ALL PRAISE TO THEE, MY GOD, THIS NIGHT

You can listen to the devotion here.

Invocation
In the Name of the Father, and (+) of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 
 
Scripture
Psalm 91
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
2    to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
3    to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
4    For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
5    How great are your works, O Lord!
Your thoughts are very deep!
6    The stupid man cannot know;
the fool cannot understand this:
7    that though the wicked sprout like grass
and all evildoers flourish,
       they are doomed to destruction forever;
8        but you, O Lord, are on high forever.
9    For behold, your enemies, O Lord,
for behold, your enemies shall perish;
all evildoers shall be scattered.
10    But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox;
you have poured over me fresh oil.
11    My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies;
my ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants.
12    The righteous flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13    They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
14    They still bear fruit in old age;
they are ever full of sap and green,
15    to declare that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
 
Devotion based on the hymn All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night 883
All praise to Thee, my God, this night,
For all the blessings of the light!
Keep me, O keep me, King of kings,
Beneath Thine own almighty wings.

Forgive me, Lord, for Thy dear Son,
The ill that I this day have done,
That with the world, myself, and Thee,
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be.

Teach me to live, that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die, that so I may
Rise glorious at the awe-ful day.

Oh may my soul on Thee repose,
And with sweet sleep mine eyelids close,
Sleep that may me more vigorous make
To serve my God when I awake.

When in the night I sleepless lie,
My soul with heavenly thoughts supply;
Let no ill dreams disturb my rest,
No powers of darkness me molest.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The hymn commentary for today comes from Pastor Larry Peters as found in the Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns Volume 1. 

The echo of Psalm 92:1-2 is found throughout the hymn: “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night.” Psalm 91 is an even greater influence on the hymn, and verses 1 and 4 are clearly referenced in the final two lines of stanza 1: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty…He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you will find refuge.”

Stanza 2 reminds us that our rest is tied to a clear conscience. It is a confession of sins and a prayer that God forgive the sins of the day and enable to singer to sleep at peace with all things (Mark 9:50b; Job 22:21; Psalm 4:8).

Psalm 90:12 prays that we might be taught to number our days and apply them wisely. In the same way, the third stanza asks that we live as a child of God in a fallen world, set apart by Him for a new day of eternal life. Sleep is an oft-used description of death (John 11:11-12; Matthew 9:24). Here the Christian sees death as a sleep from which we are awakened by Jesus Christ to resurrection and eternal life. Note that in the last line, the Day of Judgment is an awe-filled day and not an awful, terrible day.

The fourth stanza is a prayer that we may rest our hopes and fears in the Lord so that we are prepared better to serve Him with all our strength and will in the morning.
Stanza 5 acknowledges the difficulty in sleeping when the burdens of this mortal life press upon us, asking that our thoughts may be of heaven and not of earth, of hope and not of fear. Often the themes for evening hymns seem somewhat out of place in a modern world where the work does not end with the daylight and where the night sky consists more of manufactured light than of a darkness pierced only by moon and stars – the idea in stanza 5 of being molested by the powers of darkness, for example.

The hymn ends with the stanza often called the “common doxology” (LSB 805), probably the best-known and most frequently sung hymn in Christendom. It was in these hymns that Ken wrote for morning and evening and midnight that the stanza originated.

Collect
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.