George Muller - The Guardian Of Bristols Orphans Order Printed Copy

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About the Book

"George Muller - The Guardian of Bristol's Orphans" tells the inspiring true story of George Muller, a man who dedicated his life to caring for and providing for orphaned children in 19th century England. Through faith and prayer, Muller was able to build orphanages and support thousands of children, demonstrating the power of trust in God and the importance of helping others in need.

Mosab Hassan Yousef

Mosab Hassan Yousef (Arabic: مصعب حسن يوسف; 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 dad’s 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,” 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. “I will never forget their screams,” he continued. “I started asking myself a question. What if Hamas succeeded in destroying Israel and building a state. Will they destroy our people in this way?” 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" – 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.

tweeted to and fro - surviving a distracted and divided age

“We live in a divided age” is so self-evidently true that it’s frankly boring to write. Theories abound on how we got here; what’s undisputed is that we’re here. It sure can feel as if the temperature of virtually every conversation and debate, however trivial, is set to blazing hot . And worst of all, the previous paragraph doesn’t just describe the world — it describes many churches. Rather than shining as a contrast to the perpetual outrage machine, many of us are too busy being conformed to the pattern of this age (Romans 12:2). How, then, can believers forge meaningful unity in a fractured time? It is looking unlikely that we’re going to tweet our way out of the problem. So what’s the path forward? Whiplash World As author Yuval Levin has observed in A Time to Build , the function of institutions in modern life has largely shifted from formative to performative — from habitats for growth to platforms for self-expression. Enter a secular university, for example, and you may well emerge more coddled than shaped. But this performative dynamic isn’t confined to colleges; it also infects local churches. Long past are the days when American churchgoers looked to their pastors first (or perhaps even second or third) for help navigating a fraught cultural landscape. Nowadays it’s pundits — whether on cable news or talk radio or social media — whose voices are most formative. On one level, this is understandable. Pastors are not omnicompetent. They aren’t experts on everything, or even most things. Thus when it comes to current events, Christians should (in one sense) expect less from their pastors. Nevertheless, the larger trend is troubling. When church becomes just another arena in which to perform — whether via a “leadership position” or simply by keeping up appearances — rather than a family in which to be shaped, it has ceased to occupy the gravitational center of one’s life. No wonder priorities spin out of orbit. No wonder people demand that their pastors affirm, and publicly echo, their settled opinions on debatable matters. I’ve heard countless stories of someone leaving their church because of their politics. What I have yet to hear is someone leaving their politics because of their church. One reason churches are losing the battle to form hearts is because the Christians who visit and join and show up for worship Sunday after Sunday are battered by the storms of digital discourse. They’re limping along, exhausted and distracted and confused. No Longer Tossed This is precisely why congregational unity is so essential. Unity is not a squishy sentiment or optional add-on to the Christian life; it is something for which Jesus prayed and bled and died (John 17:22). Just consider the apostle Paul’s logic in Ephesians 4. The ascended King Jesus gave the gift of pastors to equip church members for ministry (verses 8–12). As such ministry builds up the body (verse 13), the ensuing unity tears down whatever threatens it (verse 14). In other words, ministry generates unity, and unity generates stability. Thus, unity’s purpose is plain: “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (verse 14). Living in a turbulent time? Labor for unity. It will have a stabilizing effect. But how, practically, do we do this in the local church? How do we keep each other from being pummeled by the raging rapids of modern media? Here are two suggestions. 