BEWARE of THESE TROJAN HORSES IN THIS SEASON
Right now, we are in a Nehemiah 4 season as the Church, but I want to share some prophetic insight that will take the veil off much of the demonic swirl taking place right now, while God is dealing with broken-down walls in nations and the Church.
Firstly, whenever you see this taking place on a global stage, you’ll notice that many of the forerunners and pioneers will actually go through this personally first. We’ll notice that the Lord is showing and revealing to us the areas that are broken down in our own lives or the areas that we need to fortify.
So, right now, the Lord is calling us into a personal Nehemiah 4:14.
It’s a calling into a place and a season that’s been happening for a while now. It’s a season of the Lord addressing our foundations and the areas that have been access points for the enemy, the broken-down gates and walls of our lives, our marriages, families, and destinies.
And so I write this with a real and deep humility, even a brokenness before the Lord, because I believe that even as Christy and I, our family, and our ministry have been experiencing this right now, we are tasting the deep re-foundationing that always comes before a massive shift or leveling up.
THE DEEP PRUNING
Are you going through this?
It can initially feel like things are falling apart and breaking down around you.
It feels as if the cracks are instead like chasms, and you suddenly see only rubble.
It feels like all you can see are issues surfacing - broken places and areas in the wall you didn’t see before.
It can feel like judgment and condemnation.
You may even say, “Have I missed it? Have I done something wrong? Is this the judgment of the Lord?” But really, it’s actually the Lord, in His love, His kindness, and His mercy, bringing you into this.
John 15 speaks about God pruning.
If this resonates with you, then you are in His pruning right now…
“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you,” John 15:2-3
So there are two sides to it. It’s where the Lord actually cuts off that which is not needed and is not fruitful, and then there are the areas where the Lord prunes that are fruitful so that they can grow more. But in that process, it can actually feel like an attack by the enemy, right?
Which means that we need to learn how to distinguish and discern between the two.
Back to the pruning. I see it so differently these days. It’s the protection of the Lord, so we don’t keep falling into the traps the enemy keeps planting at our feet.
I remember when, a few months ago, Christy and I trimmed back our tomato plant after a disease attacked it. We discovered that there was a whole bunch of ripe tomatoes underneath that we hadn’t seen!
Pruning brings sight. Clarity. Sharpness.
It’s where you suddenly feel a change of desire and appetite for certain things you were once doing, but it’s just because the Lord’s really wanting to make sure that you’re not too attached in your identity around the things you’ve been doing, so that they are simply a function, not your identity.
He really wants to make sure that He is the foundation of your life. He wants to make sure that intimacy with Him is the main thing, so you don’t fall.
It’s burnout prevention, which is a massive epidemic in the body of Christ, especially among leaders.
There is a lot of testing in this as well. He’ll pressure test the points of your life, almost like a mechanic doing a test on a car’s wellbeing to make sure that it’s working properly. It’s a season where God is doing a tune-up on us, and that’s how it feels.
THE ATTACK DURING CONSTRUCTION
However, there’s also the other process that happens where the enemy will attack us in the midst of that pruning process.
And when he does, it instantly feels like a swirl descends. Confusion comes. You feel foggy-minded.
It feels muddy, and it becomes even harder to know how to distinguish between the Lord pruning us and the enemy trying to rob us.
So in a lot of these seasons, it feels like robbery comes in the same package. And we need to learn how to distinguish and discern those, so we can come above them and not accept them.
Hosea 4:6 says that we perish because of a lack of knowledge, and thus is one of those situations where lack of discernment can destroy us.
I can look at my own life, and I can see where I’ve actually accepted and allowed things because I felt like a pruning from the Lord.
And so we can make so many mistakes in this process;
Firstly, we can reject all of it, and we can fight against the Holy Spirit, and then it leaves us open to attack later on because our walls are down, because we don’t lean into the Lord pruning us and fixing things up that need to be fixed.
Or the other thing we can do is accept everything that’s happening, including the enemy robbing us. And so with that, the process of pruning comes with a horrific level of robbery, which we end up falling into disillusionment with the Lord and discouragement. “God, why did this pruning actually take me out? Why did this actually assassinate me? Why did this rob my calling and my destiny?” When the Lord was never actually part of it.
Sound like any season of your life?
We need to up our discernment in this season.
YOUR PERSONAL NEHEMIAH 4:14 SEASON
But now to the meat of this word.
I heard the Lord say that many are in a personal Nehemiah 4 and 4:14 right now.
“After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” Nehemiah 4:14
What does this mean?
The blueprint of the Acts 2 Church is family, and right now God is leading the Church back to family.
So family is the real threat because it is the foundation for what God’s about to do in the days to come.
The Church is no longer the institution, the mega network, or even a set of theological rules and protocols. The foundation of the Church is family.
And so right now, God has moved the ark back to that rightful place, which is why we are seeing God calling us to rebuild the broken-down places, such as marriages, relationships, prodigals, and raising up healthy again within the body of Christ.
It’s where we are seeing God going to the roots of relationships in marriages and making sure that everything is going to last this next season. Because of what I believe is about to come, we’re going to need to be strong in that core area.
It’s a clarion call right now back to family. And God is strengthening those areas that have fallen and broken down. That’s why there’s been so much pressure on those points.
That’s why there’s been so much testing. That’s why there’s just been so much warring against it in so many different ways.
God is pruning and resetting the foundations of our families, as well as within us personally and internally.
And we can see that in our own lives, where it’s been very intense.
