This week’s podcast takes us to the testimony of Sir Lionel Luckhoo, the Guyanese lawyer and diplomat.
He held the Guinness Book of World Records place for the largest number of successive murder acquittals (245). He accepted Christ as his Saviour in the midst of his defence of Jim Jones before the Jonestown massacre in 1978.
He gave this testimony in August 1983 at a meeting of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Update: there is a shorter version of this on YouTube, you can see it below.
Positive Infinity 
It is rare that we hear such testimony of the Holy Spirit working in the realm of world
leadership such as described by Sir Luckhoo. Sir Lionel’s eloquence and humor confirm,
together with the Holy Spirit, his credibility. He seems at once a familiar friend or
father-figure, akin to C.S. Lewis.
These stories need to be more readily accessable to our children. They confirm Jesus’
influence and spiritual authority even upon historically familiar world leaders. Such
testimony updates Sunday School Bible stories, proving our Lord prevails even over
representatives of the modern worldly authority and materialism. Thank you.
LikeLike
Sir,
Please tell me which among your books should I read to help me trust more in the Lord.
Thank you.
Neena
LikeLike
Sir Lionel was the first person to welcome me into the kingdom of our lord after my baptisimal emertion in a church font at a Melbourne suburban church back in 1983, soon after becoming an F.G.B.M.F.I. member. His testimony afterwards touched me then & still doas. Thankyou brother Lionel. Ia’m advancing in years myself, & will soon join our lord, brother Lionel & many others. In the meantime Ia’m still enjoy reading SIR LIONEL by Fred Archer for the umpteent time.[It was given to me by Sir Lionel signed & delivered personaly]THANKYOU LIONEL SEE YOU SOON!!!
LikeLike
Why is this testimony not shared more widely? This is one of the most moving, eloquent, true and loving testimonies I have ever heard!! I’ve only heard one other man speak of Christ so lovingly, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee of Thru the Bible Radio! Mr. Luckhoo is from my ‘homeland’, you’ve done us proud Sir! You son of Guyana, now in the arms of your Beloved. I look forward to the Great Reunion when we will worship Him together, in glory.
LikeLike
Sir Lionel Luckhoo a cousin of mine a true son of Guyana, and served her well,I am so happy that he led so many people to Jesus Christ ;to salvation, the greatest gift one can receive and by his testimony.
LikeLike
Lionel was my best friend over 17 years. He also ministered in my crusades .My Jesus was his favorite word.I was very shy when I met Lionel,My life was about to change.He told me if I could win a leader of a nation to the Lord, I could win that nation.I began to travel the world ministering to leaders of the countries ,even my own.I was invited to the White House,Amen ! .Lionel gave me courage,like a lion.Even in the worst parts of Africa, Lionels words would come to me.Lionel was at my home shortly before he went to see his daughter Sharmon,who is as beautiful as her father.Lionel called me to tell me that Jesus was comming for him.Then he went with the Lord.I know Lionel is setting at the feet of his Jesus wearing his long white wig he wore as a judge ,washing Jesus feet with his tears. My life was forever changed by one man.Now Nations of the World are Changed Forever ! I LoveYou …Eva Joyce.
LikeLike
I traveled with Sir Lionel and his wife Jeanne Luckhoo. You can find mit in my book, Is AnyBody Up There. He wrote the introduction of my book, and told of our traveling together.He was my best friend. Dr. Loretta Blasingame
LikeLike
Yes Sir lionel was indeed an inspiration to many.
LikeLike
As a Native Daughter of the shores of Guyana I am so proud of this Man known as Sir Lionel Luckhoo. I left Guyana to be further Educated in Britain the year prior to the Jonestown Massacre and will never forget how the Horror of that tragedy gripped my heart. Listening to the testimony of Sir Lionel and how he came to the saving knowledge of Jesus..,How The Lord spoke to him and told him not to go to the people’s Temple, How he obeyed the voice of God thereby saving his Life is nothing short of a Miracle…That I would have the Priviledge of meeting Eva Joyce mentioned above who has Ministered with Sir Lionel for years is most surely a Divine Appointment. May our Dear Brother and Friend Sir Lionel rest on in Peace in the Loving arms of our Lord and Saviour.until we meet again. Sir Lionel we love you
LikeLike
Greetings in the Mighty Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.I just cannot explain how I stumbled upon this site today and to listen that moving testimony of our very own son of Gyuana’s soil.He talked so convincingly from the inner sanctum of his heart as if he’s on trial.Wow!Anyone reading this if you have not accepted Jesus then do so now,today.Sir Lionel has humbled himself and received God.So can You too!He must be emulated.Sir Lionel was born in Ankerville,Port Mourant,Berbice,Gyuana on March 2,1914 and died December 12,1997.May God keep him well until the day breaks and the shadows flee away.Respect and love in Christ Jesus from Port Mourant,Gyuana.
