Audio first posted: October 17, 2026
Below is a machine-generated transcript of the The just shall live by faith - Part 3 audio word, with a few minor manual edits. At the bottom, after the transcript, is a machine-generated summary of the transcript.
| Hello, in this audio, we'd like to continue meditating on Habakkuk chapter 2. We've been here because we started in Galatians 3:11, where the Lord says that the just shall live by faith. And then we saw that the just shall live by faith all appears originally in Habakkuk chapter 2 in verse 4. | |
| So after going through some parts of Galatians 3, we were led to come to Habakkuk to see what the Lord says around the verse that says that the just shall live by faith, to get the context of what God means when He uses a phrase like that. And we began to see that | |
| The chapter, after referring to that phrase, that Joshua lived by his faith, begins to declare five woes. And each woe has to do with one of the ministerial endowments being corrupted. | |
| So there are five endowments, as we all know, from Ephesians 4:11, the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher. And when those get corrupted, as we've seen on the Shamah-Elim website, they turn into the Jebusite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Girgashite. So each woe has to do with one of those evil spirits. | |
| And when we look at each of the woes, we get a sense of what is wrong with people who exercise that endowment when it's corrupted. | |
| And we saw that, for example, in Habakkuk 2:4, it says, Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him, but the judge shall live by his faith. So that, as we shared before, that shows that faith is being contrasted with sin. | |
| And what is sin? When the soul is exalted above the spirit. That's why the first part of that verse, Habakkuk 2:4 says, Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him, but that just shall live by his faith. So that's the contrast. So living by faith is living in the spirit. You make the decision to abide in the spirit. And then when you connect to the new man, the new inner man that God has put in you when you were born again, then | |
| Everything that flows out of you is righteousness and spirit-centric. But when you don't live by faith, | |
| when you disconnect from that state of being listening, in a state of listening to God, because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word. So living by faith means that you're on that watchtower that God refers to at the beginning of Habakkuk 2, where you're in a state of attentiveness. You are... | |
| On standby, shall we say, to hearing the voice of the Spirit and God speaking to you, and then you acting on what you hear. So if you are in that state of faith, then everything that flows out of you is in righteousness. But when you don't abide in that state, then what happens is your soul begins to exalt itself. | |
| Above the spirit and that's when you're not living in faith so | |
| So all the woes that are in Habakkuk 2 are in that context of when the soul decides, I will dominate over my spirit and over the things of the spirit, then you start taking the five endowments, the five gifts or endowments that God can give man and can give to you, and you start to misuse them. | |
| And then that's why the Lord is giving the five woes. In other words, showing how pathetic or how woeful it is when the soul takes control of each of the endowments and what it looks like in the spirit. So the first woe that we saw in the previous audio work had to do with what happens when | |
| when the soul exalts itself and then takes over the evangelistic endowment. And we saw how empty it is, how it ends up charging you with debt. It's like you become, you have a glory from your conquests, your evangelistic conquests, but they all come with a bill. | |
| that you owe and you start piling on debt | |
| So those were some of the things that we saw. We saw also that when you're an evangelist whose soul is in control of the spirit instead of the other way around, then you become the victim of betrayal. You get enticed into this conquest and that conquest thinking you will finally be satisfied once you've finally conquered this, that or the other. | |
| And when you conquer it, it proves to be a traitor. | |
| to not fulfill its promise and you end up dissatisfied and then you need to conquer more and conquer more. And then you become, as it says in verse five, you enlarge your soul as hell and as death cannot be satisfied. So there's an emptiness in it. And the more you conquer, | |
| The more debt you pile up, you end up owing and owing and owing more until eventually it will break you. And we gave the example of Napoleon. Napoleon, the way he just kept wanting to conquer more and more and more. And eventually all that empty pursuit of glory betrayed him and he ended up being nothing. | |
| And the other thing that's important to keep in mind as we're reading this is the Lord is talking about living by faith. I mean, that's Habakkuk 2:4, the just shall live by his faith. But notice that when you read Habakkuk, it's not talking about using your faith to get this or to get that, to get the other. The way that the gospel of grace people says, | |
| of soulish grace people, the way they portray faith, that faith is a tool to get something for your soul. But that's just the very point, that if you're living like that, then you're not living by faith, then your soul is in control over the spirit. So the examples, everything that God says in Habakkuk 2 has nothing to do with what people tend to associate with living by faith. | |
| Not that there's anything wrong in having faith to receive something like a healing or some financial relief or whatever. There is a place for that. But that's not the central point. | |
| And you can see it in Habakkuk too, that there's no talk about that at all. So what is the focus? And the focus, we have to go back to the beginning of verse 4, when it says, Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him. So again, it's... | |
| The person who lives in faith stands in opposition to the person who exalts his soul. So the soul wants to dominate. The soul wants to conquer when you're not in faith. And when you're in faith, it's the opposite. You become the enemy. | |
| or the opponent of that. And as you may recall, the word lifted up or the phrase lifted up in Habakkuk 2:4, I believe was the word aphal in Hebrew. And that word aphal is so peculiar that God only uses it one more time in all of Scripture. And it was in Numbers 14:44, I believe, where it talks about the people of Israel lifting themselves up to go to battle to take the promised land. | |
| But it was after they had not believed God, they had shown lack of faith, when God told them, go take the land, they said, no, the enemies are too strong, we'll never win. And then God said, okay, then you're cursed to wander in the wilderness until you die off. And when they heard that, they said, okay, we'll go. | |
| And take the land and God said no, I told you no, you don't trust me You cannot take the land with that attitude. I know you never you're never going to trust me You're going to die in the wilderness, but they said no we'll go and Moses said God will not go with you in the Ark of the Covenant stayed back and Moses stayed back and that was a figure | |
| of them going to take the promised land without God. | |
| In other words, we don't care what God says. We're going to do it anyway. So they went in conquest mode, but it was without God. And the enemies, the Amalekites and the Canaanites, beat them back pretty badly. And they realized, no, without God, we'll never take the promised land. And they just ended up murmuring and complaining until they died. So everything here is in the context of conquest. | |
