When the Messenger Becomes the Message

What is this page about?

Christians believe that God speaks and guides. This page does not question that.

It questions something else. A preacher says that God has told him something, and nobody is allowed to test it. People may not test it by the Bible. The church may not test it. And what really happens may not count against it.

This page names Lawrie because he died in 1989 and his story is closed.

Who was he?

• 1921. He was born in Kerala, in India. He grew up in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
• 1943. He became a Christian.
• 1953. His son was very ill and got well. After that, Lawrie left his job to preach.
• 1954. He went to healing meetings in Bombay. The preacher was William Branham, from America. Branham’s followers believed that Branham was the prophet of the last days. Lawrie joined that movement.
• The 1960s. He started a community called Manujothi Ashram, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He also preached to Branham’s followers in America. Branham died in 1965.
• July 1969. He preached for three days in Chicago. On those days the first men landed on the moon.
• The 1980s. People began to call him Lahari, and later Shree Lahari Krishna.
• 24 February 1989. He died, on the day he became 68.

There are not many good records of his early years, and this page does not guess. But we can say this. He began as an ordinary Christian preacher. He told people that they must be born again, and that they should read their Bibles.

The surprise in Chicago

His followers say that God came down into him in Chicago on 20 July 1969, the day of the moon landing.

So what did he really say that week? His followers printed the sermons, and they are a surprise.

On 19 July he said: “Jesus will take you home, not Brother Lawrie.”

On 20 July, on the morning of the landing, he said: “We have one leader, Jesus Christ. Do not look to a man.”

He did not say that week that he was Christ. He said that God was coming down on the whole church.

But eighteen months later he was writing about the time “when God visited me in Chicago on the moon landing day”. He also wrote about a “messenger” of the last day, “into Whom Jesus comes.”

After his death, one group of followers said that he had shown his form as God on that day.

Messenger, or more?

Look at the dates.

“God told me”

The real turning point came earlier, and it looked small.

On the first night in Chicago, Lawrie reported that God had said this to him:

Anyone who receives you, receives Me. Anyone who will not receive you, has already rejected Me.

Paulaseer Lawrie, July 1969

In simple words: Every person who accepts you accepts me. Every person who will not accept you has already refused me.

Jesus said something like the first half to his twelve apostles. He said it about the message that he gave them. Lawrie reported that God said it to him personally. And he added the second half.

If people believe that, nobody can disagree with the preacher and still agree with God. Nobody can correct him any more.

What he said would happen

• In 1969 he said that Christ would take his people away in three and a half or four years.
• In 1971 he said that Jesus would finish his work “within 3½ years.” That meant about 1973. Nothing happened.
• In the late 1970s, a critic reported that his main teaching was now this: the world would end in 1977. Nothing happened.

No record shows that he ever said, “I was wrong.”

One thing never changed. It was the claim that nobody could ever prove false: God had come on Moon Landing Day, and nobody could see it.

The Bible’s own test is simple:

When a prophet speaks in Yahweh’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.

Deuteronomy 18:22 · World English Bible

In simple words: A prophet may speak in the Lord’s name. If the thing does not happen, the Lord did not say it. The prophet spoke from his own pride. Do not be afraid of him. (“Yahweh” is God’s name in the Old Testament.)

“Until he comes”

Later, Lawrie taught something new about baptism and the Lord’s Supper. He taught that they came to an end when Christ came the second time, on Moon Landing Day. A new agreement between God and his people had begun.

This was not an extra idea from nowhere. It followed from the date.

Jesus commanded baptism and promised to be with his people “even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). And Paul says about the Lord’s Supper:

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:26 · World English Bible

In simple words: Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you announce the Lord’s death, until he comes.

Every baptism and every Lord’s Supper says: we are still waiting for Christ. If you believe that he has already come, you stop.

His followers say that he did not leave the Christian faith. They say that he completed it.

But the Bible names this kind of teaching. Some men taught that the last things had already happened. Paul says that they left the truth and were “overthrowing the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:18). In simple words: they destroyed the faith of some people.

And Jesus said that his coming would be like lightning across the whole sky. Everyone will see it. He gave a warning:

Then if any man tells you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or, ‘There,’ don’t believe it.

Matthew 24:23 · World English Bible

In simple words: If anyone says to you, “Look, here is the Christ”, or “There he is”, do not believe it.

After he died

His followers divided into two groups.

One group says that he was God. They say that on the night he died he went up to the throne of heaven.

The other group is led by the ministry of his oldest son. It says that Christ came down into him. But it does not accept that he went up to heaven, because there were

no eyewitnesses, nor proofs nor any signs whatsoever.

The second group of followers

In simple words: no people who saw it, no proofs, and no signs at all.

Both groups have visions. Neither group can prove that the other is wrong.

This is the last lesson of the story. When a revelation cannot be tested, nothing can end an argument between two people who both say, “God showed me.”

The lesson for any preacher

Almost nobody begins with the claim, “I am God.” The dangerous step is much earlier. It is the claim, “I have a word from God, and nobody is allowed to check it.”

How does the Bible answer this danger? It never says that God has stopped speaking. It says: test.

• Paul received his message directly from Christ. But he still took it to the other apostles. He was afraid that he “might be running, or had run, in vain” (Galatians 2:2). In simple words: that his work was for nothing.
• Paul also said: if I, or even an angel from heaven, should preach a different message, do not accept it (Galatians 1:8).
• When prophets speak in the church, the others must judge: “let the others discern” (1 Corinthians 14:29).
• The people of Berea were praised because they checked Paul himself by the Scriptures (Acts 17:11).

Even an apostle let others check his revelation. This is the whole difference between a safe preacher and a dangerous one.

A test for a hearer

Think of a preacher whom you have heard speak about personal revelation. Ask these questions.

1. When he says that God told him something, can people check it by the Bible? Or does his revelation explain what the Bible “really” means?
2. Does anyone have the right to correct him?
3. When something that he said would happen did not happen, what did he say?
4. How does he talk about church history, the creeds, baptism and the Lord’s Supper?
5. Does he point to Christ, or more and more to himself?
6. When someone questions him, which way does he move? Towards the Bible and the judgment of others, or away from them?

A safe preacher lets people check what he believes God has shown him. He points away from himself. He says so when he is wrong. That is what Paul did.

Many honest preachers are somewhere in the middle. Watch which way they move.

Check it yourself

1. Read Deuteronomy 18:15-22. Five minutes. The Bible’s test for a prophet.
2. Read Matthew 24:23-31. Five minutes. What Jesus says about people who announce, “Here is the Christ.”
3. Read Galatians 1:6-12 and 2:1-10. Ten minutes. Paul receives a revelation, and lets others check it.
4. Read John 3:22-30. Five minutes. A messenger who becomes less.
5. Use the six questions. Think of one preacher, and answer them honestly.