An Almost Imperceptible Loss of Vision

When a group of people begins to fall away, the process is so gradual and the changes are so apparently insignificant to the vast majority of the people, that very few realize what is happening. “Don’t you see that everything is as it was?” is typical of the general attitude. No cause for alarm. A feeling of security. A great deal of confidence in the people of the group, especially those in leadership. And in this atmosphere, “the mystery of iniquity doth already work” towards its end.

Every historical example—every one—follows this pattern. In every case, the overwhelming majority of the followers go with the compromises without realizing that anything is fundamentally wrong. Most never realize it, not even when the awful full-blown fruits of the change began to manifest themselves. Some comfort themselves by believing that they, themselves, are not changing, even if others are. And, of those who do began to realize that something is very wrong, almost all of them are trapped. They lose, in varying degrees, their spiritual liberty and fall prey to the fear of man (Proverbs 29:25).

“The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.”* (Proverbs 21:16)

How does this happen? Is not the Lord faithful to warn us of any error, and does He not strive with us to guide us into all truth? What has happened to children of God in the past? Why did they miss the way?

A minister brother had been reading different writings of some of these brethren—writings that were written in the first part of this century or slightly before. He marveled at what the Lord had taught them, and he was amazed that they had lost it. “If these folks who had these experiences could lose it,” he thought, “what hope is there for me?” This thought troubled him a great deal, and he earnestly sought the Lord with the question. His testimony was that the Lord told him: “I dealt with each of those brethren. I was faithful to them. They had to press on over my dealings to do what they did.”