Richard A. Maton - Samuel Rees Howells, A Life of Intercession: The Legacy of Prayer and Spiritual Warfare of an Intercessor

Samuel Rees Howells, A Life of Intercession: The Legacy of Prayer and Spiritual Warfare of an Intercessor by Richard A. Maton.

Samuel Rees Howells, A Life of Intercession: The Legacy of Prayer and Spiritual Warfare of an Intercessor by Richard A. Maton (1932-2018), with Paul Backholer and Mathew Backholer.

Copyright Mathew Backholer, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, ByFaith Media.

Scripture quotations are taken from:

* NIV The New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

* NKJV The New King James Version. Published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

* AV Authorised Version / King James Version.

* NASB New American Standard Bible.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any unauthorised retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronically, mechanically, photocopying, recording, or any other (except for brief quotations in printed or official website reviews with full accreditation) without the prior permission of the Publisher, ByFaith Media, Mathew Backholer, www.ByFaith.org . Uploading this work to the internet, or any other device (in whole or in part) is illegal, as is unauthorised translations. For requests for Translation Rights, please contact ByFaith Media.

As is the nature of the internet, web pages can disappear and ownership of domain names can change. Those stated within this book were valid at the time of first publication.

This book is also available as a paperback and a hardback, and in different formats for ebooks. Updated in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and August 2020.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-907066-13-9.

Hardback ISBN 978-1-907066-37-5.

Ebook ISBN (ePub format) 978-1-907066-29-0.

Ebook ASIN (mobi format) B00BQGP818.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Scriptures

So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall and stand in the gap on behalf of the land (Ezekiel 22:30a).

Samuel was among those who called upon His name. They called upon the Lord and He answered them (Psalm 99:6).

The Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26-27).

Building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit (Jude 20).

To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the Church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places according to His eternal purposes which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him (Ephesians 3:10-12).

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).

Foreword

In February 2000, fifty years after Rees Howells death, his only son Samuel, aged eighty-seven, spoke at the Bible College of Wales (BCW), about the day his father died and the cost of his life of intercession. As young Bible College students, my brother and I sat speechless as the quiet Director decided to share about the enormous burden that he had been shouldering for five decades.

Every Thursday evening at BCW, students would gather in the prayer room and wait for Samuel Rees Howells to enter and begin the meeting. As young students, Samuel seemed to us like an ancient patriarch. This was a man like Abraham, a person of another age, one who had lived through the powerful years of Rees Howells ministry and was alive as a testimony to them. Those first few months of Bible College life transformed us both, alongside other students. Sitting in front of us in every evening meeting were the remnant intercessors who had prayed through with Rees Howells during the war years. These were the prayer warriors who had left a fingerprint on history and during Samuels lifetime, they had engaged in spiritual warfare that had influenced world events!

As young students, we longed to be able to sit down with these intercessors and ask them to share their testimonies. They were in their eighties then, but they were once young people when Rees had taught and led them. It took about three years for these frail elderly people to confide in us we were then staff members. Sixty years had passed since the beginning of the intercessions that led through the war years, yet these intercessors beamed with inner light as they shared experiences as if they had happened yesterday.

Samuel Howells was a very quiet man who confided in few people and he carefully guarded his intercessory burdens and testimonies. Therefore, when Richard Maton told us that he was writing a book about Samuels life (and was nearing the end of his fourth year of work), and as Alan Scotland, the successor of Samuel Howells as Director of the Bible College asked ByFaith Media to publish it, we were very excited. After receiving the manuscript, our first read deeply moved us. We began to learn much about the hidden path of intercession that Samuel had walked and got to know him as a person, who, though being dead still speaks (Hebrews 11:4). Richard Matons manuscript also contained precise details about the history of BCW, including many of its staff, students and visitors.

As authors and as the publisher, we also realised that one book could never be enough to tell the full story of the extraordinary life of Samuel Rees Howells. We knew that many people would be very interested in learning the in-depth story of Samuels intercessions, in line with the panoptic legacy of his father Rees Howells. Samuels intercessory ministry was very deep and effectual. His prayers had significant impact on world events and therefore we felt an additional book would be able to explore Samuels intercessions in further detail. With this in mind, we presented to Alan Scotland and Richard Maton the idea of publishing two books about Samuels life.

Richard Matons original manuscript would be published first as Samuel, Son and Successor of Rees Howells , which also explains the full details concerning the running of BCW, its four estates, school, hospital and aspects of the intercessory ministry alongside the lives of dozens of its staff and students, and their ministries. It also has 110+ photos, including many of Rees Howells.

The second book would be called Samuel Rees Howells: A Life of Intercession and would be anchored in Richard Matons original manuscript. Using Richards thorough knowledge of Samuels life of intercession and the BCW archives, this book would be significantly different with a revised layout, additional quotes, testimonies and historical data. The history of BCW, covered extraordinarily in the first book would not need to be repeated, which would give the second book more room to consider the life of prayer, intercession and faith; the legacy of both Samuel and Rees Howells. To aid the chronology of the book, chapters from the original text would need to be broken up and new chapters added. This book would be very different from the first book and would be a collaboration of Richard Matons original text, with additions. With this in mind, Alan Scotland kindly gave us unlimited access to the Bible College archives to source new material a task that took us both a long time. Our research took us through records of meetings from the late 1930s up until 2002, newspaper cuttings spanning ninety years, numerous hours of taped sermons and dozens of handwritten notebooks, alongside personal diaries and letters where we found incredible details of Samuels prayers and the answers he received.