You have entered into the promised land, though it must be fought for and occupied. By now, the enemy is aware of your entrance and is being pushed out of property that has been under his control. Your prayers are establishing God’s Kingdom here on earth and causing a bound person to become loosed. Your enemy is crafty but also defeated, and can only operate in darkness. In the bible, darkness is likened to ignorance. That’s why “The entrance of they word brings light”, Psalm 119:130. When you have knowledge of the Kingdom, you receive light in an area that was once darkened without that knowledge. And the enemy can only have power in a life so long as he can keep them from discovering his tricks.

Addiction and deception may have stolen years from you and your loved one. It may be your children, spouse, friend or relative. Buit you have continued to fight and believe despite the circumstances and the constant temptation to cut your losses and move on. If God spoke to you about this person, He cannot go back on His word. (There are times when we can become convinced of a thing we believe God said, although it was our own flesh, and we can be cloaked with a responsibility that He never assigned to us. I will address this at a later time.) But God’s word and His will are set for an appointed time in all things. The enemy can’t overwrite the King’s word. But he is permitted to manipulate circumstances.

In Joshua 9, the enemies of Israel had been falling one after another. They had all heard about this numerous people who had supernatural assistance of some kind, and their end was near. So a group of them had a meeting and planned a massive deception so that they would be permitted to remain in the land, and perhaps attack the Israelites at a later time.

God had previously instructed His people not to make any treaty with any foreign nation, especially those in the land He was giving to them. But a neighboring group called the Gibeonites prepared themselves to meet with Israel by gathering supplies of old and rotten provisions, so that when they finally met they would show Israel that they had come from a long way away, and that the supplies of food were fresh when they had left on their journey to meet. The Israelites fell for the trick, and without consulting with God, they decided to enter into a treaty with the Gibeonites and promise not to attack them.

I have personally experienced facing evidence that seemed to show that I had not actually heard from God correctly. Information had been presented to me as facts that proved I was on the wrong path. Even before this story in Joshua, Jacob had been presented with “evidence” that Jospeh was dead, because Joseph’s brothers had planted evidence and falsified a crime scene to prove their story. Jacob believed this false evidence for more than 20 years!

If you are confident that God has called you to this task, do not waver in the face of “new evidence”, without first checking with God. He does have the right to change your direction. But when you are aware that the enemy also uses his tricks to manipulate your trust in God, he will try and exploit that as a weakness. Trust God to keep you advised of the traps of the enemy.