By Mark Ellis — 
In the delightful, inspirational, and challenging book, Rees Howells Intercessor, by Norman Grubb, Grubb tells the story of Howells’ brush with death after contracting typhoid fever as a young man.
Typhoid fever was often fatal in the late 1800s, and as Howells sought the Lord during his illness, he emerged from the experience a changed individual. “As I faced losing all and entering into eternal darkness, I touched real life for the first time,” he said.
Some months later, he moved from Wales to the US and settled in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, where he heard about a converted Jewish man, Maurice Reuben, who would be giving a series of talks locally.
Reuben grew up in a wealthy family in Pittsburgh, and developed a love for money. He became a manager in the family firm, Solomon and Reuben, one of the largest stores in the city.
One day Reuben confronted one of his buyers with a casual observation, “You must have been born happy,” he told the man.
“Yes,” he replied, “in my second birth. I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and was born of God. In my first birth I was no happier than you!”
This reply caused Reuben to go out and buy himself a New Testament. As he began to read, he immediately was struck by the fact that all the early followers of Jesus were Jewish.
When he read the story of the rich young ruler, he fell under conviction. Would he have to sell all he owned to become a disciple of Jesus? he wondered.
He pondered the possibility that his wife might leave him if he followed Jesus, his brother might remove him from the business, and he would face rejection from his Jewish family and friends.
“He made up his mind; if he lost everything, he meant to do it,” Grubb writes in the book.
A few days later, he was on his way to the store when he heard the voice of the Lord: I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father but by Me.
Reuben accepted Jesus in that moment as his Savior and Lord and was born again.
His brother reacted negatively, especially to Reuben’s testimony that he heard the voice of God. According to their father’s will, Reuben would forfeit everything if he changed his religion. However, Reuben’s brother offered to give him his share of the business if he would leave Pittsburgh and move to Montana.
Reuben refused, saying, “I have had the light in Pittsburgh, and I am going to witness in Pittsburgh.”
The following Saturday, detectives detained him at the police station. A couple days later, two doctors arrived at his cell and questioned him about the voice he heard.
Reuben began to wonder if they were questioning his sanity.
Sure enough, a few hours later he was taken to an asylum, where he was placed in a room with 29 mentally deranged people.
Despondent, he dropped to his knees by the side of his bed and poured out his heart to the Lord. Then something very unusual happened.
“A vision of Calvary appeared to him,” Grubb recounts in the book. “He said he witnessed every stage of the crucifixion. He forgot his own sufferings in the sufferings of the Savior, and as he gazed on the cross, the Master himself said to him, ‘Must I bear the cross alone, and all the world go free?’”
Reuben responded, “No. There’s a cross for everyone, and there’s a cross for me.”
The vision changed Reuben’s attitude. Instead of complaining about his desperate situation, he began to pray for the other 29 in his room at the asylum. He told his Lord, “Let me suffer for you. Whatever you allow me to go through, I will never complain again.”
A couple weeks later, Reuben’s brother came to visit him. “Why don’t you be wise, get out of here, and move to Montana?” his brother said.
“Does that offer still stand? Then it is not a medical condition, but something else that is keeping me here,” he charged.
After his brother left, Reuben got in touch with Christian friends who set wheels in motion to appeal his confinement.
Six weeks later a court hearing ensued that revolved around the question of Reuben hearing “the voice.”
The judge called the doctor to testify about why Reuben had been certified as insane.
“Because he heard a voice,” the doctor said.
“Didn’t the Apostle Paul hear a voice?” the judge – who happened to be a Christian — replied. “This is a disgrace to the American flag,” he continued. He suggested to Reuben that he could sue the people responsible for the injustice.
Reuben shook his head and said he would never sue anyone. “I will do one thing – I will pray for them.”
Then Reuben walked across the court and offered is hand to his brother, but his brother refused to shake his hand, turned his back, and left. Reuben’s wife did the same thing.
Reuben moved to Chicago after this and rented a small room, living by faith, and winning many converts. A year later, his wife came to hear him speak and she was converted. For the first time, Reuben saw his son, born after his wife left him.
His wife said she would stay with him if he could earn a proper living. It seemed like a reasonable request, but he wrestled with the idea that God had called him to pursue a life in ministry by faith.
She departed and they did not see each other for another three years. When she came to visit and hear him speak, she too had a revelation of the cross that altered her perspective on life.
Before, she had been unwilling to enter the sacrificial life of her husband. God changed her heart, and she was ready to join him in ministry.
“They were reunited, and she became a wonderful coworker with him in his ministry,”
Grubb writes.
As Rees Howells listened to the testimony of Maurice Reuben that night, he had a powerful revelation. “I too saw the cross. It seemed as if I spent ages at the Savior’s feet, and I wept and wept. I felt as if he had died just for me.
Howells felt Jesus speak to his heart. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. May I come in to you, as I came in to Reuben and took the place of wife and son and home and store and world? Will you accept me?”
“Yes,” Howells replied.
At that moment Howells changed. “I was born into another world,” Howells said. “I found myself in the Kingdom of God, and the Creator became my Father. That night I received the gift of eternal life, that gift which money cannot buy.
“Rees always spoke of this, his spiritual birthday, as the most outstanding day of his life. He never forgot that it was in the USA and through a Jew that he found the Savior, and that he owed a debt to God’s chosen people,” Grubb wrote.
To learn more about Norman Grubb’s book about Rees Howells, go here
