I beg your pardon, but I need a little space to be contrary. I will endeavor to be so as graciously as I can. I want to bristle a little at the invisible/visible distinction from a pastoral (or better yet: Christian) perspective.

I am fine with talking about 'invisible' Christians insofar as we know that wheat grows up with the tares, and that many times the one is indistinguishable from the other. Let them alone, I say, for the Lord said as much as well. If the angels cannot root them apart without much damage, then I wonder how the sons of man, as clumsy and wicked as they are, will go about the job without making a mess of the Lord's harvest.

If you wish to say that there are lost folks among the saved in the 'true' church, that is well and good. Indeed, where the sheep gather, we shall undoubtedly know that there will be wolves sniffing about. But if you use that as an excuse to toss your hands heavenwards to give up, to say that they are grown up together and there is no use in trying, then I say you've lost your gospel-changed mind. You've lost your hope.

Hope, you say? Yes, hope, dear brother or sister. Our Lord can change the leopard's spots. He can bring life to the dead. If you go to a fellowship of the saints, the gathering of the first-born sons and daughters of God, inheritors of all that is and ever will be, and you suspect that someone has come to the party without suitable attire, your duty is not despair, it is hope. You see to it that they have every opportunity to get out of the grave clothes and into the glory clothes. See to it that they might be adorned with the gospel and not with lies.

But what if they aren't elect? It makes no difference. You preach. You pray. And you hope. And you love. They ought to repent, and you ought to plead with them to do so. Never let your destiny or theirs get in the way of your gospel compassion. And for Christ's sake, be anything but invisible.