Timothy 3:16â17). But the Father is not seeking workers, but worshipers (John 4:23). And he knows that if he made his will for our specific decisions more explicit more often, we would tend to focus more on what we do  rather than what we love . Like the Pharisees, we would tend to focus more on our actions, rather than our affections. But in decisions that require discernment, the wheat is distinguished from the tares. When weâre not quite sure, we end up making decisions based on what we really love. If deep down we love the world, this will become apparent in the pattern of decisions that we make over time â we will conform to this world. But if we really love Jesus, we will increasingly love what he loves â we will be transformed by renewed minds. And our love for him and his kingdom will be revealed in the pattern of small and large decisions that we make. The Pattern of Our Decisions I say âpattern of decisionsâ because all of us sin and make mistakes. But conformity to the world or to Jesus is most clearly seen in the pattern of decisions we make over time. âConformity to the world or to Jesus is most clearly seen in the pattern of decisions we make over time.â Thatâs one reason why God makes us wrestle with uncertainty. He wants us to mature and have our âpowers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evilâ (Hebrews 5:14). The wonderful thing to remember in all of our decisions is that Jesus is our Good Shepherd. He laid down his life for us so that all of our sins are covered â including every sinful or defective decision. He will never leave us or forsake us. He has a staff long enough to pull us out of every hole and a rod to guide us back when we stray. And someday, if we truly seek to love him and trust him, we will see that he really was leading us through the confusing terrain of difficult decisions all along.