By Walid Shoebat
One image that caused countless debates is Guadalupe. While Catholics believe it was from God, many Protestant derivative denominations decided that this was from the devil. But which of the two is correct? Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in Mexico as the pregnant Mother of God to Blessed Juan Diego, an Aztec Indian, on December 9, 10, and 12, 1531. She left a Miraculous Image of her appearance on his cactus fiber cloak, or “tilma”, which still exists today for all to see in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
Anti-Catholics argue that having a genuine spiritual encounter does not mean the entity encountered was actually Mary, an angel, or a saint since demons are called “lying spirits” (1 Kings 22:23), and one thing they do well is lie. Second Corinthians 11:14–15, they warn, says that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising then to see Guadalupe if the devil’s servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. A possible explanation for this apparition of Mary, such as the young Juan Diego saw, is satanic deception. So they say.
To believe that the devil disguised as Jesus’ mother, the other side challenges, how is it that Guadalupe’s image caused the Aztecs to stop human sacrifices? The Aztecs practiced heart-plucking rituals and Guadalupe transformed ten million from the demon-possessed worshipping culture of the Aztecs to become civilized.
The other side argues saying “so what? The devil simply transformed the cult of the Aztecs to another cult of Mariology.”
Jesus however, confronted the same issue in Matthew 12 when Pharisees used 1 Kings 22:23 saying to beware of “lying spirits” when they confronted Jesus: “Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”
“But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”
But in this argument, who of the two was truly following demons? Jesus or these Pharisees? Yet these Pharisees, just as we see today also quoted Scripture. Quoting Scripture is not evidence the quoter is from God. The devil himself quoted Scripture in the Temptation. Jesus in fact addresses such heretics who use half-sciptural-truths with:
“Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Matthew 12:22-28)
Jesus says that demons do not drive out other demons. Period. So if this apparition of Mary was a demon, how could such demon drive out the Aztec demons? And why transform the evils of the Aztecs to become a Christian civilization? Miracles never ceased. What the Bible basically says is to test such miracles if they promote God or the Devil.
And if the kingdom of Lucifer does not want to be divided, what then do we say is the spirit behind the divisions amongst the churches that slander Guadalupe?
On issues of the reformed Church that condemn Guadalupe, you have many divisions. Just today, I spent hours reviewing anti-Pre-Destination Michael Brown support the Brownsville revival and the neo-charismatic movement, while pre-destination advocate John Macarthur condemns Calvary Chapel and the charismatics. Then you have John Macarthur is condemned by pro-Calvary Chapel Jacob Prasch who rightly compares John Calvin, the great reformer to the “Taliban” and then severs with Walid Shoebat (me) for Walid’s support of Catholics, while Michael Brown disagrees with pre-destination’s Calvinist James White, all the while they all divide over issues like pre-tribulation, mid-Tribulation, post-Tribulation and pan-Tribulation … all sorts of confusing arguments, which cross any Messianic Rabbi’s eyes, yadi dada da…
All this array of everyone exposing one another and all such display of divisive church warfare and spirit of debate (which Paul condemns) looks more like a zoo than a church, especially when Christ mandated we be one.
All this spirit of debate is hardly from God and is more of the devil. But in order to deal with the millions of issues on these divisions they then come up with a genius formula: these divides should not matter so long we agree on salvation.
So now, besides major doctrines on “salvation” we should “agree to disagree”.
But this presents a major theological problem. Such a formula, forces us to choose that certain “thus says the Lord” as “essential” while other “thus says the Lord” as none essential.
In other words, in areas of the Bible, “God said” and it does not matter; all this blasphemy while they all agree in unison that all what matters is “the Word of God”.
This is quite the contradiction.
All this divide, and if Guadalupe united Aztec and Spanish under the banner of Christ, they say: “watch out”, “here is the devil in disguise”.
Why not say “Blessed Mary, the Peacemaker”?
What is difficult to refute is that this image was used to reconcile the oppressed natives of Mexico with their Spanish rulers and put an end to the bloody human sacrifice of the Aztecs. In the end, the Guadalupe image caused the conversion of ten million natives in the next 10 years!
But it is here that Guadalupe comes with an amazing message that no man can refute. Guadalupe’s foot, if she were a “devil” why would her feet stomp the crescent moon, the very image of the devil in Isaiah 14? While she had clearly vanquished the Aztec’s foremost deity, the feather serpent “Quetzalcoatl”, she also vanquished the very deity of Islam: Allah whose symbol is the crescent.
