The Problem with Max Lucado

The Appeal and Public Persona of Max Lucado

I want you to give a great big Lakewood welcome, pastor of Oak Hills Church, one of the pastors there, our friend, Mr. Max Lucado.

Hello. In this video, we're going to be looking at the problems with Max Lucado. I remember years ago at a pastor's meeting, one pastor was really singing the praises of Max Lucado. That is until another pastor spoke up and he started going through all the reasons why Lucado was not a sound Bible teacher and why people should not follow the man.

It wasn't me, by the way, you know, the one who spoke up, but it did get me looking into this because most people, I think when they hear Max Lucado, they associate him. Yeah. He's the, he's the smiling face that greets you in the religion section at Barnes and Noble or at Walmart.

Lucado, no one has written more books than Max Lucado, something like a hundred different books. And he's probably the only pastor who smiles more than Joel Osteen. And speaking of Joel Osteen, just getting right into the problems with Lucado, the first red flag for me was that Max Lucado totally denies the biblical doctrine of separation.

So Max Lucado partners with and fellowships with known false teachers on a regular basis. Lucado will team up with the Prosperity Gospel crowd. The Prosperity Gospel is a heresy. And here he is with Joel Osteen and the Crouch family from TBN.

Nobody is more responsible for spreading the Prosperity Gospel heresy than the Trinity Broadcast Network. They've been pushing this and promoting prosperity preachers like Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer.

They've been doing this for years. And here is Max Lucado right there, smack in the middle of it, smiling away with Joel Osteen. But I think this is part of the persona, you know, always smiling, always positive.

And it causes people to let their guard down. And they say, Hey, he just seems so nice. And he's talking about Jesus. How could this be dangerous? Well, his doctrine is dangerous. We're going to explain that and just understand that if, you know, maybe you read a Max Lucado book and you liked it and you thought it helped you out.

Listen, I'm not against you, but just know this. If somebody really follows Max Lucado, he will and is leading people astray. So let's jump right in because this goes far deeper than just him going on TBN with Joel Osteen or speaking at Joel Osteen's church, which he did.

Max Lucado, Revoice, and the Normalizing of LGBTQ and Deconstructionist Fellowship

But here's a story that just broke how Max Lucado is going to be speaking at what is really a pro LGBT conference. This is being called gay Christianity, where people are living an openly, you know, LGBTQ lifestyle as people call it.

And they're a Christian and it's all, it's all fine. People have described because of this, and this goes back several years, Max Lucado has totally compromised on this issue, but people have now started, they're starting to call Max Lucado the Andy Stanley of Texas.

Why is that? Because Lucado has become more and more accepting, if not affirming of homosexuality as time goes on, the more accepting he becomes. And most people are simply not aware of it. So when people find out they're surprised, just like with what has happened recently with Andy Stanley, but Max Lucado has been flying under the radar for quite a while, but this story just broke.

I'm going to read part of an article from the Dissenter website. I'll link to it in the comment section, but basically Lucado is going to team up with a transgender person, quote unquote, along with another former Christian leader who has deconstructed their faith, Josh Harris.

So here's what the article says. This is again from the Dissenter, whether it be endorsing pro-gay feminist, Jen Hatmaker, apologizing to the LGBTQ community for past teachings on homosexuality or referring to the Holy Spirit as a female or in feminine terms, begging for forgiveness for ancestral sins of slavery and segregation and adopting the practice of speaking in tongues as part of his daily prayer routine.

Max Lucado's actions collectively signal a complete abandonment of objective biblical truth in favor of a more progressive ecumenical approach that attempts to reconcile biblical Christianity with modern pagan cultural movements.

So the article says it should come as no surprise that Lucado would be sharing the stage with a transgender Christian, quote unquote, to promote Christian living. And this conference is going to happen in 2024.

Preston Sprinkle, one of the founding board members of the gay Christian organization Revoice and CEO of Theology in the Raw, Preston Sprinkle is holding a conference that features several apostates, including former reformed pastor Josh Harris, who renounced his faith several years ago and was later seen marching in a gay pride parade.

Greg Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, a personal journey of faith and sexual identity. And Matt Lucado's not only teaming up with them, he's teaming up with a man named Kat La Perrie who wears women's clothes and uses women's pronouns.

