The Dragon Slayer King and His Tidy World Text: Psalm 74:12-17
Introduction: When the World Burns
The first part of this psalm is a raw and honest lament. The sanctuary is in ruins, the enemy has blasphemed God's name, and it appears for all the world that God has abandoned His people. The psalmist Asaph is looking at the wreckage of his world, a scene of "perpetual desolations" (v. 3), and he is asking the hard questions. "O God, why have you cast us off forever?" (v. 1). This is not the prayer of a man in a comfortable armchair. This is the cry of a man whose house is on fire, and he cannot find the fire extinguisher.
In our day, we see a different kind of sanctuary being desecrated. The institutions of Christendom are being systematically dismantled, not with axes and hammers, but with ideologies that are just as destructive. We see the foundations of marriage, family, and basic biological reality being torched. And in the midst of this controlled demolition, it is easy for the faithful to feel abandoned, to look at the rising tide of chaos and ask, "Where is God in all this?"
It is precisely at this point of desperation, when the smoke is thickest, that Asaph pivots. He does not pivot to a flimsy optimism or a self-help mantra. He pivots to theology. He turns from the chaos in front of him to the character of the God above him. When the present makes no sense, the only sane thing to do is to rehearse the history of God's mighty acts. He reminds himself, and us, who God is. And who is He? He is the King from of old, the one who brings order from chaos, the one who slays dragons, and the one who sets the boundaries for the world. This is not a retreat from reality; it is the only way to face it.
The Text
Yet God is my King from of old,
Who works deeds of salvation in the midst of the earth.
You divided the sea by Your strength;
You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
You gave him as food for the creatures of the desert.
You split open spring and river;
You dried up ever-flowing rivers.
Yours is the day, Yours also is the night;
You have established the light and the sun.
You have caused all the boundaries of the earth to stand firm;
You have formed summer and winter.
(Psalm 74:12-17 LSB)
The Unshaken Throne (v. 12)
The psalmist begins his great pivot with a declaration of God's unassailable identity.
"Yet God is my King from of old, Who works deeds of salvation in the midst of the earth." (Psalm 74:12)
The word "Yet" is the hinge upon which the entire psalm turns. It is a glorious, defiant "but." The enemy is roaring, yes. The sanctuary is defiled, yes. It looks like chaos has won. "Yet God is my King." His kingship is not a recent development. He is King "from of old." Before the mountains were brought forth, before the current crisis, before the foundation of the world, He was King. His reign is not contingent on our circumstances or the headlines in the news. He does not gain or lose market share based on the rise and fall of earthly empires.
And what does this King do? He "works deeds of salvation in the midst of the earth." Notice the location. Not in some remote, spiritual realm. Not in a galaxy far, far away. He works His salvation right here, "in the midst of the earth," where the battles are fought, where the temples are burned, where the chaos seems to reign. His salvation is not an escape from the world but a rescue operation within it. This is a robust, earthy, historical faith. God gets His hands dirty. He steps into the mud and the blood and the mire of human history to save His people.
The Dragon Slayer (v. 13-14)
Asaph now provides specific examples of this salvation, and he does so in language that is deliberately provocative and polemical.
"You divided the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; You gave him as food for the creatures of the desert." (Psalm 74:13-14 LSB)
The psalmist is clearly referencing the Exodus, when God parted the Red Sea. But he describes it in a way that would have been a direct punch to the theological solar plexus of the surrounding pagan cultures. The Canaanites and Babylonians had their own creation myths, and they all involved a great cosmic battle. Their chief god, whether Baal or Marduk, had to fight a chaotic, multi-headed sea dragon, Yam or Tiamat, to bring order to the world. These pagan gods were not all-powerful; they had to struggle and fight a rival power to establish their dominion.
The Bible takes this imagery and completely subverts it. Our God does not fight chaos monsters as an equal. The sea is not a rival deity; it is His creature, and He divides it with effortless "strength." The "sea monsters" and "Leviathan" are not cosmic threats to His throne. In the book of Job, God points to Leviathan as an example of His majestic creative power, a creature so fearsome that no man can tame it, yet it is God's pet (Job 41). Here, God does not just defeat Leviathan; He "crushed" his heads. This is total, absolute, and humiliating defeat.
