In order to deal successfully with life's challenges, one must: (1) have sufficient understanding of what is truth and what is error; and (2) have sufficient interest in furthering truth and opposing error.

Many people who are interested are not knowledgeable; and many who are knowledgeable are not interested. It is with these latter ones that we are concerned at this time.

People must be motivated if they are to be meaningfully active in the affairs of the Lord (Rom. 12:29 Matt. 6:20-21; Matt. 16:26). One factor involved in this motivating process is the view that such activity can be fruitful. One who is convinced that any contemplated effort would be fruitless is dissuaded from making the effort. For why do something that will produce no good? Thus the view that a particular person or group is somehow immune to being affected is both enervating and dangerous. And the only counteraction to this outlook is the view that effort can be productive. One who becomes convinced of possibilities in a particular area, for good or evil, is thus encouraged to turn attention in that direction.

Nothing is more evident than the principle that history has a way of repeating itself with old ideas and practices appearing again and again. True, each appearance of an old idea or practice is often sufficiently different from the past to be able to delude the incautious into not recognizing it for what it is. But the sober saint will see, not only the variation, but also the parallel, and thus be in position to identify what has appeared.

One of the most handicapping ideas in this area is the presumption that, though an error has invaded the family of God, such "just can't happen here." Some clear and unbiased thinking should convince that the, "it can't happen here," outlook stems from merely wishful thinking of unconcern, and is wholly unjustified. Genuine concern for divine truth never presumes that a particular area is immune to challenges to which other areas are, or have been subject.

The church of the past has had its problems - very serious problems:-But every basic problem that has ever beset saints is potentially a problem for all saints.

Every informed fundamentalist is aware of numerous disorders that plagued people of God in the past: structural departures, functional irregularities, the anti-nomian heresy, mysticism, etc. These made havoc of the cause of the Lord. And they have appeared, and are appearing to challenge the faith of believers today. They have become greater threats because too often the view has been held, and often expressed, that they could never become problems. The "it can't happen here," outlook thus has encouraged perpetuation of errors.

Such naivete is especially dangerous when directed toward a particular geographical area or local church. Some people who are well informed with reference to divine truth and who are well aware of encroachments elsewhere are seemingly unconcerned about the area where they are, presuming that somehow what has happened elsewhere just cannot happen there.

We do not advocate an excitability that loses perspective. We do suggest that a calmness to the point of non-alertness can well result in disaster to a congregation that had been considered as somehow immune to the inroads of error that had affected other areas and churches.

While we need to realize that some environments are more dangerous than some others on that particular point (note the city of Corinth), we must not lose sight of the vulnerability of every area to every challenge.

Until comparatively recently, in what has often been referred to as "the Bible belt," it was thought that modernism could never obtain a foothold and that studies in evidences were unneeded, and would never be needed. But the "Bible belt" is no longer considered immune to such liberalism. In other areas, geographically distant from centers of hyper-promotionalism, it has been thought that such fanfare would never penetrate those areas. Somehow, it has been thought, "our congregation" will escape the thrusts of liberalism that are being so strongly felt in other congregations. Those who are informed realize that some of the most passionate promoters are in areas distant from the "centers." It has happened there!

Realization that error can be influential in a particular area need not be the only application of the "it can happen here" outlook. There is a crying need for a disposition of cautious optimism in the Lord's work.

What worker has not recognized among his fellow-saints abysmal ignorance, grave indifference and a marked degree of worldliness? Sometimes, when this comes to his attention, he is inclined to become so discouraged as to conclude that this situation will necessarily continue. To this one, the "it can't happen here" outlook shows itself in a conviction that bad conditions will necessarily continue.

It is not claimed that situations will always improve, even with thorough and patient teaching. But who has not, by longsuffering and persistence, often seen in individuals and groups a marvelous manifestation of a deepening interest in the Gospel of Christ?

Just think of the improvement that characterized the church at Corinth as a result of the teaching presented in the first letter to that church. Cannot this serve to encourage the concerned saint to the conclusion that "it can happen here"?

Truth Magazine, XVIII:10, p. 6
January 10, 1972