So basically a transgender person. So these are the people that Max Lucado is working with, a trans person and an open apostate deconstructionist Josh Harris. So Max Lucado, think about this. He has gone from the frying pan into the fire.

He has gone from fellowshipping with false teachers like Joel Osteen and the Prosperity Gospel Crowd to now having ecumenical fellowship with trans people and deconstructionists. Yeah. Things are getting worse and worse.

So like I said, if people are following Max Lucado and certainly following his example, he is leading people away from Christ, away from the scripture. Lucado also seems to have spiritual fellowship with Mormons.

Watch this interview between Max Lucado and Mormon Glenn Beck.

You don't know exactly how to weather these storms. The power of the Holy Spirit is that he takes. When Glenn or Max can't even utter the right prayer, the Holy Spirit says, I take over and I take that prayer and I take it and I present it before the presence of God in heaven.

Which I find so encouraging because that reminds me that the real power of prayer doesn't depend upon the way I pray or even I who pray, but upon the one who hears. Okay. So apparently Mormons.

Have the Holy Spirit too, which is another way of saying that Mormons like Glenn Beck, they're saved as well. Even though Mormons worship a different Jesus. I did a whole study on Mormonism. You can search it on my channel.

It's not Christianity, not by a long shot. Mormonism is actually a polytheistic faith. Mormons worship a different Jesus who is the spirit brother of Lucifer. They worship a different God who was once a sinful man living in outer space near the star Kolob.

And Mormons preach, of course, a different gospel of Jesus plus works, Jesus, faith in Jesus plus good works. But of course, it's a different Jesus, not to mention Mormons say the Bible has been corrupted.

So instead of going by the scripture, they have essentially replaced the Bible with the book of Mormon, which is a work of fiction produced by Joseph Smith. So we just saw that Max Lucado like Joel Osteen, he's done this as well.

He seems to affirm Mormonism. And this is a new disturbing trend that has been going on ever since, what, 2012 back when the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, they dropped Mormonism from their list of cults.

So Billy Graham, his association listed Mormonism as a cult and rightfully so. But back in 2012, Mormon presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, who is also supporting many progressive causes, Mitt Romney went to visit Billy Graham at his compound.

And it was right around that time that coincidentally, right, Mormonism was dropped from Billy Graham's list of cults. And then Billy Graham's disciple, Joel Osteen, then went on CNN and told the world that Mormonism, he said, well, it's a little different.

That's true, but it's good enough, close enough. So Joel Osteen, and maybe even Billy Graham seem to affirm that Mormonism is a legitimate form of Christianity. So this is the new trend. It started with Billy Graham.

And according to Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck also visited Billy Graham. And Glenn Beck says that Billy Graham affirmed his Mormon faith as, you know, that Glenn Beck was saved, which means the Mormon gospel is efficacious for salvation.

So you, people might not believe Glenn Beck, but, you know, based on everything, I think, I think there's reason to believe that that probably did happen. So Graham dropped Mormonism from the list of cults.

Then Joel Osteen went on TV saying that Mormons, they're saved too. Dallas Jenkins, creator and director of the TV show, The Chosen, they are affirming of Mormonism as a valid form of Christianity. And now Max Lucado has jumped on that bandwagon.

Why? Because it's all part of this universalistic idea that, you know, if not everyone's saved, just about everybody. And my friends, you have to understand this is the effect that false teachers have on the church.

It's like a domino effect. If a TV preacher, famous preacher comes out and makes, you know, some statements, teaches false doctrine, if he's allowed to get away with it, which they almost always get away with it, then it spreads to others and then others.

And then all of a sudden a bunch of famous TV preachers are saying it, and then it trickles down into the churches. The apostle Paul said in Galatians 5 verse 9, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Mormonism is clearly false, but Max Lucado doesn't think that. Here's what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11 verse 4, for if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit, which you have not received, or a different gospel, which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.

And people are putting up with it right now because of men like Max Lucado. So this, again, is like a quasi, at least a quasi form of universalism where just about everyone is saved. It's just all positive all the time.

