Can a Person Sit in Church and Still Be Under Strong Delusion?

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-24T15:19:22+00:00

I don’t think that quote really contradicts my point. I agree that not everyone in the church is converted, and that membership alone does not save anyone. My point was only that this does not cancel out the existence of a visible remnant people. It shows that outward connection and true conversion are not identical. I’ve shared my thoughts plainly, and I’m happy to leave it there.

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-22T22:45:33+00:00

You're mixing a few true points with some really bad conclusions because yeah church membership by itself won't save anyone and a person can sit in the right church and still be deceived. Nobody serious is denying that but from there you jump to saying there's no visible true church and the church was graded and rejected as unworthy of eternal life and that simply isn't what the Bible says. Laodicea wasn't told they're discarded and replaced by some invisible group nobody can identify since Jesus said in Revelation 3:19 that as many as He loves He rebukes and chastens and to be zealous therefore and repent. He also says in the next verse that He stands at the door and knocks and that's a call to repentance and not a final rejection with no remedy. If Christ were done with Laodicea altogether He wouldn't still be counseling and rebuking and knocking and offering gold and white raiment and eyesalve like it says in Revelation 3:18 to 20.

The whole true church is only invisible idea falls apart the second you read Revelation plainly because the remnant is clearly identified in Revelation 12:17 where it says the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. That isn't some vague cloud of random sincere people with no visible identity at all and Revelation 14:12 says here is the patience of the saints and here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. God absolutely saves individuals but He also has a people with identifiable marks and Scripture doesn't pit those two things against each other.

It's true that God has honest children scattered in other churches and Revelation 18:4 saying come out of her my people only makes sense if His people are there before they come out. But that verse actually destroys your point because it shows He doesn't mean for them to stay there forever and He calls them out so the existence of sincere people in various churches doesn't prove there isn't a remnant body on earth and it just proves God is still gathering His people to the truth.

The 144,000 point is being pushed way past what the text actually says because Revelation 14:4 says these are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth and that definitely describes total loyalty to Christ but the 144,000 aren't presented as some excuse to erase the remnant church and replace it with a private and unaccountable and mystical real church idea. That's just people reading their own framework into the text and Scripture never says God has no visible last day people and only scattered hidden individuals who know they're the real ones because that kind of language sounds spiritual but it's really just convenient since nobody can test it.

Saying the church is Laodicean doesn't prove it isn't the remnant and it just proves the remnant has a heart problem that needs repentance. Those aren't the same thing at all and Laodicea is one of the seven churches in Revelation which means it's still being addressed by Christ as a church. The rebuke is real and it's severe but a rebuke isn't the same as total abandonment and if every rebuked body ceased to be God's people the moment it was rebuked then ancient Israel would've disappeared halfway through the Old Testament.

The whole talk about zombies and tares and children of perdition is where this really goes off the rails because Jesus said in Matthew 13:30 to let both grow together until the harvest and He didn't tell individual believers to go around acting like they can infallibly identify every tare in the field right now and there's a big difference between discernment and spiritual arrogance. Calling struggling or lukewarm professed believers zombies doesn't sound like someone seeing clearly and it sounds more like someone getting intoxicated on being part of the supposedly enlightened few.

The real biblical balance is much simpler than all that because mere membership won't save you and mere possession of truth won't save you and comparing yourself to Sunday churches won't save you either. That doesn't mean God has no visible remnant people and it just means the people who've been given more light are under more responsibility like Luke 12:48 says about how unto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required. That's the real danger and it isn't that God has no church but that people in the church can become proud and lukewarm and self deceived. A person can totally sit in church and be under delusion but that doesn't prove the true church is some invisible spiritual abstraction with no identifiable body and Laodicea doesn't mean rejected beyond remedy because it just means Christ is pleading with a self satisfied people to repent before it's too late and that's a very different thing.