God is levelling us up, but it can only come by Him fixing the things that are broken and falling down.
THE WAR ON YOUR REBUILDING
Now, in Nehemiah 4, we see a prophetic picture of the Church (us) being rebuilt as Nehemiah leads the charge to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Nehemiah steps into his divine assignment to restore what had been torn down, and opposition immediately rises through Sanballat and Tobiah.
These two men spiritually represent the assignments and types of opposition that come subtly and persistently to undermine the work of God through distraction, fear, and manipulation.
Their strategy wasn’t to confront with force but with mockery, discouragement, false accusation, psychological warfare, and ultimately infiltration.
Sanballat mocks Nehemiah’s work, questioning its legitimacy and strength: “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall?” - Nehemiah 4:2
This spirit is the same spirit that many are encountering in this prophetic season, which targets your calling, obedience, and the progress you’re making.
It sounds like doubt, often coming from familiar voices, even those within the Church, who are unknowingly echoing the agenda of the enemy.
Tobiah then says, “What are they building? Even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!” - Nehemiah 4:3
This is the assignment of ridicule and intimidation intended to halt the rebuilding before it can fully begin.
Can you see the trend? Right now, many are experiencing a “Nehemiah 4 moment,” where they are personally rebuilding the broken walls of their lives, marriages, families, ministries, and foundations, yet just like Nehemiah, they’re facing a swirl of confusion, criticism, and spiritual opposition not from outside the camp but from within.
The enemy is deploying Trojan horses, subtle, familiar, seemingly “safe” voices, even cloaked in prophetic language, that actually carry poison.
These are false prophetic words, twisted truths, fear-based counsel, and religious logic that appear helpful but are designed to gain access past your fortified gates.
In the ancient Greek tale, the Trojan horse was accepted because it appeared to be a gift.
IT’S NOT A GIFT, IT’S A SNAKE!
Now, before I continue, let me share what happened a few weeks ago before I lost my voice.
I had a dream there was a snake at my feet, and I shook it off and shooed it away.
The same night, Ava had the same dream about a snake near her and me.
That same night, Christy dreamt a snake was trying to come at me.
The same night, our friend had a dream that snakes were coming to distract me from my calling and rob my voice.
Paul shook the snake off into the fire, and we need to do the same right now. BUT we have been too used to accepting everything and allowing everyone access to us, and this is straight-up witchcraft.
Let me say it like this - in the swirl of this season, many are being tempted to open their spiritual gates to words or influences that sound right but are not from the Spirit of God.
These words may come from well-meaning people or those carrying unresolved offense, fear, or control.
It may even come as dreams, visions, or impressions that carry just enough truth to sound credible. But embedded within them is spiritual sabotage intended to dismantle what you’re rebuilding by attacking your identity, derailing your assignment, or polluting your discernment.
This is why discernment is critical.
Nehemiah’s response was not to argue with Sanballat and Tobiah. He didn’t entertain distraction, instead he posted guards, he fortified the vulnerable places, and he kept building with one hand on the work and the other on the sword.
That is the strategy for this season. The enemy’s goal is not just to distract you from your post it’s to get inside the walls and pollute what you’re building. The moment you allow the wrong voices in, your spiritual gates are compromised.
This “Trojan horse tactic” is especially potent because it’s wrapped in familiarity.
The enemy uses people you know, voices you’ve trusted, or even your own past disappointments to try to gain access. That’s why many are feeling spiritual confusion, oppression, and emotional instability.
It’s a spiritual interference sent to derail the work. But just like Nehemiah, this is a moment not to retreat, but to double down in prayer, sharpen discernment, close every gate to compromise, and continue rebuilding.
God is exposing compromised voices, false alignments, and anything that could sabotage what He’s building in and through you.
This is not the time to seek validation from the crowd; this is a moment the Lord is calling His builders to listen only to His voice and be ruthless with what is allowed inside their gates.
Nehemiah didn’t stop the work in the noise, but rather discerned and pressed on. That is the prophetic pattern for this kind of attack.
THE VOICE OF THE FATHER IS CRITICAL
Now, I want to just give you a few more warnings in this as well. Because, like I said, the enemy likes to hijack anything that God is doing. I’ve said this for years: anywhere there’s something pure, there’s going to be Jezebel nearby trying to counteract it or to be the counterfeit voice in a moment like that, to drain and take away what God’s trying to do.
Okay, so right now, you’ll notice there’s going to be two main distinct voices in the midst of your process.
Now, I’m going to try to help you distinguish between the two. You ready?
There’s going to be the voice that’s unto redemption and the Lord saying, “Hey, these walls are broken down, let’s fix them.” It doesn’t come with condemnation, fear, or judgment. It comes with the Father-heart of God. It comes with redemption, healing, promise, and hope. It’s still confrontational. It’s still pruning. But it comes with the Father’s voice.
The other voice in this process is condemnation. It’s fear. It’s judgment. It’s slander. It’s chatter. It’s just this swirl of witchcraft and mess.
That’s how we discern and foil the enemy’s plans.
We have to see clearly even the things that are hidden, and right now, so much is hidden behind illusions of religiosity in the spirit, but it’s control and manipulation.
It’s a moment where we have a minefield before us, and not everything can be trusted at face value. We have to dig deeper.
These seasons are witchcrafty and multi-layered in pretense and hidden agendas, trying to trip us up and derail us from the call.
The question is, what are you going to let in?
Praying this week that you step into a new level of discernment and wisdom and rise up above the noise so God can set your foundations for the days ahead in Jesus’ name.