Waiting On The Night To Fall

Casting Crowns' “Waiting On The Night To Fall” is a warning about a habit that has been allowed to stay. It describes “an old man living in the back of your woods tonight,” someone you forgot about, though you have “never slipped his mind.” He lives off scraps you left behind and rises with a smile when the sun goes down.

The chorus gives the threat: “He's waiting on the night to fall. The old man's coming to call. You don't see the writing on the wall.” He never steps into the light but is just biding time, and “while you slumber, he's gonna come and take it all.” The second verse makes the charge more pointed. “He knows you have the answers, but Truth lies dusty on your shelf, and the sword that you could slay him with has become an ornament.” He has been around so long that you grew used to the smell. The last verse says he cannot have your soul, but will “rob you blind,” take you farther than you want to go and cost you more than you thought. The song serves as a call to take sin and temptation seriously, using a story to make the danger concrete.

The devil prowling like a lion is 1 Peter 5:8. The armor and the sword of the Spirit are in Ephesians 6:11-17, and giving no foothold is Ephesians 4:27.