| kingdom and that's the key to understanding living by faith it's about the kingdom of God about God establishing the establishment of God's kingship on the earth that's what matters that's what a person who lives by faith is centered upon and the whole thing the whole chapter of Habakkuk 2 is focused on that and | |
| So it starts with the woe against the soul that misuses the evangelistic endowment to exalt itself. And the thing is, it's given us an example so that we won't do the same thing, so that we won't misuse the evangelistic endowment because we'll see, oh, this is how you end up. But the other thing, the other reason I believe in my heart that God put this here is so that we can use this | |
| in warfare, in spiritual warfare. So we can use the woe against the evangelistic endowment to release judgment word against those that we see out there or that we perceive in the spirit. It can be like somebody literal that you're | |
| That has come across the path of your life or it can be someone that you don't know, that you perceive out there in the spirit as you're in prayer. But the thing is that you can apply this woe against those who are misusing the evangelistic endowment. So you start declaring these things against them. | |
| Like, for example, so we'll read the woe again. Let's see where it starts. In verse 6, that's the first woe. Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his. How long? And to him that ladeth himself with thick clay. But that's a mistranslation. We saw that it really says to burden himself or weigh himself with debt. If I'm not mistaken, let's see the... | |
| ESV quickly. I'll read it from the ESV, the second part of verse 6 of Habakkuk 2. Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own for how long and loads himself with pledges. | |
| Okay, so I'll go back to the King James Version. So in verse 7 of Habakkuk 2, it says, Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? Verse 8, Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnants of the people shall spoil thee because of men's blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein. So you can declare these words | |
| These words in judgment against those who are misusing the evangelistic endowment because they allow their souls to take over that endowment and use it to conquer for the wrong reasons. | |
| And then, so that was the first woe. The second woe starts in verse 9, Habakkuk 2. It says, "...woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil." | |
| So then the question becomes, okay, what endowment is being talked about here? And when you read it, I believe there are two things that kind of give you the clue to what endowment God is speaking to. Like the part that says that he may set his nest on high. So it's someone who is trying to rise above the ground and live high above the ground. | |
| And then that is a person who wants to be delivered from the power of evil. And the word evil there, and again, this is a word that confuses a lot because when we translate it in English, when we say evil, we think of moral evil, like good versus evil. But that's not what the word here is in the Hebrew. Evil, when you see it in the English translation, is often translated from the Hebrew word ra. | |
| And ra means, yeah, it doesn't mean evil, but it's evil in the sense of something that brings trouble and heartache and difficulty. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that there are parts in Scripture, in the Hebrew text of Scripture, that say that God does evil to people. And obviously, He does not do moral evil because God does not sin. | |
| So when it says that God does evil to someone, it means that God brings sorrow and trouble and heartache and difficulty to that person. So Ra has this connotation of things that are burdensome, troublesome, and wearying. And all of that's connected to the Girgashite spirit. | |
| The Girgashite spirit is the one that brings trouble and weariness. As we've shared before, the Girgashite spirit is the one connected to the spirit of being a workaholic. It's a person who just obsesses with natural things and is just wearied with all this effort. That's why the Lord, when he cursed God, | |
| Man said that he would live by the sweat of his brow, even though it says nostrils instead of brow. But the idea is that you'll be working and sweating and toiling. And all of that is ra, is trouble, weariness. So in a certain sense, evil or ra connects to earthliness. | |
| and to the material. So then, it's someone who's trying to escape from the power of the weariness brought on by the material, the visible, the earthly. So there are two things. It's someone who's trying to rise from above the ground and be up on high. And then it's someone who's trying to escape from the weariness and just... | |
| I don't know the words, torment and toil of the material and the visible. So if you put those two things together and say, okay, what endowment kind of fits with those things, then you have to go with the prophetic endowment. Because the prophetic endowment is the one that tries to elevate you from the ground. It's like it turns you into a flying being, a bird, an eagle, who is not bound to the earth. | |
| And can fly in the sky. And it makes even more sense when you think about the prophet and the weariness part. Because the prophet is worried about spiritual things. | |
| The Girgashite, who is like the very opposite of a prophet, is always thinking about, okay, I need to work to pay the rent and do this and do that and do the other. And not that there's anything wrong with working to pay the rent and buy food and all that. But the Girgashite gets caught up in that. His whole world revolves around the material. | |
| About around the earthly and the prophet starts thinking lofty thoughts and things in the spirit things on high that are above the ground about above the natural realm if that makes sense So the prophet is the one who tries to get away from the thorns in the | |
| thistles or whatever you want to call it, of the earthly realm that kind of bind you up. It's like getting caught in the shrubs, in the shrubbery. I don't know how to explain it. You get caught up by things on the ground that are binding you to the ground, that bind your feet and keep you entangled in earthly things. | |
| And the prophet tries to escape from the power of that entanglement. So you can see, oh, it's the prophetic endowment that God's referring to. But the thing is that this endowment is trying to fly on high, set its nest on high and escape from the entanglement of materialism and the earthliness. | |
| but it's doing it by what? It says here in the translation, by coveting an evil covetousness. | |
| And it doesn't really make much sense when you read it like that, especially the word covet. There, at least to me, it just confuses me because it gets me thinking about something else. Because I usually associate covetousness with the Girgashite spirit. But this is someone who's trying to escape from the Girgashite spirit. | |
| or from something akin to the Girgashites, to the material, to the earthly. So the word in Hebrew there, when it says coveteth, an evil covetousness, the word coveteth was translated from the verb batsa, and covetousness was translated from the noun betsa. So it's kind of the same word, almost the same word in Hebrew. One I would dare say is kind of like the verb, | |
| form and the other one is the noun form. So the verb form is Betsa, which they translated as covet, and covetousness is Betsa. Sorry, Batsa and Betsa. So Batsa is to covet and Betsa is covetousness, at least as they are translating it here. But the curious thing is that Batsa literally means to cut off or to break off. | |
| And, okay, so, and Betsa, let me go look at it right now. Betsa means profit or unjust gain or profit acquired by violence. That's how they translate it. So... | |
| Let's see, I'll do a search right now. I thought I had done it already, but of the two words, Batsa and Betsa together to see how many times they appear in Scripture in the same verse. So I'm going to do that right now. And so let's read some of the verses where God uses Batsa and Betsa together and we'll get like an even greater sense of what God is talking about. | |
| So what are we looking at? We're looking at the second woe of Habakkuk that seems to be pointing to a soul misusing the prophetic endowment. And the question is, how can a soul misuse the prophetic endowment? How does that manifest itself? And it manifests itself... | |
| according to that woe, in coveting evil covetousness. But we'll have to understand what that really means because the translation kind of messes up what the Lord is saying there, I would dare say. So the two words, batsa and betsa, covet, covetousness, those two words appear together in only six verses of Scripture, only six. And Habakkuk 2:9 is the last one. | |
| The first time that the two appear together is in Proverbs 1:19. And it says, Okay, so it's something that takes away the life of the owners. Okay, and... | |
| And the next time that the two words appear together, Batsa and Betsa, is Proverbs 15:27. He that is greedy of gain, Batsa Betsa, troubleth his own house, but he that hateth gifts shall live. Okay, so then the next time that the two are used together is Jeremiah 6:13. It says, For from the least of them, even unto the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness. Batsa Betsa. | |
| And from the prophet, even unto the priest, everyone dealeth falsely. And that's where you start getting the hint. At least I started getting a hint of what Batsa Betsa refers to. And notice it refers, it speaks about the prophet. It mentions the prophet. And that confirms what we were saying earlier about how this is related to the prophetic endowment. | |
| So I'll read it one more time, Jeremiah 6:13. For from the least of them, even unto the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness, batsa betsa. And from the prophet, even unto the priest, everyone dealeth falsely. So it has to do with dealing falsely. And a prophet dealing falsely. Okay, so then the next time that batsa and betsa are together, the fourth time is Jeremiah 8:10. | |
| And it says, So notice again, the prophet is mentioned. Um... | |
| And the priest is also mentioned, but there's a reason why it's mentioned here. But to avoid going into that tangent, the priest, we shared on the website, is eminently connected to the evangelistic, but it also has a connection to the prophetic. And I believe that the word priest here is mentioned here because of the prophet. And that's why the prophet is mentioned first. It's like the priest, when he's acting prophetically, | |
| becomes part of this, if that makes any sense. So, again, Batsa Betsa are connected to the prophetic and to dealing falsely. | |
| Okay, so then the next time that Batsa and Betsa are used together is in Ezekiel 22:27. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood and to destroy souls to get dishonest gain to Batsa Betsa. So... | |
| So it's talking about someone who sheds blood and destroys souls. And now I'm curious to see what the word for destroy is there. It's Ezekiel 22:27. So the word for destroy is abad and souls are nephesh. And abad, that kind of reminds me of the word abaddon. Abaddon. | |
| And I'll be frank, I don't remember where I've seen that before. I know it's in Scripture. And Abaddon makes me think of an abyss, like, bringing emptying devastation upon something. I am just looking up Abaddon, and there is an article on Wikipedia called Abaddon, and it says, The Hebrew term Abaddon meaning destruction or doom | |
| and its Greek equivalent Apollyon, meaning destroyer, appear in the Bible as both a place of destruction and an angel of the abyss. Oh, okay, yeah, there we go. That's why I had this, the word has this feeling of an abyss, like a big empty hole. In the Hebrew Bible, Abaddon is used with reference to a bottomless pit. Oh, there we go. Often appearing alongside the place Sheol, meaning the resting place of the dead. | |
| So, as you can see, destroying the soul has a very Hittite connotation to it. The Hittite spirit is the prophet gone bad. And the Hittite spirit, as we've shared on the website, is a spirit of emptiness. | |
| It's the spirit of Sheol, of Sheol emptiness. So when it says in Ezekiel 22:27, to destroy souls, it is to bring Hittite emptiness to souls, to devastate them emotionally and bring emptiness into them. That's what the Hittite spirit does. That's what a prophet can also do when acting on God's behalf. | |
| if he or she is doing it in righteousness, but if it's a Hittite, then it's unrighteous destruction of souls, bringing emptiness, devastation, and purposelessness, and I don't know how to explain it, just this lack of purpose, just emptiness upon souls. | |
| So it all sounds very prophetic. Very prophetic and also very Hittite. And so that's connected to Batta Betta. It is actions that bring devastation to the soul. Emptiness to the soul. And it has to do with dealing falsely. So it means... | |
| And obviously falsely, the spirit of falsehood, the Hittite spirit is a spirit of falsehood because it, as we've shared, it's a spirit of deception. So obviously it has to do with falsehood. So it's someone who acts with deception, dealing falsely. | |
| And someone who has no problem causing devastation, emotional devastation and emptiness to other souls. And if you think about it, like if you start building it in your mind, okay, when have I seen that sort of behavior? At least when I think about it, one of the first things that come to me is people who rob others. If you've ever been robbed, | |
| you know how emptying and violating it is. If someone comes and takes your stuff at gunpoint or whatever, and they take your stuff, aside from the fact that they just took your money, there's a sense of emptiness. I don't know how to explain it. | |
| It is like you feel void, like they took something from your soul. | |
| Like they abode your nephesh, as it says in Ezekiel 22:27. So they bring abaddon, some sort of emptiness to your soul. And also, like if they take a lot of money from you and you need the money for something, then the emptiness comes and the depression. Oh, how will I pay my bills and this and that and the other. So it does take something from you. | |
| And the robber at gunpoint, he doesn't care if he's devastating your soul. If he takes your life savings and leaves you with no hope for the future, with emptiness and hopelessness, he doesn't care. He's just dealing falsely. Or a scammer, he doesn't care. He does deception and then he takes your savings. | |
| And leaves you with this sense of emptiness when you become aware of the evil that has been done against you. So that's how a person who misuses the prophetic endowment when his soul is exalted, that's how that person starts to behave. Like a robber who is... And why are they doing that? If you think about a robber coming at gunpoint to rob you, why are they doing that? | |
| Because to them, there's something in them that disdains the rigor of | |
| everyday life, you know, working for a living and having to go to work every day and work for eight, ten hours and then come home and go to sleep and wake up the next day and do the same thing. And they see that as ra, as evil, as toil and weariness and heartache, you know, constant | |
| Yeah, constant toil, toiling and all that. So they want to get away from all of that. And they want to put their nest on high and escape from the dread of all that drudgery. So what they do is to get their high, up high very quickly... | |
| They say, oh, I'm going to find a deceitful way to get what I want without having to go through the Girgashite toil of effort. And that's why they start robbing. | |
| And they know that robbing someone else means violating God's laws, violating God's principles, violating the rights of others, but they don't care anymore. They are willing to destroy another person's soul, to bring Abaddon, another person's nephesh, another person's soul, just so that they can escape from the drudgery of earthliness and the material. | |
| If that makes sense. And if you think about it, that's how liberals, the very radical leftists begin to think. | |
| They say, oh, we want to get away from the toil of that capitalist society where everybody has to work for a living and then no one can spend time doing arts and enjoying literature and doing cultural things because we're all just working every day for a living. And that's why they start scheming politics | |
| You know, ideas of how to have a society where people don't have to work to be able to eat and have clothing on their backs every day. So on this day, oh, let's just get money from the rich. Let's go steal from the rich and take from them. | |
| And then use that to redistribute it to everybody so that everybody can stop working so hard and can start enjoying the arts and literature and the cultural things, focusing on more lofty things. I hope that's making sense. That's kind of how the soul that has the prophetic endowment begins to see the world. | |
| and act. They start... So that coveting, the covetousness that... | |
| What were the words now? I forget. Batsa and Betsa. You know, that's what that's about. It's the prophetic trying to artificially, without regards for the laws of God, of the spirit, trying to artificially raise themselves above the weariness and toil of the material. So they start kind of cutting corners, you know, like doing shortcuts. | |
| Why am I going to go through the whole effort of doing it the right way? I'm just going to somehow find a shortcut and get to a state of happiness without the effort, without doing it in righteousness. And that's what this, I believe this woe is about. Okay. | |
| Oh, by the way, sorry, going back to Exodus 22, we had just read verse 27. I was clicking the back button and I realized, oh, I saw something. And I felt the Lord kind of saying that we do have to read it very quickly. So I'm going to read... | |
| Verse 27 on down, a few verses down. So Ezekiel 22:27 said, And then verse 28, | |
| So notice again, prophets. And then suddenly God talks about prophets. So this is connected to the prophetic endowment. | |
| And then it says, you know, seeing vanity. So they're falling into emptiness. And the thing is the prophet becomes susceptible to hearing voices of Hittite spirits validating their beliefs. | |
| you know, of how to cut corners, do shortcuts to get to that high place without going through the laws of God, if that makes sense. So that's why the liberals start hearing Hittite spirits of socialism and communism telling them, oh, this is the way, this is the way to achieve that goal. | |
| And they start proclaiming it prophetically as if it was true. And sadly, they themselves start believing it, that it's true. They convince themselves because they hear these voices that are validating their desires. And because they have a prophetic endowment, they think they're hearing the truth. So they start, as it says here, seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God when the Lord hath not spoken. | |
| And then verse 29 of Ezekiel 22 says, the people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Notice robbery, the thing we've been talking about, and have vexed the poor and needy. Yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. | |
| And then verse 30, And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it, but I found none. And then verse 31, Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. Their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord. So... | |
| So the thing is that we see here how it's the prophetic trying to declare false prophecies. Things from these Hittite spirits telling them, | |
| confirming to them this is the way to escape from the turmoil and travail and drudgery of the material. This is the shortcut you can take even though it goes against the laws of God and even though you bring emptiness to other souls and you oppress others. | |
| You don't care because this is the way to achieve that goal. And that's why God then says in verse 31, I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. So God is saying, I am bringing judgment on you because you're trying to bypass my judgments to get to where you want to go. | |
| You know, like that robber who is pointing a gun at people and stealing their property, you know, violating the commandment, thou shalt not steal, violating the rights of property that God has established. He's saying, | |
| I'm bypassing the judgments of God, the laws of God, to get where I need to get in order to get on high and escape from the drudgery of the material, of working for the material, if that makes sense. Okay, so now if we go back, I'm going to hit the back button. So where have we been so far? Looking at Batsa Betsa. | |
| And we see how it's connected to the prophetic, how it's about someone cutting corners, taking shortcuts, ignoring the laws of God, being willing to destroy souls and bring emptiness to other souls as long as you achieve what you want. | |
| And that's why liberals don't care about taking money away from others. And they start lying to themselves, convincing themselves that they are justified in what they're doing, like they're following a higher law and that the people who are complaining about what they're doing are just being materialistic and selfish. | |
| So they start lying, declaring false prophecies, lying prophecies, as if they are speaking on behalf of something invisible. Like they have their eyes on the invisible or on the things that are on high. And those people who are complaining about all this stuff, they are just materialistic people. We're just focused on the natural and the material. We're focused on the higher goal. | |
| Oh, we have no problem with taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor because that is the lofty thing to do. Because we care about the higher principles of collective happiness as opposed to those selfish individuals who just care about themselves and their own material well-being. So they started giving falsehoods a lofty | |
| Value that it doesn't have because they don't want to admit that what when they're doing all those violations. They're violating invisible principles to they go beyond the material the right to property Is an invisible? value you cannot If you violate that right you're violating an invisible principle | |
| And there are going to be consequences to that. When you bring emptiness to other people's lives, when you take from them what is not yours, even if you justify it a million times, there are consequences. You're destroying lives. Look at what the communists have done over and over again, what happened in Cuba when the communists took over and the poverty and the devastation that they caused. But they were doing it for a loftier goal of collective happiness. | |
| But it's ironic, these people who talk about not caring about the material and focusing on the invisible are, whilst doing that, violating a ton of invisible principles. | |
| And doing a lot of invisible damage. And look at the consequence. Cuba is a pathetic little worthless island of poverty because of communism. And that's just an example of how when the prophet, the soul, takes the prophetic endowment and uses it the wrong way, it just leads to all this contradictory behavior. | |
| That does more damage in the long term and that claims to be pursuing lofty goals, lofty goals above the material. But it really is just pursuing falsehood. | |
| Okay, and so, well, if we go back to Habakkuk 2:9, it says, Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness. Woe to him that batsa betsa. Batsa and evil betsa. And the curious thing is that evil is the word ra again. So those who are trying to escape from the power of ra, use ra, ra betsa. | |
| Betsa that is ra to achieve that goal. And that's what's internally contradictory because the soul that uses the prophetic the wrong way has this attitude of claiming that, oh, we care for the little people. We care for those who are in need and suffering. We are against selfishness. We're against this, against the other. | |
| But you look at their behavior and they're the very opposite of what they're proclaiming. And they don't realize it. They don't see it themselves. And that's why God kind of shows the irony of the contradiction when he says that woe to those who betsa the ra, I'm sorry, who batsa the ra betsa, who covet the ra covetousness. | |
| in order to be delivered from the power of Ra. So they use Ra to get away from Ra. They use evil to get away from evil. They bring weariness and travail and turmoil to other people's lives in order to supposedly escape from that turmoil. | |
| And they usually say, oh, I'm doing it for you. I am doing it to help you escape from turmoil. And I'll do that by giving you turmoil. The turmoil of the material. Okay. Okay. | |
| All right, so then verse 10 says of Habakkuk 2, Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people and hast sinned against thy soul. So the word consulted is the word yaas in Hebrew that has the connotation of counsel. And as we've shared, I believe, in a few recordings, counsel is connected to the prophetic. The Holy Spirit is a counselor. | |
| providing prophetic counsel. So again, this is pointing to the prophetic. You have prophesied, you have consulted, you have advised shame to your house. So all the things that a prophetic soul speaks when the soul is in control and not the spirit is bringing shame to the house. | |
| And when a liberal is talking and talking and acting or even making these prophetic declarations as if it's a prophet speaking on behalf of a lofty goal, they don't realize they are prophesying shame to their house. They're bringing shame, calling shame to their house. I hope that's making sense. And that's what's happening spiritually. Every time someone speaks... | |
| uses the prophetic endowment with the soul being in control and not the spirit. They bring shame. They're counseling shame to their own house. And they do it, it says here, by cutting off many people. And the word cutting off was translated from katsa. And this word is a bit confusing, and I pray that I'm not misunderstanding. I was asking the Lord, and this is the sense that I got, | |
| And I pray it's of him. The word katsa, they translate it here as cutting off. But the first time, the first couple of times that it's used, it's in Leviticus 14:41 and 43. In 41, it says, and he shall cause the house to be scraped within roundabout of | |
| And they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place. So it's talking about someone like scraping dust off of themselves outside the city into an unclean place. So notice in the word scrape, in the phrase scrape off, I'll read the second part again. It's they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off, that they katsa. | |
| uh, off without the city, in other words, outside of the city into an unclean place. So notice it's talking about someone like, like scraping, like imagine you have, um, mud on your shoes and you, and you go outside and, uh, your house. And, um, let's say before, let's say before coming into your house, you, you try to scrape off the, the mud, uh, because you don't want it on your shoes and you don't want to dirty up your house. | |
| when you walk in. So notice it has this connotation of some of disdain for the material. That's what it refers to. The dust refers to earthliness. And someone scraping off their shoes in this example we're kind of thinking of is someone who says, I don't want contact with the material. Oh, you know, people who are trapped in the concern for earthly material | |
| goals I don't want any of that. So what God is saying is the prophet when he's not right with God when his soul is the one in control and not the spirit he is pretending to get away from the material like the way someone is scraping off the mud out of his shoes the Girgashite mud | |
| off of his shoes. But God is saying, as you're doing that, you are bringing shame, you're prophesying shame or counseling shame unto your own house because the way you do that is through unrighteous means, means that are based on falsehood, on disregarding the laws of God, the spiritual laws of God. | |
| So you bring shame. Shame, why shame? Because shame is when you've done something wrong and you should be ashamed of yourself. In other words, it has to do with judgment. You're bringing judgment to your house because every time you declare all these stupid prophetic things that you think that are of the truth, you're just heaping shame on your house. It's like you're saying to shame, come, come to my house. Please come, come. And you're full of shame. | |
| And that's how God sees you. Why? Because as you're trying to escape from the material, you think that escaping from the material also implies escaping from the laws of God. The laws of, you know, the apostolic judgments of God. And that's why you are bringing shame. And it says, you have cut off many people. And | |
| the word people was translated from am. And the word am is kind of peculiar. This is the sense that I'm beginning to get, and I pray this is of the Lord, as the Lord has had us looking at many, at different verses recently. I'm beginning to understand, and hopefully from the Lord, that I | |
| There's like two... When God compares, let's say, people to nations, am is people and nations in Hebrew would be goyim. Goyim has to do more with the material. And am has to do more with the spiritual. And so... | |
| I would dare say, when God says here that these people have been cutting off many people, have been katsa, many people, many am, it's like God is saying, you think that you've been scraping off the material when you've been scraping off the spiritual. | |
| I hope that makes sense. It's like, oh, these people, the prophetic, when they're not in the spirit and their soul is the one dominating or using the prophetic endowment, what they're saying is, oh, I don't care about the laws, the spiritual laws, because I don't get caught up in the material stuff, in the technical stuff. So they start scraping off | |
| like dust, they start scraping off things that they think are just material stuff. Ooh, yuck, I am a spiritual person. I don't deal with that material stuff. And as they're doing that, they don't realize that they're also scraping off spiritual stuff. And that's why they bring shame to themselves. I hope I'm making sense. It's like, yeah, these people have this holier-than-thou attitude | |
| They think that they are living in the spiritual and escaping the trappings of the earthly. And they start scraping off anything that feels earthly to them. But as they're scraping off the earthly, they start scraping off spiritual stuff that they should theoretically care about because they're supposedly prophetic. | |
| I hope that's making sense. They claim to care about the intangible and as they are supposedly doing that, they start attacking and dismissing and dishonoring a lot of intangible things. | |
| You know, it's like the socialist who, and I'm using that as an example. It's like the easiest example in my head to kind of show how this is manifested in real life. You know, it manifests itself in many ways, but that's just an example. The socialist says, oh, I am above... | |
| We want to live above the fray of capitalism and people working like rats running around in a maze all day and working and just worrying about the material and getting more money and paying our bills. We want to get above all of that. So to get above all of that, we'll institute a system that robs the rich to just give it away to the poor who don't want to work. | |
| or who don't care to work. And by doing that, they are violating a lot of principles. So a lot of people who work hard and prosper are suddenly taken away from. And then that money is given to people who don't care, who are not interested in doing what they need to do to prosper. They just want to get something from someone else. | |
| And in doing that, these socialists start doing harm not only to very rich people, but to people who are not that rich, but who have a certain amount of income or wealth a little bit because they have put the effort to produce for society, to bring wealth to society. | |
| So when these socialists come and take the money away from these people, they're doing a very evil thing. They are robbing someone who has, with their effort, produced something. Because a lot of people, when they become wealthy, it's because they have produced for society. | |
| And as a consequence, they become wealthy. So they are producers. They are producing goods and services to benefit others. And by robbing them, you are violating something very intangible. So God is just contrasting the irony. Those who pretend to be spiritual and disregard the spiritual to honor the spiritual. It's just stupid and evil. | |
| And it brings emptiness, brings Abaddon to the earth, brings a lot of devastation. You know, people like in communist countries, when they come in and take an entire farm away from a family and they just wipe them out and years and years or decades and centuries of work, | |
| That family building that business just taken away, just snatched away with no rhyme, no reason. They always give the excuse, oh, these people became rich by exploiting the poor. Well, some did, but a lot of them didn't. | |
| But they don't care. They don't go, oh, no, no, you became wealthy by doing the right thing and being generous and this and that and the other. We'll let you go. No, they don't care. They just, no, you have a lot of money. We'll take it away from you. We don't care how you got it. And that's just an example. But whichever way it goes, the prophetic endowment, when it's not in the spirit, when it's controlled by the soul, | |
| begins to bring abaddon, the destruction of souls, as it said in Ezekiel 22:27, the abaddon of nephesh, the abaddon or destruction or devastation of souls, it's just emptiness, starts creeping into the atmosphere. | |
| And that's why Cuba, for example, I'm just using that as an example. It's just an empty place, empty. There's emptiness there. And you would go to the Soviet Union when it used to exist. And again, the same thing, just emptiness. And that's why there was so much depression and lots of things in Russia during the Soviet days because it was just emptiness. | |
| So that's all that comes with the prophetic being under the control of the soul when the soul exalts itself. And that's why at the end of this verse, Habakkuk 2:10, it says that you have sinned against your soul. | |
| And the word soul there is nephesh. So it was well translated from the Hebrew. And the word sin was also well translated because the word in Hebrew is hatah, which literally means to miss the mark or to sin. So you have sinned. | |
| So God is saying, you idiot. You claim to care about the soul. You disdain others claiming, oh, they only care about the material. They don't care about their souls. And you, stupid idiot, in the way you've gone about caring for the soul, you've actually sinned against your own soul. | |
| I hope that's making sense. This is just the irony. God is emphasizing the contradiction of what it looks like when you are in the soul and use the prophetic. Yeah, okay. All right, so... | |
| All right, so then Habakkuk 2:11 says, For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. And I said, Lord, what is this? And I'll be very frank. I was looking at this verse and reading it and thinking about it, and a thought would come, and then it would go away because it didn't seem to make sense. And I kept asking the Lord, Lord, I don't get this. | |
| And I'll be frank. I said, Lord, you know what? I will ask online to see if there's any answer out there. And the Lord said, okay, go ahead. But I think that's what he said. But I felt like God was saying, go ahead, but you're not going to get the answer there. So I did the search. And... | |
| And what I found is, but it was like God said, it's okay for you to read what someone else might say, but do bear in mind, I will give you the answer. And if you live by faith in honor of what the audio word is going to be about, then you will trust that I will give the answer to you. | |
| It's OK, Lord. And it's like I just couldn't see the answer coming. I just couldn't understand what this verse could possibly mean. But I said, Lord, yeah, I have to, you know, I have to live by faith. So, yes, in the spirit, the answer will come. | |
| But I felt the opening to go look for what this verse could mean according to others. So I did the search on Bing, and Bing gave me an AI answer. I don't know where I got it from. I think I don't have it anymore in the browser, and I don't feel... | |
| the opening to go look it up again. But basically what it said, and it was interesting because I hadn't thought of it like that. It was saying that, well, now I don't remember what it was saying, but it said that, I think it said that if you build something in unrighteousness, | |
| or outside of God, it will... Oh, I think I will have to go look it up. Yeah, I think I feel that it's okay. I pray I'm not misunderstanding, but it's almost like... Oh, here, let me go find the search. Here it is. It says, Habakkuk 2:11 means that even the stones and wooden beams of a corrupt builder's house... | |
| will testify against the injustice used to construct it, symbolizing that God's judgment is inevitable and no wrongdoing can remain hidden. And I read, oh, that's interesting. But I remember what the Lord had said before I did the search, that I was not supposed to accept that as the full answer. But it almost like it opened up something. It's like it kind of freed me up from the thinking that I was going through | |
| um around in it's like I was trapped in a circle and this got me out of the circle but I knew this was still not the answer I mean there's part of a truth there but I do find it uh kind of a little bit shocking um that um this ai overview is saying something it doesn't even give any um | |
| Well, it has some links, so I guess it got this answer from some links, but it's kind of a very interesting answer. But it's not the right answer, I would dare say. But when I read this, the word testify kind of like, I think that snapped me out of the circles I was running in in my head. And then it's like God... | |
| honored, you know, that faith that I was trying to exercise of, yes, he will give the answer. He will give the answer. And boom, it's like God said, here it is. And it was through this word testify that it like it opened it up to hear what he was saying. And this is what I heard. I believe it's of the Lord. The Lord said, this is a conversation. | |
| And what is the conversation? Let me read it again. Where were we? Verse 11, Habakkuk 2:11. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. So there's a conversation. The stone talks, says one thing, and the timber replies back. That's the conversation. | |
| And when God put that in my heart, I said, oh, that's when, like the Lord said, here's the answer. And so the answer that I discern in my heart, I pray it's of the Lord, is that the stone, the stone refers to something eternal. | |
| It's like a thing that happens a lot in Scripture, that when God speaks about the stone, and the word there in Hebrew is eben, like in the name Ebenezer, eben, that's the word for stone or rock. So when you see the word eben in Hebrew, eben, | |
| always is connected to something of eternal value, you know, like a stone that kind of is not temporary, is not temporal, you know, because it's solid, you know, like something temporal kind of decays and collapses into dust, but a stone doesn't, you know, because it's solid, solid like a rock, you know, like the song from 1985, I think. | |
| So solid, solid like a rock. It doesn't disintegrate. It lasts forever. So it has this connotation of spirit. | |
| something spirit. You know, it's like our bones represent the spiritual part of us, our figure of that because bones don't disintegrate like the rest of our body. You know, when people die, the bones keep on living, not keep on living, but, you know, keep on being or existing. So the thing is the stone is a figure of something spiritual and eternal. | |
| So then the spiritual and eternal cries out. Zaak is the word in Hebrew. Cries out of the wall. And then who responds? The beam out of the timber responds and answers it. And what is the beam out of the timber? And the word timber was translated from ets. | |
| And ets literally means tree. I mean, when you read it, like every time it appears, it seems it's translated as tree. I don't know why they decided to call it timber in Habakkuk 2:11. But for example, the first time that ets is used in Scripture is Genesis 1:11. And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree, the ets. | |
| yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so. And the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the word tree there is et. So the better translation to kind of get a clearer sense of the verse is the beam out of the tree. And so beam is referring to wood, | |
| So something that is stone, that is spiritual, that is eternal, cries out first. And the response is something made of wood. And wood, as we all know, is more, what's the word, susceptible. That's not the word, but more fragile. That's the word. | |
| It's more fragile and it can – wood can decay. Wood can corrupt. Termites can eat wood. | |
| They cannot eat stone. So the beam out of the timber or out of the tree represents something temporal, something temporary that decays and falls apart and can fall apart. The stone represents something spiritual that lasts forever. The stone cries out and the timber responds. So what is God saying there? | |
| God is saying those who operate in the prophetic endowment but do it in the soul and not the spirit, they cry out thinking that they are calling forth spiritual things. And the answer that they get is something temporal. In other words, they think that they're speaking of lofty spiritual stuff, but in reality... | |
| What they're getting is, that's why it's the wood that answers. They're getting temporal stuff, temporary stuff that decays and eventually is no more. They think they're dealing in eternal things. And in reality, the answer they get back, the reality is that all they're engaging is in temporal stuff as worthless and as stupid as the temporal stuff that they disdain in others. | |
| if that makes sense. It's like all these people, like the liberals who are so concerned about animals and the planet and carbon... | |
| Our carbon footprint and this and that and the other. And they think, oh yeah, we're not like those selfish capitalists. We're only thinking about money destroying the environment and melting the ice caps and making the blue owl or whatever, the spotted owl disappear. So they think that they're crying out for lofty things. | |
| And the answer that they get back from reality is, oh, you're just as stupid and as caught up in temporal nonsense as the very people that you disdain so much. | |
| You think that you're loftier and more idealistic and more spiritual, and you're just stupid and caught up in temporal stuff that has no eternal value as the very people that you mock and disdain. So that's the conversation there. They cry out as if crying out about something spiritual, and the answer that they get back is just temporal stuff. | |
| No, you whatever you you're calling out calling forth is not bringing eternity into humanity. You're just bringing temporal nonsense as well. | |
| Um, you're not breaking the barrier of the spiritual because you're staying in the soul. Everything you do is soul, soul, soul, soul. You don't break the barrier of the spirit. You're crying out for things that are of a spiritual value. And all you get is, is timber is beam out of a timber. You get wood that can be burnt. You know, you cannot burn stone, but you can burn wood. Um, I hope that's making sense. Um, | |
| And so God is showing the contradiction of the prophetic when it's done in the soul and not in the spirit. So the thing is that... | |
| What is the purpose of knowing this woe? I'll read the whole woe thing, and I pray that you will get an impartation of everything now that we have gone through each verse in detail. So verse 9, we're going to read from verse 9 to verse 11. And it's interesting, it's 9-11. And that makes me think of... | |
| you know, the terrorist attack of 9-11, which was a Hittite attack. And this is basically speaking out against the Hittite spirit, because it's against the prophetic gone bad, which is the Hittite spirit. So I know it's not a coincidence that the world goes from verse 9 to verse 11. Because, you know, it's like Osama bin Laden, all these people, they did this horrible Hittite terrorist attack, and they thought they were fighting for something lofty and high. | |
| And when they died and stood before God's presence, they realized, oh my goodness, I just wasted my life on something that I thought was lofty and spiritual. And I just engaged in something temporal and stupid of no eternal value whatsoever. And now they're burning in hell as we speak. | |
| So, okay, so we're going to read 9 through 11 of Habakkuk 2. | |
| Verse 10, thou hast consulted shame, thou hast advised shame to thy house by cutting off many people, by katsa, by scraping off many am. In other words, you have scraped off spiritual stuff as if it was temporal. You have shown disdain for things, calling them material when they are actually of spiritual eternal value. | |
| You've scraped it off as if it was just temporary stuff that we should not care about when it was of actual eternal value. And hast sinned against thy soul. You have sinned against thy nephesh. You claim to care for the soul, and you've actually sinned against it. Verse 11, For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. | |
| You think that you're crying out for lofty spiritual things and all you're getting back is temporal stuff of no value. That's what you're producing. That's what you're calling forth into the earth. Temporal stuff of no value. And in fact, you're bringing in spirits of Abaddon, spirits of emptiness and devastation because you are opposed to the spiritual laws of God. You disdain them. | |
| And give them no value. And that's what this is. So what's the purpose of knowing this woe? Is so that we can. As we're reading it in Scripture and praying it out. We're declaring judgment against the prophetic endowment. When it's misused by the soul on earth. Against all those people who misuse the prophetic endowment. And so notice. | |
| When God tells us to live by faith in Habakkuk 2:4, and he starts saying all these things, it's like a person who lives by faith is a person who is focused on establishing the dominion of the spirit over the soul. In other words, the dominion of the spirit of God on earth, the kingship of the spirit on earth. So you start waging warfare against all manifestations of the soul over the spirit. | |
| So the first woe was the woe against the Amorite spirit when the soul misuses the evangelistic endowment. And then the next woe is you're declaring a woe against the soul who tries to misuse the prophetic endowment. So it's warfare. You're fighting for the establishment of the kingship of God on earth. | |
| And so that's what this woe is about. And we could go into the third woe, but I feel like God is saying, woe is me. If I do that, I feel like God is saying stop for some reason. So I'll try to obey and not let my soul carry me away because my soul wants to continue. | |
| But I feel the Lord saying stop. So we will end it there. And Lord willing, we'll continue with the next woe, which starts in verse 12. And there are three more woes to go. And again, all these woes are so that we become aware of how ridiculous and pathetic it is for the soul to misuse the five endowments. | |
| of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. And also so that we can make sure not to do it and also to release it in prophetic intercession, in judgment against all those out there who misuse the endowments. Because what is the end goal? To end the dominion of the soul over the spirit. | |
| The just who live by faith do not allow the soul to get exalted over the spirit. Do not allow the soul to get... | |
| Aphal, I think the word was in Hebrew, over the spirit. So it's all a battle of submitting the soul under the dominion of the spirit. And when the soul tries to misuse the endowments, then you call them out and you declare woe unto you soul for doing this. Woe unto you soul. And that's how you live by faith. | |
| you end up declaring woes against the misuse of the endowments by the soul. And notice it is not about, it's much more than just using your faith to get something for yourself. And again, it's not that there's anything inherently wrong with that because many times when you're using your faith to get something in your life, | |
| It's in order to further the kingship of God in you, through you. You know, it's like, for example, if you're praying to God for healing, | |
| It could be that you're praying for that so that you'll be free from your sickness so that you can expand the kingship of God. Or in you fighting for that healing in your life, you're releasing something in the spirit that will also free others out there. | |
| from the sickness, from that type of sickness, literally, and also from the spiritual root of that sickness, if that makes any sense. It's like you're waging warfare not only for yourself but for others to release and to break spiritual bondages, not just disease bondages, literal disease bondages, if that makes any sense. So you're always doing it in the context of the kingdom of God, even if it's going to, quote, benefit you. | |
| if that makes any sense. You're doing it because you want to expand the kingship of God on earth. And sometimes that will involve you having faith about something in your life. Or, you know, it's something in your life and you want to put that thing in your life under the dominion of the Spirit so you have faith in that regard. But it's always at the end focused on the kingdom of God. | |
| and not just your own personal benefit, if that makes any sense. And that's how the just live by faith, when you're living in the Spirit. Okay, so we'll continue, Lord willing, in the next recording with the next three woes. Thank you very much for listening, and may the Lord impart life into your Spirit, into your being, through these words. In the name of Jesus, Amen and Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. |
The study of Habakkuk 2 is deeply rooted in the principle found in Galatians 3:11, that "the just shall live by faith." To understand the true context of this phrase, one must look at the contrast presented in Habakkuk 2:4. Living by faith is contrasted with a soul that is "lifted up" and not upright. In this context, sin is defined as the soul being exalted above the spirit. Living by faith means choosing to abide in the spirit, connecting to the "new man" within, and maintaining a state of attentiveness—a watchtower existence—where one listens to and acts upon the voice of God.
Habakkuk 2 outlines five "woes" that serve as warnings. These woes correspond to the corruption of the five ministerial endowments identified in Ephesians 4:11: the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher. When these endowments are corrupted by the soul's desire to dominate the spirit, they manifest as specific evil spirits: the Jebusite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Girgashite. Each woe illustrates the pathetic and destructive nature of exercising a spiritual gift through a soulish, rather than spirit-centric, lens.
The first woe addresses the misuse of the evangelistic endowment. When the soul exalts itself through evangelism, it seeks conquest for the sake of glory rather than for the Kingdom. This results in a cycle of emptiness and debt. Much like Napoleon, who pursued endless conquest only to be betrayed by his own ambition, the soulish evangelist finds that their "conquests" come with a spiritual bill. They become victims of betrayal, pursuing satisfaction in things that cannot satisfy, ultimately enlarging their soul like hell and death.
The second woe (Habakkuk 2:9) focuses on the prophetic endowment. This woe describes someone attempting to "set their nest on high" to escape the "power of evil" (ra). In this context, ra refers to the weariness, toil, and heartache of the material realm (the Girgashite spirit). The corrupt prophet attempts to use their gift to artificially rise above earthly drudgery through "evil covetousness" (batsa betsa).
The term batsa betsa refers to dishonest gain or cutting off through violence. When applied to the prophetic, it manifests as "dealing falsely." This is linked to the Hittite spirit—a spirit of emptiness and deception. A corrupt prophet may cause emotional devastation and emptiness (Abaddon) in the souls (nephesh) of others to achieve their own lofty status. This is exemplified by those who use deception or robbery to escape the "toil" of everyday life, much like a scammer or a thief who disregards the spiritual rights of others for quick gain.
There is a profound irony in the soulish prophet: they claim to pursue lofty, spiritual goals while actually violating invisible spiritual principles. An example is found in radical political ideologies that seek to bypass the "toil" of society by redistributing wealth through deceit or oppression. By claiming to focus on the "higher good," they often disregard the fundamental spiritual laws of property and righteousness, ultimately bringing "shame to their house" and causing devastation to the very people they claim to help.
Habakkuk 2:11 describes a conversation where "the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it." The stone (eben) represents the eternal, spiritual realm, while the timber/tree (ets) represents the temporal, decaying realm. This signifies that those who operate prophetically through the soul may think they are calling forth eternal, spiritual truths, but the reality they receive is merely temporal, worthless nonsense. They attempt to speak of the "high," but their foundation is built on the "decaying," resulting in a life of emptiness.
The purpose of understanding these woes is twofold: to prevent personal misuse of God's gifts and to provide tools for spiritual warfare. By recognizing these patterns, believers can intercede and declare judgment against the misuse of ministerial endowments. Living by faith is ultimately about the establishment of God's kingship on earth—ensuring the spirit maintains dominion over the soul. Even when personal faith is used for individual needs, such as healing, it must always be directed toward the ultimate goal of expanding the Kingdom of God.