12 Yet God is my king from of old,
Who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth.
13 [m]You divided the sea by Your strength;
[n]You broke the heads of the sea monsters [o]in the waters.
14 [p]You crushed the heads of [q]Leviathan;
[r]You gave him as food for the [s]creatures of the wilderness.
15 [t]You broke open springs and torrents;
[u]You dried up ever-flowing streams.
16 Yours is the day, Yours also is the night;
[v]You have prepared the [w]light and the sun.
17 [x]You have established all the boundaries of the earth;
[y]You have [z]made summer and winter.18 Remember this, [aa]O Lord, that the enemy has reviled,
And a foolish people has spurned Your name.
19 Do not deliver the soul of Your turtledove to the wild beast;
Do not forget the life of Your afflicted forever.
20 Consider the covenant;
For the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
21 Let not the oppressed return dishonored;
Let the afflicted and needy praise Your name.22 Arise, O God, and plead Your own cause;
Remember [ab]how the foolish man reproaches You all day long.
23 Do not forget the voice of Your adversaries,
The uproar of those who rise against You which ascends continually.
As we read in the first half, the psalmist was asking, “How long, O God…” As he watched the destruction and moral decay all around, with enemies oppressing God’s people, it seemed as if God had left justice by the wayside. In the second half of this psalm, we see the mighty works of God, and an appeal for him to bring justice to the earth. Yet the most important part is vs. 12: “Yet God is my king…”
That means we can beg and plead all we want for the things we think should happen, but God our king, our sovereign, the ultimate authority. If what we ask doesn’t fit with God’s plan, then it is we who need to change. We need to get on his playbook instead of trying to “twist his arm” to accomplish our goals.
If God is our king, then we know He has done great works of deliverance. We know He can crush the mightiest monsters of the earth. We know He can create a spring in the middle of a desert, that he created the moon and sun, set the earth on the perfect course, and established the only climate that could sustain life on our planet.
And yes, we also know that He will not forget us, and that our souls are secure in his hands. When we are afflicted and needy, we can (and should) praise His name. He will not forget justice, even if our own vantage point looks nothing like justice. He is our king, and He is The King over all the universe.