The rising of generation xtreme - part 8 in the serialising of Carl Anderson's Changing Of The Guard

"He wills us in our partner's steps to tread,
And, called and quickened by the speaking dead,
We trace our shining pattern from afar,
His old associates in the glorious war,
Resolved to use the utmost strength bestowed,
Like him to spend and be spent for God,
By holy violence, seize the crown so nigh,
Fight the good fight, our threefold foe defy,
And more than conquerors in the harness die."

The Bending Of Hitler

Carl Anderson

In this chapter we are opening up truth that any person, who responds to the call of God in his generation, can do great exploits even in the midst of incredible warfare. Sometimes we are called to do these exploits when there is no natural war happening; at other times, we are called to exploits when all around us there is bloodshed and tribulation.

Let's turn for just a moment in the midst of understanding this and look at another real example from history of a young cadet who soon completed his training in Spiritual Boot Camp and launched out in one of the most dramatic faith walks ever recorded in the last generation.

The story comes from an extraordinary biography of a most unusual believer. He was just a simple young miner from Wales born in the late 1800's, called by God to follow The Way. He was unusual because he didn't get stuck in religious patterns of the flesh, but walked a walk led purely by the Holy Spirit. His name was Rees Howells. In his later years, after many adventures of walking in the Spirit, he became the leader of a Bible training school in south-west Wales in the United Kingdom. Norman Grubb, who chronicled the life of this great servant of God shared that as the threat of Hitler and the second world war approached in 1938, the Lord confronted Howells to raise up an army of young intercessors to battle in the heavenlies on behalf of the war in the natural. These intercessors would be the young cadets in the Bible school. So here we have both a Joshua and a Moses in one example. His first years were as a Joshua, and he learned the delicate and powerful art of intercession in his twenties and changed many lives in his thirties. Then later God called him to apprentice other young men and women in intercession. This is the backdrop of our story here.

In a meeting with his "troops" on March 19, 1938, Howells declared, ""Prayer has failed. We are on slippery ground. Only intercession will avail. God is calling for intercessors-men and women who will lay their lives on the altar to fight the devil, as really as they would have to fight the enemy on the western front." It was made clear that a soldier at the front has no say in where he goes and what he does; he cannot take holidays or attend to the claims of home and loved ones, as other people can. The Lord was telling them that if some would become bondslaves to the Holy Spirit, and would throw their lives into the gap (Ezekiel 22:30), He would give the victory and avert war. A large number of the staff and students made the surrender. "We came right through," said Mr. Howells, "and I knew from that time on Hitler was no more than a rod in the hands of the Holy Spirit."

The students and staff got together for whole days of concentrated prayer, sometimes bursting into praise and worship sessions where the power of God would descend and assure them of the victory. "At the height of the battle," writes Grubb, "the one prayer that the Holy Ghost gave to the college through his servant was, "Lord, bend Hitler." A point came when that cry of travail changed into a shout of victory. The devil had to give way.

On September 30th of that year, 1938, the Munich Pact was signed. War had been averted for the time being. However, the question remained: What did happen to Hitler? The one person who was in a position to know was Sir Neville Henderson, the British Ambassador to Germany at that fateful time. In his book Failure of a Mission he makes the following significant statements describing the remarkable reaction in Hitler after signing the Munich Pact:

"Hitler felt irritated with himself. A section of his followers were always egging him on to fight England while (England) was militarily unprepared. His Voice told him that there could be no more propitious moment for a war than that October; and for once he had been obliged to disregard that Voice and to listen to counsels of prudence...For the first time he had failed to obey his Voice...He had acted on several occasions in direct defiance of the advice of his stoutest followers and of his army, yet the event had always proved him to be right. Until Munich. There, for the first time, he had been compelled to listen to contrary opinion, and his own faith in his Voice and his people's confidence in his judgment were for the first time shaken..."You are the only man," he said somewhat bitterly to Mr. Chamberlin, "to whom I have ever made a concession."

The Lord had "bent" Hitler. Remarkable! Have you ever heard of that story in a news broadcast? Probably not.

God Was Going Over

This may sound incredible, but you can read for yourself in Grubb's book how this one group of isolated Gen. X intercessors in the United Kingdom turned the tide of the war by their faithful intercession. They prayed through the campaigns in Dunkirk, the Battle over Britain, North Africa, Italy, and the DDay landings. Whenever they felt the victory in the Spiritrealm, the victory came in the natural. Remember, behind all events in the natural there is a spiritual cause and solution.

On the 60th anniversary of D-Day, I watched the live broadcast from France which commemorated the assault. In 1995 I had stopped in the north of France and visited the D-Day landing beaches at Normandy in-between ministry trips in France and England. I remember just pausing at certain points, and silently remembering the great battles that had been fought and won on that very soil in which I stood. I toured the museum at Bayeau, the first town to be liberated on June 6, 1944, and walked slowly and methodically through. The Lord apprehended me and asked me to look closely at the faces of the young men - men who were my age and younger when they landed here fifty years ago.

At one point I stopped and read a letter in one of the glass casements of a young man to his mother. He wrote, "Thank you for reminding me to pray. I am praying much. It really is
helping...you know what I mean." Here was a simple letter to a mother back home - a godly, praying mother - and the simplicity of the exchange between the two melted me to the floor in tears.