In Memoriam: pastor-teacher John W. Lawrence

In the 1960 timeframe a small group of believers in and near New Orleans called a young Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) graduate to found a church in which they could worship in spirit and in truth amidst a highly Catholic community, although there were Southern Baptists and their seminary there. They found an old house in Metairie, Louisiana and tore out some walls for a small meeting room. They enclosed the adjacent garage for a class room and children’s church where my wife and I taught. When we arrived in New Orleans in December, 1962 to work on the Saturn space program, the church was the IFCA affiliated New Orleans Bible Church. They continued there under Brother Lawrence’s leadership long after we left in July of 1965 for a new job in California. Since then, they have constructed a new sanctuary on separate property and celebrated their 45th anniversary in February, 2005 with the presence of the widow, Mrs. Charlotte Lawrence and a few others from that early date. I was unable to attend. John Lawrence left the New Orleans Bible Church to pastor at the Open Door Bible Church of Memphis, Tenn., and from there began to teach at Multnomah until his retirement and subsequent home going in 1995 A.D.
In that same 1960 timeframe, Brother Lawrence began work on a systematic theology of the unseen spirit world which he called the doctrines of Angelology, Satanology, and Demonology. To the best of my knowledge these were never published. They were fairly comprehensive and represented (in my judgement) a very Scriptural approach to establish what Christians need to know about the prince of this world and his demonic minions, yet within the complete and absolute sovereignty of the Lord, our God. In those days, his training at that bastion of fundamental theology, DTS, served him in good stead. He was an independent thinker and theologian and did not always agree with the seminarians. Rarely can we find two to agree on everything! Yet, he was steadfast in presenting all reasonable views of his subject, evaluating each one carefully and Scripturally to arrive at his own conclusions. The reader will find that to be the case in these notes to be posted here soon.
His preaching on these subjects began on Sunday evenings and lasted for many months in the New Orleans Bible Church. Late in 1966 and into 1967, I was asked by the pastor of our Costa Mesa, CA church to teach an adult class on Angelology for the particular benefit of furloughed missionaries who were working in a difficult field. That pastor became the director and president of our mission board which my wife and I work with. The class was small, probably 20 or so, and I resorted to that which I knew best. I called Professor Lawrence and asked for a copy of his hand notes. He mailed the typed originals to me, they were copied (I still have that copy), and then returned the original to him. My copy is aged, faded and parts are now unreadable. Yet, they are mostly complete and now with the use of OCR and my Mustek scanner have transcribed them to my hard drive. After incomplete editing, with several editions, they have been used for a nine Sunday series in my present pastor’s apologetics class. It was well received, but my own evaluation is that much more editing and organization is required. The original contained some 200 pages in Brother Lawrence’s inimitable style for preaching from the pulpit. I suppose that work on this could go on for a long time, so please excuse the typos, the lack of the most suitable organization and some rephrasing which I have taken the liberty to apply. These notes, original scan and edited, are available on CD. They are free for the cost of a disk and mailing. Please contact me.
Note: I still have an audio tape somewhere of John Lawrence’s testimony of his salvation and faith in Christ. It is very moving. He was saved as a teenager in Santa Ana, California to his father’s total displeasure and anger. He began Scripture study with a flashlight beneath the covers of his bed late at night so as not to anger his father. He took his mother’s maiden name as his last name to "not dishonor his father". He became a marvelous pianist in the old "revivalist style". But the love of his very being was to teach the Scriptures. I personally saw this as he recounted what Scripture teaches at the funeral of his baby boy (age 1 or 2) who was tragically burned to death at their home while we were in New Orleans. His wife Charlotte recounted his death bed confession to us as "Oh, what joy to see Christ face to face". What more can I say?
......Dr. Leon Francis, March, 2005