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The Truth and the Lie are real persons | Adventures in the Supernatural | Spiritual Warfare on Ground

A real story of a manifestation of a territorial demonic entity, which didn't end well for him


The snake, the Deceiver and the Power of GOD - Barbara Popadić Štravs - Prophetic Scripts
The snake, the Deceiver and the Power of GOD - Barbara Popadić Štravs - Prophetic Scripts


The Demon on Debni Vrh, the Spiritual Warfare that followed and the Essence of the Lie


During my studies, I lived for a while in a rented, almost underground apartment in Zalog, a small suburb near Ljubljana, Slovenia. One summer morning, my friend Jana and I, just like many times before and after, went for a walk to Debni Vrh, a nearby hill. It had become a kind of routine to chase away the summer boredom. Had I been alone, I probably would have gone to old Ljubljana for coffee and people-watching, but Jana, who lived nearby, loved nature walks. So, during that season, I wandered all around the surrounding hills, gorges, and streams. So Debni Vrh, as usual.


Around 11 a.m., we were returning along a narrow footpath winding through the forest, and suddenly, we both stopped, looked at each other, and said at once: "What was that?" We turned back, took a few steps, and stared in disbelief for a long time at the creature before us, through which we had just walked. Yes, walked through. Because our minds were unable to process what we saw, we turned again toward the valley and a few seconds later looked at each other again and took a deep breath.


“No, we can’t just ignore this.”“What do you see?” I asked her, silently hoping I was right. Because if I wasn’t, it would just be another boring day.“No, you tell me what you see,” she said, completely stunned.“Okay, I see...” — the thing in front of us was also listening — “I see a demonic entity, about four meters tall and quite bulky, with a snake slithering at its feet.”Then everything’s fine,” Jana replied, “because I see the same thing.”


We stood about ten meters from it. C. S. Lewis once wrote that the devil's greatest trick is convincing people he doesn’t exist. And that’s exactly how I felt in that moment — almost, but not entirely, fooled. Even though God had opened our spiritual eyes to see it, the demon almost convinced us it wasn't real. The devil is the father of lies.


The Lie Is and Is Not


“So, what now?” I said more to myself than to Jana. At that moment, I heard the raspy, militant voice of evangelist Morris Cerullo, whom I had heard preaching in London a month earlier:“If you don’t conquer the territory, the devil will do it instead of you!”“Jana,” I said, “I think we have to act.”Jana immediately agreed, as if she already knew what I was thinking: “He's just a blind fool ( a type of snake that is not poisonus), right?” she added.


We rushed into the area of the demonic entity and began praying in tongues, walking back and forth, while the snake started wildly darting between our feet. Even now, I don’t understand why that didn’t bother or frighten us — not at all. I can only explain it by saying the experience was supernatural and you just don’t think rationally in such moments.


When we stepped into the territory of the spiritual entity, it was as if we had entered the most disgusting, blackish, slimy, foul-smelling, wicked — and I ran out of words — puddle of living mud. But if the preacher said no territory should be left to the devil, then the time for battle had come.


And if the demon was foolish enough to first manifest and then try to convince us it wasn’t there — to us, two overly enthusiastic, still quite green, wannabe fanatical demon-slayers, who had been bored for weeks because nothing was happening, and who were entirely convinced that the name of Jesus has power over every force of darkness and that this was certainly the day God had given us full authority in Jesus’ name over the powers of darkness — well, that was his problem.


We prayed — no, we shouted in tongues — for several minutes. Suddenly, the snake fled, and the demonic entity disappeared. God's glory descended on us, and we started shouting and dancing in a circle as if we had just won the world boxing championship.


“He wasn’t a blind fool type, it was a poisonous snake,” I said, and Jana smirked, “Yeah, blind fools are small and don’t have a zigzag tattoo on their heads.” We became very quiet.


At that moment, a startled hiker passed by, probably having heard the incomprehensible shouting minutes earlier. We greeted him with innocent faces and ran down into the valley.


We concluded that we had encountered a territorial demon ruling over that remote area. Jana told me many strange things had happened in those woods, certainly the result of demonic activity, and she was convinced they wouldn’t happen again.


