Rees Howells and Intercession from The Intercession of Rees Howells
Intercession, as Rees Howells taught it, goes much further than prayer, because it operates at a deeper level. He never undervalued prayer, in fact to him prayer always meant answer and he would never lightly undertake it, only when the Holy Spirit gave him liberty to do so. Through prayer and the study of the Word of God he came to know the vital importance of faith. He faced the challenges to faith in the Bible with a firm belief, reinforced by years of experience, that the Bible means what it says and can be proved today, whether on a personal level or in national and international affairs. Throughout his life, as a young miner in a South Wales village, as a minister of the Gospel, as a missionary in Africa, and as founder and director of the Bible College of Wales in Swansea, he proved that the Bible is trustworthy and he expected God to work today as he did in times past. Along with his ministry of intercession, he maintained to the end a personal life of prayer and faith.
From his early experiences in the village he found that there were situations that did not always yield to prayer. In some cases the devil was so deeply entrenched in a human life that prayer seemed unavailing. It was this that led Rees Howells, step by step, to discover the principles of intercession and to obtain victory in each case. It led him into a path that perhaps few have trod, but he declared himself to be a pathfinder, a discoverer of the secrets of intercession that enabled the men of the Bible to get victory.
Two things he always insisted upon: only the Holy Spirit can guide the intercessor in the path he must walk, and there must be faith equal to the intercession. He invariably warned against copying what the Holy Spirit had led him to do. Because he was led into strange and costly paths it might be thought that every intercessor must go that way. Rees Howells faced up to the challenge of the great intercessors of the Bible, men like Moses, Daniel and Ezekiel, whose intercessions operated in the affairs of nations. When, therefore, the Holy Spirit gave him the World Vision and he saw it attacked by the enemy through the dictators, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, he threw himself into the battle to secure freedom for the Gospel. To that conflict he brought all his years of experience in intercession, and continually the Holy Spirit gave him fresh light on the lives of the Bible characters and encouraged him to believe that God can work today with the same power.
However, the principles of Intercession can be demonstrated on any level and in any situation where the enemy appears to be in an impregnable position. Rees Howells used to say that the Holy Spirit is always original and so the pattern of Intercession will vary although the basic principles remain. The following may help to clarify some of these principles.
Some Principles of Intercession
1. Most fundamental of all is the principle that intercession is based on the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ in his atoning death and resurrection. Where the enemy contests in a situation, and whatever may be the assault upon the intercessor, the victory will ultimately come through faith in the supreme sacrifice and glorious tri-umph of our Lord.
Rees Howells used to say that as the Holy Spirit is the only actual witness on earth today of Calvary and the Resurrection, he therefore is the only person who can guide the intercessor along the path leading to victory. He also maintained that fundamentally there are only two Intercessors, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25). Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26, 27).
It is the Holy Spirit therefore who must lead the intercessor and demonstrate through him the victory of Christ.
2. The New Testament makes it clear that there is a constant warfare going on in the heavenlies, and the apostle Paul, who knew this warfare well, was constantly urging his Christian converts to be aware of this, to be clothed with the heavenly armour and to fight the good fight of faith. See Ephesians 6:10-18; 2 Timothy 2:1-5; 1 Timothy 6:12.
3. There is nothing automatic in this conflict. We see Daniel praying through for the fulfilment of the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the return of the Jews to Jerusalem after the 70 years of captivity. If this could just be claimed, why did he have to set himself to come before God with sackcloth, fasting and ashes? His prayer in Daniel 9 is the very model of the prayer of the intercessor. He identified himself with his people in their sin and besought the Lord, for his own sake, to remember his Word, to forgive and to restore.
This same principle of identification can be seen also in the prayers of Ezra (chapter 9), and of Nehemiah, (chapter 1).
4. There are times when the intercessor finds himself up against very real forces, the principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world (Ephesians 6:12) who oppose the prayer. Here the Holy Spirit must guide the intercessor, as he alone knows the way to break through the opposition. To any student of military history it is interesting to note how close sometimes is the parallel between the devices of earthly combatants and those of the spiritual foe.
5. A vital aspect of this spiritual conflict is that of the responsibility of the intercessor, once the Holy Spirit has called him to it. This is seen in the intercession of a man like the prophet Ezekiel, upon whom the Lord put bands which he dared not break. Whatever the cost the intercession must be carried out to the end. Why the cost? There are depths in this and a mystery which the Lord does not always choose to unveil. An intercession may at times have to be walked blind but ultimately the Holy Spirit will lead to a full realisation of victory. The intercessor knows then that he is through and is given the complete assurance of victory. Then, sooner or later the victory will be manifested and there will be an outcome.
An illustration of this may be given from personal experience. The Holy Spirit called the intercessor to devote a week of prayer for a situation in a Christian group where forces were interlocked and something had to give way if the glory of God was to be upheld and his work maintained. The Holy Spirit himself, in a very clear and definite way, led the intercessor who was many miles away, to spend the week alone with God, and to be responsible to pray the situation through. Day after day the Scriptures were searched, and the hours spent with the Lord, and day after day there was a very real sense that the battle in the spirit was joined. It was suddenly on the fifth day that the Holy Spirit came upon the person concerned in an intense agony of soul. It was complete identification with the agony of one person vitally concerned in the situation and at the identical time when the crisis came to a head. After about an hour there was a sudden release in the spirit, a coming through to an experience of complete victory and there was an overwhelming sense that the Lord had triumphed and his will and purpose had been fulfilled. Further prayer was impossible, only a spirit of worship and praise, a certainty that the Lord hath triumphed gloriously. It was just three days later that news came that the victory had indeed been won, and in the years that followed the victory was worked out in wonderful ways.
6. The example given above demonstrates the power of intercession as exercised in a particular situation. Rees Howells also showed that intercession can apply in the work God gives to his servants, a work for which he makes them responsible. We might think of Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission, or Amy Carmichael and the work in Dohnavur, India. Such servants of God are totally committed to the work God has given them, knowing that whatever the burden and the difficulties they are responsible to continue; others may give up but they cannot. Anyone engaged in Christian work at any level will find it assaulted from within and from without. The enemy has many weapons in his armoury and will bring all his forces against a work of God. The one responsible must steadily persevere and hold on until victory comes in each test. The enemy will do everything possible to weaken faith, to undermine relationships, but as the intercessor finds comfort and strength in the Word of God and maintains faith in God amid all the attacks, the victory comes.
In our own work also Rees Howells showed that those who, at a great cost to themselves, obeyed Gods will and instead of going out to the mission field remained behind to serve him, perhaps in a very ordinary capacity, in college or school, were intercessors for those on the field and had a claim for the winning of souls in far countries.
7. It becomes abundantly clear that the path of the intercessor is the way of the Cross, but it is also the way of fellowship with Christ on a very deep level. Calvary was the supreme sacrifice of Love, and fellowship with the Lord in intercession leads to an everdeepening realisation of, and entering into, this Love. Without love, as the apostle Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13, it profiteth nothing. The intercessor has the sentence of death in himself (2 Corinthians 1:9) but as the dealings of the Holy Spirit are accepted and his leading obeyed, so the intercessor is led into a deep realisation of his identification with the Lord Jesus and an ever closer union with him. Truly, death worketh in us, but life in you (2 Corinthians 4:12).
One of the early Christian leaders, afterwards martyred, said, My love is crucified, and as the intercessor is led into deeper paths of intercession, so he experiences more and more fellowship with the one who was Love Crucified. Down the centuries of Christian experience there have always been those, in differing walks of life and different callings, who have entered into this fellowship and union, who have come to know that God is Love and that this Love reaches out to a lost world.
