The Holy Spirit lived through Rees Howells because he gave God permission to live His Divine life through his surrendered vessel, and the Lord wants
this kind of life for all believers!
There were two things I really wanted. First, to truly know the Holy Spirit like Rees Howells had. The second was to meet someone who was truly filled
with the Holy Spirit. As you might be aware, many claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but few are truly filled. The Holy Spirit had taken full
possession of Rees Howells and lived His life in and through him. Rees Howells’ body truly became a temple of the Holy Spirit and I would not settle
for anything less.
Years later, I was thrilled to visit the Derwen Fawr Estate in Swansea, [South Wales, UK,] where Rees Howells used to live and where his son, Samuel Rees Howells was
continuing the ministry of worldwide intercession.
This is an excerpt from the book The Holy Spirit in a Man by R. B. Watchman and is used by permission.
On my first day at Rees Howells’ College, [Bible College of Wales] I met Peggy Coulthard, who I believe was in her seventies. She walked across the Prayer Room in Derwen Fawr
House smiling at me and clasped my hands, looked me straight in the eye and said, “Here stands a man that God can use.” I was speechless. After all
these years, my prayers had been answered. Stood before me was a woman full of the Holy Spirit. When she smiled, I could have been forgiven for
thinking that she was a teenager. Eventually I said with emotion in my voice, “You are an answer to my prayers.” She smiled gracefully and
said, “It’s not me, it’s the Lord you see.” In Samuel, Son and Successor of Rees Howells by Richard Maton (2012),
there is a photo of Peggy Coulthard with Reinhard Bonnke of CFaN.
Peggy Coulthard took me by the hand and led me to meet the other ladies, all who had been intercessors with Rees Howells and with his son Samuel.
We had sweet fellowship. Rees Howells had trained this team of intercessors that I was meeting, who had prayed through with him to victory during
international crisis' leading up to the war, from 1936 and all the major battles of World War II (1939-1945) and beyond! These were men and
women who knew what it meant to intercede and see the world bending to the prayers given by the Holy Spirit!
During my first visit to Rees Howells’ College, I was present when Dr. Priddy, a close friend of Rees Howells, led the College to pray during the
Gulf War of 1990-1991. Saddam Hussein’s army had invaded Kuwait and the College was given specific prayers to plead before the throne of God. This
conflict, like all conflicts, has deep spiritual roots. Dr. Priddy, whilst leading the meeting quoted from Rees Howells’ journals from World War II,
telling his audience, including all the elderly ladies I had been speaking with, that they should pray as they had back then, for the allied forces
to have a minimum of casualties. Their prayers were answered and are told in the book Samuel Rees Howells: A
Life of Intercession by Richard Maton (2012).
My friend at the College also introduced me to one of the gardeners who shared with me how he had received a baptism of love some years before (Romans 5:5).
“Do you mean the baptism of the Holy Spirit?” I inquired. “No,” he replied, “this is something quite different.” This was something new, which I had never
heard of before. I thought about it and believed it to be real. Later I found that it was Scriptural and prayed to receive it myself, and I did. Praise God!
Paul testified: ‘The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us’ (Romans 5:5).
My time at the College was sweet and the last night before we set out on our trip, we attended an induction service for an Indian student to become a
local pastor in Wales. Peggy informed me that the Holy Spirit told her that I was to accompany her and two of the other ladies, to sit with them
during the service. They explained that this church could not afford to pay the pastor a wage, so he would have to live by faith, just as Rees
Howells and his staff had and still were. Early the next morning, the Holy Spirit told me to place £100 ($160) in an envelope and give it to this new pastor.
As I walked across the grounds of the College I saw him and he walked over, saying, “The Holy Spirit told me to give you a blessing towards your work.
I’m sorry it’s not a lot, but it is all I have.” Wrapped in a piece of brown paper was £1 ($1.60). This was his first day as an unpaid pastor and he was
called to give all the money he had to me! His gift reminded me of the widow’s mite (Luke 21:1-4), but in return he received a hundredfold, just as Jesus
said he would (Matthew 19:29). I shall always cherish those times at the College, especially with the elderly ladies.
The most important ministry of Rees Howells’ life was Holy Spirit led intercession. Rees Howells had received the Every Creature Vision – of reaching every
person with the gospel – in the front room of Derwen Fawr House on Boxing Day, 26 December 1934. He explained that if the staff responded to the Holy
Spirit’s call, all who accepted would be bondservants for the rest of their lives to this one task – to intercede for every creature to hear the gospel,
to serve those who went as missionaries, and to forever carry this living burden.
Intercession, for Rees Howells and the team he led was not ritualised prayer with little meaning, but it was targeted and specific as they abided in
the Vine (John 15:1-11). They were led by the Holy Spirit to intercede on national and international levels concerning any situation which affected
world evangelisation.
As every creature had to hear the gospel, the doors had to be opened and kept open. In world events, their prayers became strategic and defined.
Wherever the enemy used rogue governments or dictators to oppose the freedom to share the gospel with the unsaved, they had to intercede and
become an army fighting on their knees in spiritual battles.
They were to wrestle, not against flesh or blood, but against spiritual powers of darkness, principalities, powers, rulers of evil darkness and the host
of demonic powers in the heavenlies. Paul used the word ‘wrestle’ because spiritual warfare can be a long drawn out battle of strengths between the Holy
Spirit in His intercessors and the demonic strongholds who resist (Ephesians 6:12-13). Victory belongs to Christ, but the battle continues.