And what happens to the carcass of this great beast? It is not enshrined in a temple. It is served up as lunch. "You gave him as food for the creatures of the desert." The great enemy, the symbol of chaos and rebellion, is reduced to carrion for wild animals. This is the ultimate statement of God's supremacy. What the pagans worship as a terrifying god, our God kills and feeds to the jackals. This is not just history; it is mockery. It is a divine taunt. The forces that seem so intimidating to us, the political and cultural Leviathans of our day, are nothing more than a future meal for the scavengers of the wilderness in God's economy.
The Lord of Nature (v. 15)
God's power is not limited to the sea. He is the master of all waters, whether they appear suddenly or flow constantly.
"You split open spring and river; You dried up ever-flowing rivers." (Psalm 74:15 LSB)
Here the psalmist alludes to other miracles of the Exodus and the Conquest. God "split open" a spring from the rock at Meribah to give His people water in the desert (Exodus 17). He is the God who provides. He can bring forth life and sustenance from the most barren of places. But He is also the God who judges. He "dried up" the "ever-flowing" Jordan River at flood stage so that Israel could cross over into the Promised Land (Joshua 3). He is the God who removes obstacles.
The point is that God is sovereign over the natural order. He is not bound by it. He can make water flow where there is none, and He can make water cease where it has always been. Nature is not a closed system of cause and effect, operating independently of its Creator. It is an open system, and God is free to intervene, to provide, and to judge according to His good pleasure. The laws of nature are nothing more than the regular patterns of God's moment-by-moment governance.
The Lord of All Reality (v. 16-17)
From these specific acts of salvation, Asaph zooms out to the broadest possible perspective: God's sovereignty over the fundamental structures of reality itself.
"Yours is the day, Yours also is the night; You have established the light and the sun. You have caused all the boundaries of the earth to stand firm; You have formed summer and winter." (Psalm 74:16-17 LSB)
This is a direct echo of the creation account in Genesis 1. God owns time ("Yours is the day, Yours also is the night"). He is the author of light, and the sun is merely the lampstand He hung in the sky to administer that light. He owns space ("You have caused all the boundaries of the earth to stand firm"). This refers not just to coastlines and borders, but to the very stability of the created order. He owns the seasons ("You have formed summer and winter"). The regular, predictable rhythms of the cosmos are His design, His handiwork.
Why does the psalmist conclude his recital of God's power here? Because the God who can crush Leviathan is the same God who set the sun in its course. The God who works dramatic, miraculous salvation is the same God who upholds the mundane, predictable order of the seasons. His power is seen just as much in the rising of the sun as it is in the parting of the sea. The pagan gods were gods of particular places or functions, a god of the sea, a god of the harvest. Our God is the King of everything. There is not one square inch in all the universe over which He does not say, "Mine."
This is the ultimate comfort for the man whose house is on fire. The God who ordained summer and winter is the God who is ordaining this present trial. The God who set the boundaries for the sea is the God who has set the boundaries for this enemy. He is in complete and total control. The chaos is only apparent; behind the scenes, the King is on His throne, working all things, even the blasphemies of His enemies, according to the counsel of His will.
The Crushed Head of the Serpent
Asaph was looking back to the Exodus. But the Exodus itself was a shadow, a type, of a far greater act of salvation. The ultimate "deed of salvation in the midst of the earth" was accomplished at the cross of Jesus Christ.
At the cross, God once again divided the waters. He divided the sea of His wrath, allowing it to crash down upon His own Son, so that we, His people, could pass through safely into the promised land of our salvation. At the cross, God broke the heads of the sea monsters. He confronted the principalities and powers, the spiritual forces of wickedness.
And at the cross, God crushed the head of the ultimate Leviathan. The great dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan (Rev. 12:9), thought he had won. He stirred up the hearts of men to nail the King of Glory to a tree. But in that very act, his own head was crushed. Jesus, through death, destroyed him who has the power of death, that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14). The cross was not a defeat; it was the ultimate polemic. It was God taking the chief weapon of the enemy, death itself, and using it to destroy him. The carcass of that defeated dragon is now food for the faithful. We feast on the victory of our King.
The God who did all this is our King. He is the one who split open the fountain of living water that flows from His side. He is the one who dried up the river of condemnation that stood in our way. He is the Lord of the new creation, the one who brings the light of the gospel into the darkness of our hearts. He sets the boundaries. He establishes the seasons of our lives. He is the King from of old, and He is working His salvation right now, in the midst of our messy, and sometimes burning, world. Therefore, we do not lose heart. We look at the chaos, and then we look past it, to the Dragon Slayer King on His unshaken throne.