And really they're just telling people what they want to hear. And because there's so many itching ears out there and people have turned away from sound doctrine over the past generation or two, telling people what they want to hear in the name of Jesus, man, people make a lot of money, tens of millions of dollars selling books, scratching itching ears.

That seems to be the name of the game. Oh, and by the way, this Christian leader, Josh Harris, who Max Lucado is speaking at the same conference as him, he has deconstructed his faith, right? And Max Lucado now, not only is he softening up on the gay issue, he seems to be softening up on the deconstructionist issue.

So, oh, he deconstructed? Oh, I'll still do a conference with him. Oh, transgender and LGBT? No problem. Why? Was Max Lucado doing this 25 years ago? No. Why? Because it wasn't popular back then. Now it's trendy.

So now he's doing it. And this compromise on the whole homosexual issue, this really bubbled up years ago when Max Lucado was invited to speak at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Now, here's what you need to know about the National Cathedral.

It is basically a pro-gay advocacy group. So people were surprised when the National Cathedral invited Max Lucado to come and speak. Why would they do that? Well, because they knew that Max Lucado, he wasn't going to preach anything biblical or otherwise they wouldn't have invited him.

They wouldn't have taken that risk. They knew Max Lucado was compromised on the issue. So it's all about, and this is why Oprah Winfrey and CNN, this is why they find these liberal compromise pastors to bring them on, because they know that they're going to lead evangelicals in this more progressive direction.

So the National Cathedral, I'm going to play a video in a moment where Dr. James White is talking about Max Lucado's compromise. But basically, yeah, Lucado was invited to speak. However, somebody found a sermon that he had preached like 20 years prior, where Lucado was actually holding to somewhat of a biblical position.

So somebody dug up that sermon and Max Lucado was pressured by the LGBT crowd. And then he ended up apologizing for being biblical. So here's that video, Dr. James White talking about this. This is about a six minute clip,.

But it's very important. So watch. If you read, it starts off on May 17th, 2004. The state of Massachusetts recognized a thousand same-sex weddings. A cultural bomb exploded. This week, senators who vote on the Marriage Act, a constitutional amendment that defines and protects one man, one woman in marriage.

What does the Bible have to say about this? What does God have to say about gay marriage? I can't think of a more timely topic. This is what Max Lucado is apologizing for. He is apologizing for saying the recent move toward legalization of homosexual marriage leaves many people searching for answers.

On one hand, they see no problem with the idea. They have homosexual relatives or friends. They watch Will and Grace or Ellen DeGeneres on television. They look at such people and think, what's wrong?

Why would same-sex marriage be an issue? Yet at the same time, unrest rumbles within. How will homosexuality impact our culture? What about the spread of disease? If gay lifestyle and gay marriage is endorsed, what follows?

Polygamy? Legalized incest? If we can't draw a line, will lines be drawn at all? Many wrestle with such questions. Those of a Judeo-Christian background ask a more fundamental question. What does God say about gay marriage?

For the God-fearer, God's voice trumps all polls, politicians, studies, and sitcoms. So it is to this question we turn our attention this morning. Dividing the three sub-questions will offer a helpful outline.

The sub-questions were, what does God say about marriage, where he affirms primarily a biblical concept of marriage and that it was established by God? What does God say about gays? He talks about some of the key texts while trying to be as friendly, maybe would be the term, I don't know, as possible.

But he says, from start to finish, scripture categorically condemns same-sex intimacy. Why? Some answers found our concluding point, what does God say about gay marriage? And he says, legalization of gay marriages will erode the traditional family.

Legalized gay marriage will lead to legalized polygamy and other deviations, which by the way, he was right. The highest reason of ever proposing gay marriage is simply this, God does. And God does because he loves us.

Marriage restores us to our Adamic state. Where does that leave the church? Compassion. Yes, homosexual activity angers God, but who among us has not angered God? It wasn't homosexuality that caused Jesus to cleanse the temple.

It was self-righteousness and greed. Two sins that dog all of us, but let there be no gay bashing among God's people, no arrogant parading of signs. There is no justification for gay jokes. Do we mock the alcoholic or shun the gossiper?

Let's show the same grace to the brother or sister who struggles with sexual sin. I would say, by the way, I stopped there, that's fine, that's wonderful, but again, where is the R word? It's repentant homosexuals.

