Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

Hebrews 10:38 KJV

In the beginning, God created man and placed him in Eden.  He was assigned the job of subduing the Earth.  After the fall, things changed, and things were changed.  God told the man, “By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19).

It was by the sweat of the brow that Adam was told that he would eat his food after the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had been eaten.  It would be with thorns and thistles and hardship all the days of his life.  And in the end, as God has originally warned him, he would die (Genesis 2:17).

The Law was not faith.  Paul said,

But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.

Galatians 3:11 KJV

Again, Paul indicated faith.  It was faith wherein man must be justified.

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Romans 1:17

Abraham had demonstrated this life of faith (Genesis 15:6), and the prophets had prophesied it.

Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

Habakkuk 2:4

There was thousands and thousands of people on the Earth in the days of Noah.  It is said that there was a prophesy regarding Methuselah that when he died, calamity would come, and, when he did, then came the great flood.  But out of the thousands upon thousands that died in that flood, only eight were saved, Noah and his family.  He condemned the world by his faith.

In the days of Elijah, there were many widows in Israel, but the prophet was sent to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon.  In the days of Elisha, only Namaan was cleansed, although he nearly chose otherwise.  All of these people heard the Word of the Lord, and believed.

Those who walk justly can walk in faith, yet for those who do not, the way can be hard.  Just as Jesus said, many are called, but few are chosen.  The Lord desires that we walk in all of His integrity and honor as we deal with His most precious things.  As we touch and live in the realm of faith, and operate with the substance that connects us with the realm and power of Heaven, do we consider each one better than ourselves?  This is God’s justice.  Do we prize the Lord and the things of Heaven above all else?  This is His justice.

The promise of provision of the Sermon on the Mount is actually two parts.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Matthew 6:33

That is, both His Kingdom with its power, stability, and ability, and His righteousness, the same righteousness that both brought Jesus to the cross and raised Him back up.

You see, the two leavens warned against are directly in opposition to justice, or being just, the description of the man living in Faith.  The yeast of Pharisees which was hypocrisy and that of Herod, which was iniquity or lawlessness.  These both directly went against God’s justice, His righteousness.  To live a life that either says you are not in sin when you plainly are, or to simply say it does not matter call God a liar in His book.  Yet, it is that narrow road in the center, where sin is recognized, hated, and done away with through the power of the cross, that is where the Kingdom exists.

It is not the arm of the flesh, or the restrictions of the law.  But, it is faith to faith, glory to glory, strength to strength.  It is the eyes on the unseen, rather than the seen.  It is the delivering power of the blood, cleaved to beyond all else, so that you lose your life to find it, and finding it lose all you own.

Faith can either be easy or hard, depending on how you live it.  You can either love it or hate it.  In fact, it is said we will do one or the other.  The life of faith demands a certain way of life, and when lived, it is the lightest yoke, but it must be lived completely or not at all.

We can simply choose to hate the way this world operates.  We can chose to hate what we once loved, recognizing by faith what the Word says, that all that is in it is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.  We can simply count it all as dung, as Paul says.  Recognizing this, that we must hate one or the other, we can choose to hate what we see and learn to live by the Spirit.  It may or may not come easily at first, but the further we go along it, the easier it becomes.  As we decide from scripture that this is the preferred way, we will find ourselves enjoying it more and more, the cares of this life being challenged and falling away, and that we respond to faith above feeling.

The just shall live by faith.  Just as Adam was to live by the sweat of his brow, just as man shall not live by bread alone but by ever proceeding Word of God, the just shall live by faith.  It shall make them alive, and be life to them.

Though the soul of men may falter and fail in this Earth, and the seas of humanity real with corruption, when the enemy comes in, like a flood the Lord raises up a standard against them.

We shall live by faith.  It requires a just heart.  It requires a pure heart.