POOLE, ENGLAND (ANS) -- Millions of people have been inspired by the life of Rees Howells – a powerful intercessor, whose biography sold over 10 million copies.

Book cover

According to a news release from ByFaith Media, the story of intercession is continuing with the new book “Samuel Rees Howells: A Life of Intercession.” It chronicles over 50 years of powerful intercession, as the intercessors who Rees Howells trained were led by his son Samuel.

The news release said Rees Howells was a man who found the secret to receiving answers to prayer, and an intercessor who discovered the principles of intercession as the Holy Spirit made him live them. After years of powerful ministry, the Lord called Rees Howells to found a Bible college in Britain, to teach the principles of faith and intercession.

In this college, the news release said, he trained over 100 intercessors and during the great battles of World War II, Rees would lead these intercessors through five prayer meetings a day, until their prayers had been answered and world events had been changed.

Rees Howells taught his only son Samuel the principles of intercession and commissioned him some weeks before his death, stating, “Whatever you do, stand and maintain these intercessions.”

When the Lord called Rees Howells home in 1950, the news release said, Samuel called these intercessors together and challenged them to continue in the life of faith and intercession.

For the next five decades, Samuel Rees Howells led this team, and others who would join them, to intercede during many great international crises, whenever the Holy Spirit laid a burden upon them.

“The weapons of our warfare are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds,” the news release stated Samuel said in one crisis. “There are many strongholds before us, but they can all be dealt with.”

According to the news release, throughout many of the lethal conflicts of the twentieth century, Samuel would seek the Lord and find His will for the situation; then he would be locked in profound spiritual struggles until God intervened.

Between 1950-2004, Samuel with many others, interceded for God’s will to be fulfilled, from the Korean War to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and from the Six-Day War to the fall of the Soviet Union.

The news release said “A heavy burden” came upon Samuel during the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was fighting for its survival.

He called his team to intense intercession and rejoiced after saying, “If God hadn’t intervened in the Sinai Desert and if He hadn’t intervened in the Golan Heights everything would have been over. Do you see how close things came...who saved that nation? It was the Lord! Is it possible for the Holy Spirit to make us alive to these things? There is a tremendous conflict going on in the heavenlies.”

Concerning the ongoing attacks on Israel over the years, Samuel said in the news release, “What does the enemy desire to do? To destroy Israel and in the event of destroying Israel, the prophecies in the Word of God will not be fulfilled.”

Samuel believed every attack on Israel’s existence was the evil one trying to hinder God’s end-time prophetic purposes for the world and only intercession could prevail to defeat the real enemy in the heavenlies.

“We know that God has not changed,” the news release reported he said. “All He is looking for these days is people of the calibre of the prophets, who are prepared to believe Him in the impossible. Not to look to the threats of man, but to look to God and God alone. We’ve gone back to God in our extremity and we have seen the hand of God working”

“Samuel Rees Howells proved in his life that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers operating in the heavenly realms,” said Mathew Backholer, of the publisher ByFaith Media, speaking in the news release. “Samuel was a hidden intercessor, a man of faith who had learnt from Rees Howells how to pray-through and prevail in intercession.”

Nearing the end of 25 years of intense prayer for the demise of Communism worldwide, the news release said Samuel had the assurance from the Holy Spirit that the intercession was complete. He wrote to an intercessor in the United States proclaiming, “The day of fulfilment is dawning and the whole world is going to feel the impact.”

Nine months later, the news release said, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union soon collapsed.

“When we consider twentieth century history, it is clear that God has been working and intervening in international events for His glory,” said Backholer in the release.

He added, “The sudden solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the revivals in Korea, China, Argentina and in Africa all indicate that God has been working on a international level. Now, it’s incredible to read how God led Samuel Rees Howells and his team of intercessors to pray in all of these situations”

Throughout his life, Samuel Rees Howells received many letters asking questions about intercession and the teaching of Rees Howells.

In response to this desire to know more about intercession, the news release said the book “Samuel Rees Howells: A Life of Intercession” also includes chapters that deal with many of these questions, such as “What is intercession?” “How is prayer different from intercession?’ “What did Rees Howells mean when he spoke of being completely filled with/possessed by the Holy Spirit?”

Samuel Rees Howells went to be with the Lord in 2004. The news release said his life provides us with a fascinating insight into what is possible when the Holy Spirit finds an individual, who will stand in the gap and become a channel for His intercession.

The book “Samuel Rees Howells: A Life of Intercession” by Richard Maton, is available from www.ByFaith.org  and can also be purchased worldwide from all major online stores.

Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "Homeless in the City." Additional details on "Homeless in the City" are available at http://www.homelessinthecity.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@comcast.net.