That's the issue. All the way through. Then he quotes 1 Corinthians 6 .9, it says, ex-gays worshiped in the early church, ex-gays worship in this church, notice it's ex-gays. So in other words, there has been repentance that has been brought about.

So I urge you to elevate marriage, honor God's plan for the home by nurturing your own, also prayers and prayers for our national leaders, especially pray and thank God for those who are taking the lead and the heat on the Federal Marriage Act, I urge you to contact your senators and representatives, think this one through carefully, we cannot budge, too much is at stake.

2004. 2004. Purged from the internet. Purged from the internet. It is gone, it has been erased. And instead, February 11th, 2021, Max Licato, to the Washington National Cathedral, dear Cathedral community.

It was a high honor to serve as your guest preacher on February 7th, 2021. It has come to my understanding that my presence, excuse me, my presence in the Cathedral is a cause of consternation for many of your members.

I was invited to Washington National Cathedral to preach on the topic of the Holy Spirit. My desire was to highlight the power of the Spirit to bring comfort in this chaotic times, however, instead of that sermon, many only heard my words from many years ago.

2004, I preached a sermon on the topic of same sex marriage. I now see that in that sermon, I was disrespectful. I was hurtful. I wounded people in ways that were devastating. I should have done better.

It grieves me that my words have hurt or been used to hurt the LGBTQ community. I apologize to you, and I ask forgiveness of Christ. Faithful people may disagree about what the Bible says about homosexuality, but we agree that God's holy word must never be used as a weapon to wound others.

To be clear, I believe in the traditional biblical understanding of marriage, but I also believe in a God of unbounded grace and love. LGBTQ individuals and LGBTQ families must be respected and treated with love.

They are beloved children of God because they are made in the image and likeness of God. Over centuries, the church has harmed LGBTQ people and their families, just as the church has harmed people on issues of race, gender, divorce, addiction, and so many other things.

We must do better and serve and love one another. I share the cathedral's commitment to building bridges and learning how to listen, to really listen to those with whom we disagree. That work is difficult, is hard, is messy, and it can be uncomfortable, but we need it now more than ever.

Respectfully, Max Licato.

Wokeness, Racism, and Social Justice Language

Okay. So you're starting to see the problem or problems with Max Licato, but that's not all. Max Licato is woke. Okay. He's not just woke on the LGBT stuff. Wokeness originally referred to the social justice movement, right?

Where all these famous pastors several years ago, you know, especially after the George Floyd incident in 2020 with the Black Lives Matter protests and the, you know, the BLM riots that broke out in the spring of 2020.

You know, there are all these woke pastors like Tim Keller, Matt Chandler, David Platt. They started talking about things like white privilege and how Christians need to repent of things like systemic racism.

And you're like, well, I never did anything like that. No, you're white. So you're guilty. You know, that was basically the woke narrative, right? White people are automatically guilty. Well, that was the popular trend going on in the culture.

So, you know, that was being pushed by CNN. So of course, Max Licato, he sees the large corporations are pushing this. So he wanted to get in on some of that action as well. So here is Max Licato, a video of him basically bowing in front of, he's basically bowing at the feet of a black man, begging for God to, begging for God to forgive this horrible church for being so,.

The church is just so racist. Watch. If my people, God said, if my people who are called by my name, revival begins when the church repents. And our heavenly father has used this pandemic to bring to the forefront the most ancient sin of humanity and certainly of our nation.

And that is the sin of racism.

Okay. So I just have to stop it right there. Racism is not the most ancient sin. That is simply not true. Pride was the first sin. Lucifer was filled with pride when he fell. And of course, Eve was tempted with the allure of being like God when Cain killed Abel.

It was not because of racism. So Max is just imposing this woke agenda onto the Bible. And it's simply not true,.

But here's the rest of the clip. And so I will lead us as we pray. Heavenly father, you have made from one blood, every nation of men and women to dwell on the face of the earth. That is in your scripture.

We are all of one blood. We are one people created by you. We are your idea and you have no bad ideas. We are all of one blood. No person is born better than another ever. You love all people. You do not play favorites.