Guadalupe is a construct from an Arabic and Spanish two words: Wadi and Lupe. Wadi is an Arabic word “canyon/river” and Lupe is “wolf”: The Valley of The Wolf. She is also called “Woman of the Apocalypse”.
So how could this image also be called “Woman of the Apocalypse,” a figure from Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation be a demonic apparition when such imagery jumps right out of the pages of Scripture?
To discuss such issues is not easy for us. To even support this miracle will instantly gain one retribution as “tainted with Catholic ideas”. It is interesting that these same accusers always preach that “love conquers all”. I am yet to see “all this love,” especially that I have been anti-Crescent (just as the image shows) for decades. I tell you the truth, that such will even love the sodomites more than they love us.
It was after the defeat of the crescent of Islam and abolishing the Andalusia Caliphate in 1492 that the Spanish then sailed west to colonize and Christianize the recently discovered Americas. The memory of Our Lady of Guadalupe from Extremadura and the victory she won them over the Muslims came with them as they conquered Mexico in 1520 when they sought her intercession as they subdued the bestial Aztec culture and its demonic human sacrifice rituals to their false sun god Quetzacoatl, as well as for the conversion of the native American peoples to the Faith. And later this same banner of Guadalupe was carried by the Italian Holy League Command Gianandrea Doria into victorious battle against the Ottoman navy that joined with Protestant conscripts at Lepanto in 1571.
Also, if this image was from the devil and not from the Bible, why would the devil use Revelation 11-12 and post this whole story on an image?
In the Revelation 11-12 narrative, which both Catholic and Protestant agree upon, is that the Ark is seen in heaven, this woman (the Ark) then gives birth to a male child, who is attacked by a Dragon, “called the Devil, and Satan“. The woman flees into the wilderness, while the child is taken to heaven, leading to “War in Heaven“, in which the angels cast the Dragon out. The Dragon now takes to attacking the woman, who is given wings to escape the dragon who attacks her with a flood of water from its mouth, which is however swallowed by the earth. Frustrated, the dragon then goes to make war on “the remnant of her seed” identified as the righteous followers of Christ.
All sides agree to this narrative.
The Woman of the Apocalypse is widely identified with the Blessed Virgin Mary by the ancient Church which the reformists disagree.
But besides this disagreement, when it comes to both, the scene in Revelation 11-12 and Guadalupe, firstly, why would God choose “a woman” to stomp the very crescent which represents also Islam in both the Bible and the Guadalupe image?
Also, isn’t it then obvious that the final battle at the Valley of Megiddo is Islam’s crescent? Isn’t every verse that mentions a literal nation by name, which God wars with, is Muslim today? Why would the devil expose this if he made the Guadalupe image? The devil is an anti-Christ and is not pro-Christ or pro His mother.
Secondly, why would God have a problem with images if such a depiction was etched in the record of Scripture in Revelation 11-12?
They then insist, the “woman” is either “Israel” or “the church” but never “Mary”. If so, there are some serious problems:
Firstly, why would God make this interpretation as strictly “Israel” which is secular, especially when the Bible says that the “dragon” will chases “the remnant of her seed” who are “the righteous followers of Jesus Christ”? This can never be secular Israel who are converted when the Messiah shows up AFTER He defeats the Antichrist.
Secondly, if the “woman” is strictly “the Church,” how could the “dragon” chase the remnant of the church who is the church? Let us try to read Revelation 12:5-6a,17 in such a way. Here is the verse before such corruption:
“the dragon angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus”
Lets corrupt it with such interpretation and see how logical this is:
“the dragon angry with the church went off to make war on the rest of the church’s offspring: the church”
While Israel and the Church do typify such an interpretation, the woman being “Mary” holds the primary interpretation since Mary did give birth to the male child. All three interpretations fit if one combs through the verses three times with each proposition in mind. As far as how could Mary command Jesus for battle, all one has to do is to ask: why did Mary command Jesus to turn the “water” (nations) into “wine” (blood)?
