Son of Hamas

It may be the most stunning book on religion and Christian conversion to hit the bookstores in a long time. It is entitled Son of Hamas.

A few days ago, I had a most stirring experience of hearing noted prophecy speaker and author Joel Rosenberg talk about the awesome tension created by Islam. Rosenberg, a converted Jew who had an Orthodox father, was the featured speaker at the International Luncheon at the National Religious Broadcasters in Nashville, TN, on Tuesday, March 2. My wife and I joined hundreds of other missions-minded attendees who were soberly informed of the tragic twin threats in Iran—religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and political leader President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They are the two most forceful proponents of the view that Israel is the Little Satan and the United States is the Great Satan. Both countries are slated for annihilation in their master plan for end-times Islamic global domination, and that is made more feasible by Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

In closing, Rosenberg introduced an enemy of Islam, Mosab Hassan Yousef, who is the son of one of the leaders of Hamas.

Growing up, Yousef hated Jews and plotted their destruction. He landed in an Israeli prison only to find violence by Muslim against Muslim, which profoundly disquieted him. He later served the Israeli security organization Shin Bet and became an Israeli double agent alerting the Israelis of bloody plots against the highest Israeli officials and even helping to deliver an Israeli prime minister from assassination.

One day, as he passed the famed Damascus Gate on the north side of Jerusalem’s Old City, someone invited Yousef to a Bible class and gave him a Bible. He was struck by the teaching of Christ to love one’s enemies, a concept so foreign to Jihad and Islam in general that he sought God's further truth and became a believer in Jesus Christ.

Yousef’s brief autobiographical sketch left the audience in grateful silence except at the end when we all broke into thunderous applause.

Rosenberg announced that Yousef’s book, Son of Hamas, was to be released the next day and that CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour would be featuring Yousef’s testimony on her program. She did that on Sunday, March 7.

Mosab Yousef is a marked man. He is marked by Christ as Paul outlined in Galatians 6:17: "From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Further, he is marked for destruction by Islamists. And, hopefully, he is also marked for the ardent prayers of Christians.

Yousef’s exposé of the god of Islam as a global gangster totally contrasted with the loving God of the Bible will play out in countless debates and, hopefully, in thousands of conversions from false religious systems to faith in Jesus Christ, who is, as He Himself said in John 14:6, "…the way, the truth and the life."

The conclusion of that memorable moment in Nashville is eternally etched in every attendee’s mind—when Jewish Christian convert Joel Rosenberg embraced Arab-Muslim Christian convert Mosab Yousef. Hundreds stood to applaud, some of us with speechless praise to the Prince of Peace, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who has broken down the middle wall of separation and made us one in the Savior (Ephesians 2:14).

Dave Virkler