LikeLike
Trust that this has been a blessing to you. If so, do let me know.
Clarence
LikeLike
Certainly was, reproduced it here.
LikeLike
As I meditate on Psalm 1 today, I contrasted the glorious life of Sir Lionel Luckhoo and its outcome, with the inglorious one of Jim Jones and his clan and their outcome in a piece entitled, “Eleven Days to the Rescue”:
“Eleven Days to the Rescue ….”.
I, a newly minted doctor, returned to my homeland Georgetown, Guyana in August, 1978. With the glowing MBBS degree from the University of the West Indies, I was confident of a viable exciting future.
I was gradually introduced to one choice made and within eleven days to witness the effect of that choice on another choice that was summarily reflexly made.
Two contrasting choices, two paths, two roads, two positions, two outcomes, two contrasting fortunes, two destinies – one for life, one for death; one for time, the other for eternity; both out of intense desperation, both end games: one out of sleepless nights and inner discord, the other out of public exposure and legal pursuit. Two contrasting choices made on single moves at a mutual critical intersection. The two paths intersected each other at a crucial defining moment in time and then diverged irretrievably, eternally.
One scenario was eminently redemptive, with twenty years of enviably productive peripathetic purpose-driven life yielded to “My… Jesus…”. The other was horrendously destructive, ending like Hitler’s final solution, sudden summary death of a captive multitude; seated “in utter darkness, prisoners suffering in iron chains” (Ps. 107;10).
It was a fiasco that the few survivors would never forget, not even for a single day, nay, a single moment. According to New Jersey-based cult psychiatrist, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, the psychological scars would remain active, unsoothed, unassuaged, smoulderingly volcanic, forever.
Both had revolutionary world-wide impact, though contrasting, with reverberations echoing through time to the present and for all eternity.
The Robert Browning “Two Roads” moment of two equally attractive and competing paths painted for me a Rembrandt, the iconic master of contrasts, with rich sharp black-white pastels, rooted in the first Davidic Psalm – “Trees planted by streams of water” versus “Chaff that the winds drive away” (Ps. 1; 3,4).
Happily, legal luminary, Sir Lionel Luckhoo, on November 7, 1978, quickly learning how “way leads to way”, took the” narrow road less travelled by”, and that, for him, “made all the difference”.
Regrettably, James Warren Jones, eleven days later, took to the broad way (Mt. 7: 13), the way that looked right to him (Prov. 14: 12, Prov. 21:2), the way that looked right in his own eyes (Judg. 21:25). He took with him 918 souls. They were bound captive men, women and children. His November 18, 1978 Jonestown jungle agricultural settlement, experiment and cultic commune, inevitably, imploded to obscurity and a cosmic instructive lesson in the art and end of deception.
In view of the 7th and its divine directive, thereof, Sir Lionel, in obedience, dare not turn up as Jim’s Jones’ demanded legal counsel and intermediary. He thus, wisely, absented himself from the crucial Leo Ryan-People’s Temple consultation on the 18th.
As such, God preserved his life, immediately ratifying his destiny before his very eyes. The Lord Jesus, as ever, had timed the American FGBMF-Guyana visit and hotel testimony meeting to perfection.
Like Nehemiah, Sir Lionel had begun to do a great work, by just simply believing in the Lord Jesus and following His nudges, in the first instance, and, as such, he would not travel by small plane to Jonestown (Neh. 6: 2-4). He had determined not to “walk in the counsel of the ungodly, stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the scornful” (Ps. 1: 1). He thus escaped the quick cyanide Kool-Aid collateral death. He avoided a wild wayward bullet to the chest.
“Eleven Days to the Rescue” was, for Sir Lionel, a mission in God’s international divine design of Pauline proportions, character, singularity, intensity, consistency and urgency ….”
LikeLike
I will never forget the time I had Sr Lionel speak for me at my Full Gospel Businessmen’s meeting in Danville,VA.. I remember one question I asked him regarding his practice of law after his conversion,, His answer was that he was offered one million dollars to defend a murder case in the British court system and he turned it down. His answer to me was, “Jim if I took the time for that a missed winning one soul for Jesus Christ, it would not be worth it.. A very humble man.. Was blessed to have him speak for our chapter..
LikeLike
I also asked him a question about what he thought of capital punishment in the United States. He answer was our system was a joke. He stated that after a conviction, the case should be allowed one appeal to a tribunal of judges, and then if unsuccessful, punishment should be carried out swiftly..
LikeLike