I remembered the books by Carlos Castaneda, which I had read before meeting Jesus and converting. In them, he described in detail the spirits accompanied by animals to which Native American shamans submitted in their pursuit of power. But what happened didn’t take place in some South American jungle, but on Debni Vrh one summer afternoon.


The Illusion of Goodness in All Things Spiritual


We live in an area where few people are aware of the reality and danger of tampering with the spiritual world and the influence it can have on the unredeemed person.


The first commandment of God says: “You shall have no other gods before me. Do not serve them or worship them,” yet people deceive themselves into believing that all spiritual things are good, and they believe that all religions worship the same god under different names — supposedly revealed differently to each.


If a little god named Johnny traveled around and introduced himself by a different name in every place — or better yet: once claimed he was a monkey named Johnny, then a white snake, or perhaps a great white elephant — no, no, a stone fallen from the sky — he’d probably be sent for observation, perhaps diagnosed with schizophrenia and multiple personalities.


Johnny would be left with no choice but to admit that he actually has no identity, that he’s merely energy, not a person. That way he could avoid the diagnosis, prolonged stay in a not-so-loving institution, and no one would think him strange anymore — because you can’t really accuse energy of anything.


Only One Truth, Many Lies


If Johnny learned nothing and maliciously — you know — stole coins from a sock drawer, exploited the gullible, and sold his many personalities neatly stored in jam jars, oh, then we could truly call him a great and brazen liar.


But a liar can only be exposed by a mediator — someone who is neither a deceiver nor deceived.

And that’s where it gets tricky. Because the more people sink into deception, the more aggressive they become toward anyone trying to tell them the truth.


Jesus named the devil: the father of lies.He also named Himself: “I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to my voice.”Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” (John 18:37b-38).


Jesus said about HIMSELF that He is the Truth — exclusively — the truth about every person and about everything.


Because through Him all things were created — things in heaven and on earth — because in Him are all worlds.


He is the only truth that opens your eyes, that can expose deception, and the only one who can give you strength and support to endure that revelation.


The unveiling of truth is the final judgment, which cannot be in the domain of man, since even earthly courts never determine the truth itself — they judge based on the evidence presented.

Whoever imagines they can judge the truth itself would think themselves god.


“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in God.” (John 3:19-21)


The Secret of the Beast That Was, Is Not, and Will Come


By its nature, there can be only one Truth — and by its nature, there can be many Lies. There are not many truths and only one lie.


And that’s exactly what the opponents of undiluted Christianity claim. Because if there are many truths, then Christianity must be the one lie.How convenient for the person with tightly shut eyes.


As I sit now on a slightly bumpy airplane — we are returning from a holiday in Crete, which was once notorious as a den of liars and pirates — I can’t help but mention Epimenides, whom the Apostle Paul called a prophet of lies:


“One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: ‘Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.’ This saying is true.” (Titus 1:12)


Philosophical musings labeled Paul as religiously naive, and cinema made an android from Star Wars lose his mind, both supposedly unable to comprehend the Epimenides paradox — the most famous of all paradoxes.


The android’s hyper-literal thinking fried its AI brain, and Paul was supposedly incapable of logical reasoning.


Because what exalts itself above the truth is, in this case, logic.


The rule that an argument is invalid if it’s not logical has subtly clouded our intellectual capacity to perceive reality.


It has shut the eyes of our understanding and yoked our thoughts to the axioms of lies on which we build logical illusions.


I AM and I Am Not – The Two most important Names we must know


“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers...” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4a)


The eyes of the mind do not see consistently — freedom of thought is three-dimensional, with volume, not just surface.


And because lie upon lie does not equal truth, and lie upon lie does not bring truth,and if a lie claims it lies, and the lie says: “I DO NOT EXIST”...


We reach the essence of the lie — the Beast, which was, is not, and will come.

“But the angel said to me: ‘Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery... of the beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life... will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come. This calls for a mind with wisdom.’” (Revelation 17:7-11)


God revealed Himself by the name I AM (see Exodus 3:13–15).


“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8)


I AM and I AM NOT are personal names.

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