You never ever called people of one skin color to oppress another. That is a sin. You told us to love our neighbor, not suppress our neighbor. We are all of one blood. There is no black blood. There is no brown blood.

There is no Asian blood. There is no white blood. There is only one blood. We are all of one blood. And when you died, Lord Jesus, you shed your precious and holy blood so that people of all nations could be saved.

This was and is your plan. Red and yellow, black and white. They are precious in your sight. Yet they have not been precious in ours. And for that sin, oh Lord, we repent and we are sorry. We are sorry.

So if you want more on Max Lucado and how he's gone woke with social justice and other things, I would recommend you listen to John Harris from the Conversations That Matter podcast. His episode titled What Happened to Max Lucado, he really does a good job in laying it all out.

So you can check out that video. I'll link it in the description. And then finally, in recent years, and this is probably the least of his problems, but Max Lucado in recent years has now come out saying that he speaks in tongues.

I'll put a link to that video in the comment section as well. But obviously this is not the biblical gift of tongues where say the apostles were given the miraculous ability to speak in a foreign language that they didn't know.

That's clearly what was going on in Acts chapter two on the day of Pentecost. Rita says that each one heard them speak each in his own language. But what Max Lucado is doing, it's really what is called an ecstatic utterance.

Pentecostals and charismatics, they call it, you know, the gift of tongues. But what they're saying, it's not a language, you know, it's, it's basically gibberish. Incidentally, before the Pentecostals started doing this, before Max Lucado started, you know, speaking in tongues, the Mormons were actually engaging in this incoherent tongue speaking.

So make of that what you will. Either way, the bottom line, starting to wrap this up, bottom line, Max Lucado, at best, he is not a dependable Bible teacher. He just jumps on whatever bandwagon is going through the church at any given time.

So at best, he's not dependable. He's not accurately handling the word of God. And at worst, he doesn't just partner with false teachers. I'm afraid to say, especially based on his stuff with the Mormons and his, you know, acceptance, if not affirmation of LGBTQ, Max Lucado doesn't just partner with false teachers.

It looks like he is one. Between his lack of separation, again, normalizing of the whole homosexual agenda, trans, you know, he apologized to the LGBT mafia. You know, they put pressure on him and he said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for preaching that sermon where he was right back then, actually, but he apologizes for that.

So this whole idea that the Mormon gospel, you know, Mormons are saved too, that's a legitimate form of Christianity. My friends, here's the thing. If Max Lucado thinks that the Mormon gospel can save people, that proves to me, Max Lucado doesn't understand the true gospel.

And that would explain why he is willing to partner with the prosperity gospel crowd, why he doesn't see the issue with Joel Osteen, who affirms the Christianity of Oprah Winfrey, for goodness sakes. I mean, Oprah is a new age teacher.

Oprah openly denies the gospel. The clips are all over YouTube. Those are the types of people that Osteen has fellowship with. And Lucado promotes Osteen and he partners with trans people and deconstructionists.

And my friends, it doesn't happen in a vacuum. One error is tied to another. A faulty understanding of the gospel and one false doctrine, it'll lead to another, to another, to another. It really is the domino effect.

And these big name TV preachers, you know, they say and they do things, it sets the tone in mainstream evangelical Christianity. And then local pastors listen to them. They adopt these tactics and it all just trickles down into the local assemblies.

And really it destroys churches. It leads people into apostasy. And when a local church is ruined or split because, you know, pastors are following along with Max Lucado or half the congregation is buying into that doctrine, that has a real negative effect on people, on families.

And it affects the next generation and on and on it goes. So my advice, unless Max Lucado repents of all this, which for a famous pastor, that almost never happens. But unless he repents, my advice is to stay far away from Max Lucado.

He is not teaching sound doctrine. And what he is saying, especially the example he is now setting with this recent conference, it's leading people away from the true Christ of Scripture. People are buying into this false Christ who is just cool with everything, affirms everything, is just all positive, all happy all the time.

That's not the true Christ of Scripture. So don't be fooled. Read the Bible. Get your doctrine and your beliefs from the Bible, from Christ and His apostles and prophets. Pray for those who are deceived.

Maybe share this video with them. And until next time, may the Lord be with you and have a great day.