And how is it that the seed of the woman will crush the dragon’s head and how is it that all the “saints” participate in this great battle in Zechariah 14? John tells us Mary’s role, that is to tell her Son it is time to change these Muslim nations into blood and to force Bel [the crescent] to bow to Jesus (Isaiah 45-46). Mary’s command for war is the declaration not only that she stomps the crescent, but Jesus also and the saints will finally defeat Islam when the Cross stomps it:
There is no escape from one scriptural reference. John, in the Bible saw this woman crowned as queen: “a crown of twelve stars on her head.” (Revelation 12:1b).
This “thus says the Lord” through John in Revelation means much. Every word in Scripture counts. Therefore, the Son as it was in ancient Israel, always had the “Queen Mother”. How could the Messianic movement, which prides itself with traditions from ancient Israel, reject such tradition, which is also in the Bible? The Messianic movement, therefore, is not as Messianic as it seems and is simply a derivative from Protestant reformation theology filled with congregants equipped with a handful of Hebrew words.
Therefore, such reformed theology cannot be true theology. If a Messianic needs to see what reformed theology does, all one has to do is to look at reformed Judaism and tell us if such theology resembled Judaism? If the reformation did so well for Christianity, where is it in Germany and in England where in less than five centuries, all such reformation was completely wiped out, and Europe is plagued with the very crescent that this Guadalupe says she will eventually stomp?
If one looks at Egypt, there they find an ancient Coptic culture, which Mark the Apostle built, that rarely has divorces. And if all the disco-tech style worship service has brought forth edification to the church, perhaps someone can tell us, what is the rate of divorce in such churches in comparison to the world?
From Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church
The answer is: it is the same as the world. And if Jesus said “you shall know them by their fruit” we ask: what good tree brings forth divorce? If a church is plagued with divorce it is not based on a biblical foundation. Period.
The problem with the church is that women are not taught to emulate Mary while they are also taught to scold Adam.
The subject of Mary (even though she is all over Scripture) is pretty much a taboo. Mind you, such a taboo stems from a people who say they “love all Scripture”. They do this without realizing that the undermining and hatred of “the woman” (Mary) stems from the devil. It is also true that allowing “the woman” to be elevated in her position as equal in the church authority as men is also from the devil. Mary is never to be elevated as equal with Jesus. Yet this truth is not carried out in today’s modern church which is more guilty in equalizing man with woman. Christ is the head of the church. Man is the head of the Church, never woman.
Who is then the rebellious generation?
And if all I said here is a false damnable demonic evil and wicked heresy, can anyone tell me, I pray thee, who amongst all women from the beginning of creation is equal to or better than the Virgin Mary, let her stand up to be recognized as a Jezebel?
This is the Mary that God in the Bible said that she will be called blessed forever: “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” (Luke 1:48)
Should we then be ashamed as Christians to say “Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus”?
Her seed “rest of her offspring” are the ones who “call her blessed”. This is in the Bible. How then can we be that church which John in Revelation 12 spoke of if we reject such theology?
Is it no wonder why the mass number of the persecuted which the crescent dragon chases to kill are mostly the Coptic Church, Ethiopian Church, Chaldean, Byzantine Church, Eastern Orthodox; Russian, Estonian, Greek, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Cypriot, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Latvian, Moldavian, Ukranian … and also Catholic; all these who suffered the yoke of Islam or Nazism (or even both).
How much did these other reformists suffer? Indeed, you find many Samaritans (Protestants) suffered, but this by no means proves that Samaritanism is true, does it?
Mary therefore, is to be emulated by all virtuous women. She housed all divinity and all humanity in her womb. This is called the hypostatic union. Jesus was all divinity and all humanity. Such humanity fully stems from Mary. This is no small issue to explain away, so how can the fools explain away so much or to say that some verses are “none essential”?
To tell the mother who bore God “you are an incubator” and that “the flesh of God came from a woman stained with sin” is not only an insult to Mary, but also to God.
And while they argue that only the “essentials matter”, everyone should ask themselves: why denying such miracle as Guadalupe matters so much to the schismatics who quarrel with each other while crying for unity, especially that when such unity was dismantled by them? They love refuting Guadalupe or the Shroud of Turin from being miracles, yet they claim so many of their own miracles, with daily announcements of “God told me this” and “God showed me that” and “I have seen a vision”. They do these things without any scrutiny while they insist to scrutinize only the Orthodox. I am not saying that God cannot speak to people or that God will not show us miracles. But such miracles must be scrutinized, sort of like this: