Who's on the Right Side?

What do the following two verses have to do with each other?

“14 And he was expelling a mute demon. Now it happened that when the demon came out, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were astonished. 15 But some of them said, “By Beelzebul the ruler of demons he expels demons!” 16 And others, in order to test him, were demanding from him a sign from heaven.” (Luke 11)

“16 To the woman he said,

“…And to your husband shall be your desire.


    And he shall rule over you.” (Gen 3)

Stumped?  Fuggeddabowdit.  I wouldn’t know either if God wasn’t good. 

The answer is: right hand.  See it?  Both verses are about who’s at your right hand.  Amazing isn’t it!  It’s like those 3D puzzle posters, the ones you stare at till you go cross-eyed and then the image pops out at you.  Which I think were invented merely to give writers like me a helpful analogy to a great many situations.  You’re still staring cross-eyed.  You don’t see it, do you?  Zawlright.  I’ll be your tour guide on a little Biblical safari.  Pin on your Junior Explorer badges and hop into the Wayback machine.  First stop, Eden!

The Trinity chooses to make a people to love.  A people made in the image of God, who is Love; Love: submission to the other for the good of the other.  We are designed from the start to fully submit, to purposefully suborn our will to someone else’s, for our own good and for theirs.  But so it’s not forced, so we’re not slaves, so it would be genuine Love, God gives us a choice… “life and death I have set before you, blessing and curse. So choose life, so that you may live, you and your offspring, 20 by loving Yahweh your God by listening to his voice and by clinging to him, for he is your life and the length of your days…” (Deut 30)

And choose we do.  We choose…poorly.  We choose to make ourselves god.  We release the hand of our Father, our Brother, our Lover, our Husband for the first time and take the hand of the Serpent (they had hands then), the devil, the adversary… our accuser.  For we cannot be God.  We were made to submit and thus, even the act of choosing independence, choosing our own will, cannot be done without making that choice our master just as God says to Eve.  It’s not a curse; it’s a statement of fact.  It is not a question of “Will we worship?”  We will.  It is what we were made to do.  It is our primary focus and drive.  Not procreation.  Not survival.  Not self-betterment.  Love!  Worship! 

And like it or not, there are only two choices.  God is good.  God is love.  God is righteous.  God is holy.  Only God.  All else is lie.  All else is evil.  All else is the domain of Satan.  So, in short, either we choose God or we choose Satan.  There are no other choices.  And since our mother Eve chose Satan, it became our baseline.  From then on we have been born with a cloven hoof held tightly in our fist.  From then on, God’s work has been to free us first of our spiteful master so He could restore us to our rightful place.  But where is that?

Bopping ahead to Luke 11 and the crux of time.  Jesus is in the business of freeing slaves.  And business is booming!  Those who sensed the lies of their tyrant have come to Him and are being saved.  But those still in love with the lie, those whose pride has blinded them…

“20 Ah! Those who call evil good and good evil,


    those who put darkness for light and light for darkness,


    those who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

21 Ah! Those who are wise in their own eyes


    and have understanding in their view!” (Is 5) 

These are those David speaks of…

“4 In return for my love they accuse me,


though I am in prayer.

5 So they inflicted evil against me in return for good


and hatred in return for my love.

6 Appoint over him a wicked man,


and let an accuser stand at his right hand.

7 When he is judged, let him come out guilty,


and let his prayer become as sin.”

They have chosen to marry themselves to Satan.  Even though they, as Jews, were already married to God, even though God remained faithful to the wedding vows He made through Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, they brought another lover into the bedroom.  One who promises much but delivers something totally different.  “31 The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here!” Jesus warned.  And what did Solomon warn?

“13 For he who returns evil for good,


    evil will not depart from his house.” (Prov 17)

Or as Jesus puts it…

“24 “Whenever an unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it travels through waterless places searching for rest, and does not find it. It says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came out.’ 25 And when it arrives it finds the house swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there. And the last state of that person becomes worse than the first!”” (Luke 11)

Seven.  The number of completion.  In this life you start with a devil on your shoulder, in your heart, on your right hand.  Die holding onto that hoof and it will pull you down into hell with it! 

But Jesus…!