The Daystar Television Network announced Tuesday that Marcus Lamb, the founder and head of the ministry, has passed away from complications from Covid-19. He was 64.
Daystar said in a post on its website that Lamb died Tuesday morning.
“He leaves behind a legacy of fiercely loving the Lord, all the people of the world and, most of all, his family,” the network said.
“It’s with a heavy heart we announce that Marcus Lamb, president and founder of Daystar Television Network, went home to be with the Lord this morning. The family asks that their privacy be respected as they grieve this difficult loss. Please continue to lift them up in prayer,” the network’s Twitter post read.
Marcus had been married to his wife, Joni Lamb from 1982. Joni Lamb is a Christian broadcaster and the co-founder, vice-president, and executive producer of the Daystar Television Network.
Lamb’s relatives have spoken on broadcasts over the past month about Lamb’s battle with the Covid-19 virus. His wife, Joni, said he had diabetes and was hospitalised after his oxygen levels dropped.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a spiritual attack from the enemy,” Lamb’s son, Jonathan, said of his father’s illness on a program earlier this month. “As much as my parents have gone on here to kind of inform everyone about everything going on to the pandemic and some of the ways to treat COVID — there’s no doubt that the enemy is not happy about that. And he’s doing everything he can to take down my dad.”
Daystar is one of the two largest Christian TV networks in the world, with 70 stations in the US. Lamb was president and CEO of the Bedford-based network, which broadcasts in the US and worldwide.
The network’s global reach is to over 109 million homes in the United States and over five billion people worldwide. Today, Daystar is the fastest-growing television network in the world and the first to broadcast into every home in the nation of Israel.
Lamb founded the network after taking a trip with his wife to Israel in the early 1980s. He said God spoke to him while he was on the trip and told him to create a Christian TV station in Montgomery, Ala.
He founded a station in Montgomery in 1985 but sold several years later to move to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In late 1997, he launched Daystar Television Network from The Potter’s House megachurch in the Mountain Creek area of southwestern Dallas.
By saying yes, Marcus would eventually become the youngest person in America to ever accomplish that goal at the age of 28.
Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter’s House described Lamb as a good man and a good friend.
“We always listened and respected each other, and always checked on each other,” Jakes said on Facebook. “We broke bread at each other’s home. He read every book he could read about our culture and history. He was always trying to be more aware. Indeed, he was a merciful man who had a kind soul.”
Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in North Carolina, said he was shocked to learn of Lamb’s death.
“He had preached about heaven, taught about heaven, and now he is experiencing heaven,” Graham said on Facebook. “I know that Marcus would want each and every one of you to examine your own lives, and if there is sin in your life that is holding you back, confess it to God and ask His forgiveness. … None of us know when we will step into eternity.”
Marcus has spent over 40 years offering the salvation, healing, and hope only found in Jesus Christ.
His wife and co-founder of Daystar, Joni Lamb, along with their three children, two grandchildren, as well as their sons and daughter-in-law, live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas.
(Picture Courtesy: Daystar Television Network)