1. Dust Off Your Documents A good statement of faith, used properly, is a goldmine for church unity. Same with a members’ covenant. These documents shouldn’t gather dust in a file drawer or be confined to a website. They should be used , for they are pregnant with unity-forging potential. Why? They provide a common core, enabling churches to keep the main things central and helping to regulate the temperature of our debates. The million-dollar question then becomes whether our statement of faith speaks to a given topic. Yes, clearly? Then we also will. Yes, sort of? Then we might. No, not at all? Then we likely won’t. In my estimation, a good statement of faith is neither so exhaustive that an undiscipled Christian couldn’t join the church, nor so mere that there’s little the church is actually standing for. But we refuse to divide over things we never agreed to agree on. As a church planter, I’ve had to think about developing documents that will establish biblical guardrails — while recognizing that not all doctrines are equally important or clear. In a recent membership class, someone asked why we don’t stake out a clearer position on the end times. It’s a good question. I briefly explained the idea of theological triage — there are first-rank doctrines we must agree on to be Christians, second-rank doctrines we must agree on to be members of the same church, and third-rank doctrines we can actually disagree on and still be members of the same church. Even if various gospel-proclaiming churches classify second- and third-rank doctrines a bit differently, the classification system itself is a useful tool. By codifying only certain doctrines (statement of faith) and promises (covenant), a church crystallizes what members must agree on — and where there’s room to disagree. This engenders confidence in the essentials and freedom in everything else. This is not to say that a pastor should avoid debatable matters in his preaching — as he unfolds the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), many such matters will arise. It’s simply to say that a church cannot bind members’ consciences on issues where (the church has agreed, as reflected in its documents) God has not clearly spoken. “It’s counterintuitive but true: one way to preserve sound doctrine is to leave ample room for Christian freedom.” It’s counterintuitive but true: one way to preserve sound doctrine is to leave ample room for Christian freedom. Otherwise, churches can easily succumb to legalism by requiring agreement on third-rank issues. But by lowering the fences on debatable matters, we raise the fences on non-debatable ones. Or to change the metaphor, by lowering our collective voice on issues where Scripture is not clear — say, a specific political-policy proposal — we can raise our voice on issues where it is. This is why liberty of conscience is so critical in an age of outrage. As Mark Dever has observed, leaving space for disagreement (on many matters other than gospel clarity) is, in part, what keeps the gospel clear. When we lack a clear understanding of Christian liberty and space for conscience, we will be tempted to stick more into the gospel than is there — that is, agreement on a wider variety of issues. Don’t underestimate the practical value of church documents. They are your friends; weave them into the life of your church. Corporately confess portions of your statement of faith on Sundays. Rehearse the covenant’s promises when you convene a members’ meeting or celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Quote the documents in sermon applications. In so doing, you will forge unity around what has been agreed on — and avoid division around what hasn’t. 2. Get a Table Another way to foster church unity, not to mention sanity, is to trade the Twitter timeline for a table. I mean this literally. How many hours per week do you typically spend scrolling through social media? (Statistically, it’s probably more than you think.) By comparison, how many do you spend conversing with fellow church members over meals? (Statistically, it may be less than you think.) If the first number dwarfs the second, consider that a check-engine light for your soul. Proximity may not always breed unity, but distance certainly won’t. It’s just harder to resent someone when you’re asking them to pass the salt. “Christian, you are spiritually responsible for the members of your church, not for strangers on the Internet.” Christian, you are spiritually responsible for the members of your church, not for strangers on the Internet. Yet who is getting your best energy these days — the members or the strangers? Likewise, if you are a pastor, remember that on the last day you will give account to God not for your followers, but for your flock (Hebrews 13:17). Who is claiming your best energy these days — the followers or the flock? To borrow language from later in Ephesians 4, we are called to “put off” anything that decreases our joy in God, and in his children, and to “put on” whatever increases it (verses 22–24; see also 1 Thessalonians 2:19–20). If something is generating suspicion or coldness toward fellow believers — especially fellow members — then put it off. Maybe that means shut it off . Pray your heart would be more animated by the faces in your membership directory than by the faces in your newsfeed. No Replacement Technology and parachurch ministries are gifts, but they are no replacement for the local church. Anchor your identity there, friend, for only in the communion of the saints will you find ballast amid the storms. In a world of endless options, the church makes our commitments clear. In a world of enormous complexity, the church makes our duties simple. In a world of escalating division, the church makes our unity sweet. These are my people, and I am theirs.