Years ago, advertisements for the latest Clint Eastwood movie said, “The man with no name is back again.” Recently, I received an e-mail from a person with no name—but he or she did have what looked like a telephone number. Since no name was used, this individual will be called the Person With A Number (PWAN). Whoever it was initiated an even briefer e-mail exchange than the one described last week. This one occurred on August 17-18, 2016.

In past years, when not everyone knew that Max Lucado was a false teacher, I wrote several articles showing what he had said or written, pointing out the way in which his writings contradicted what the Bible teaches. Usually, emotionally-wrought fans of his would write me to criticize what I had written. Many of them were just like the one written by PWAN. He asked: “Why don’t you focus on your own shortcomings instead of trying to destroy Max Lucado?” This message contained nothing that I had not heard before. People had written, accusing me of being envious of Max’s success or some other such tripe that was totally irrelevant to the errors he teaches. So, I determined to approach the subject humorously and therefore answered: “According to recent findings, Max has not been harmed at all by any of my articles. Besides, nothing was said but the truth. Do you have a problem with that?”

This statement is true. Despite all the articles I (and others) have written analyzing what Max Lucado teaches, not once have I ever received a note from anybody, saying, “I was going to buy a Max Lucado book, but after reading your article, I decided not to.” His sales have not seemed to slump in the slightest. Yet despite having no impact at all on his popularity, somebody always feels compelled to criticize me. I have asked repeatedly for anyone to point out even one thing I said about Lucado that was false. In nearly two decades, no one has pointed out a single misrepresentation. PWAN sent one more message, saying: “I am for Max not against him, and, yes, I have a problem with people being unfactual.”

Unfortunately, these comments did not spell out anything in my articles that was erroneous. So, I sent him something that showed his misplaced emphasis: “I am for Christ—not against Him (Matt. 12:30). Max is against Him. If you think I said something unfactual when I was quoting Max’s own words, please say what it is.” PWAN sent nothing else. As usual, one of Max’s devoted fans disappointed me again by failing to expose any wrongdoing on my part. Jesus once said, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil…” (John 18:23). Likewise, according to this principle, I’m still waiting.