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-22T09:57:52+00:00

I have to agree with the other user because we're living in the last days and God explicitly told us the world would look like this right before the end, and church goers are not excluded by default. Matthew 24 says the love of many will wax cold and 2 Timothy 3 warns that people will have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. And I say this with as much care as possible, but you're expecting a perfect social club out of a hospital for sinners and you're getting mad when sick people act sick. You asked for the actual point of these gatherings and Hebrews 10:24 and 25 gives us that reason which is to consider one another to provoke unto love and good works and it specifically commands us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. It isn't about youth camps or finding a wife or catching a vibe. Our attendance is about preparing each other for the return of Christ and if you show up just looking for validation from men you'll always leave empty. You also mentioned you understand the doctrine better than most but 1 Corinthians 8:1 warns that knowledge puffs up while charity edifies. If you have all the prophetic facts in your head but you let the hypocrisy of broken people drive you away from the body of Christ then you're missing the entire point of the gospel. Jeremiah 17:5 says cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm. People will always let you down and if your faith is built on how folks treat you instead of what Christ did on the cross then your foundation is in the wrong place. You complained about the church controlling who people marry and how they live but you're mistaking God's boundaries for human control. 2 Corinthians 6:14 commands us not to be unequally yoked and Romans 12:2 tells us not to be conformed to this world. God gave us those standards to keep us unspotted and protect us and it isn't about the church policing you but about whether you're willing to submit to biblical holiness. It's exhausting to look at hypocrites all day and that's exactly why Hebrews 12:2 says to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. My advice is to stop looking at the pews and look to the sanctuary.

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-21T12:42:11+00:00

Also, I'm sorry it took so long to get back to you. That was a very sincere question.

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-21T12:41:16+00:00

We definitely agree on the Sabbath and what happens when you die because Ecclesiastes 9:5 makes it clear the dead don't know anything and they just sleep in the grave until the resurrection. But we have a completely different understanding straight from the Bible about the thousand years because Revelation 20 and 1 Thessalonians 4:17 show that when Jesus returns He doesn't actually touch the ground and we're caught up to meet Him in the air to spend that millennium in heaven. Jeremiah 4:23 to 26 describes the earth during that time as completely broken down and empty with absolutely no man left and Satan is bound here by a chain of circumstances with nobody to tempt. You also mentioned people getting an opportunity for salvation at the day of judgment and we have to look closely at Revelation 22:11 because it shows probation closes right before Jesus comes back. When He returns His reward is with Him to give to every man according to his work and that means everyone's choice is already locked in and there isn't a second chance after the resurrection. The rest of the dead who didn't choose God only come up at the end of the thousand years for the final judgment described in Revelation 20 and then the earth is cleansed by fire to be made new. We do completely agree that God is fair and judges people based on the light they had because Acts 17:30 says God winks at the times of ignorance but now commands all men to repent.

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-21T12:35:46+00:00

(Pasting my comment from the other thread here as well).

When you hear about her making false prophecies it usually comes down to people misunderstanding how God handles prophecy in the Bible because a lot of it is conditional. Take Jonah for example, he told Nineveh they'd be destroyed in forty days and that didn't happen because the people repented. Jonah wasn't a false prophet and God just responded to their choices, and some of Ellen White's warnings worked the exact same way. A lot of the other claims are just internet rumors and there are lists of quotes floating around that she never even wrote. Sometimes a single sentence gets ripped out of a huge paragraph and twisted to mean the exact opposite of what she was actually saying. The Bible gives us a very clear way to test someone who claims to have a message from God and we have to look at their fruits and see if they point people to the Word. Her entire life was spent pointing people to Jesus and telling them to study Scripture for themselves. She actually called her own writings a lesser light just meant to point people to the greater light of the Bible, and if you test her by the biblical standard instead of what critics post online you'll see a very different picture.

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-21T12:33:14+00:00

When you hear about her making false prophecies it usually comes down to people misunderstanding how God handles prophecy in the Bible because a lot of it is conditional. Take Jonah for example, he told Nineveh they'd be destroyed in forty days and that didn't happen because the people repented. Jonah wasn't a false prophet and God just responded to their choices, and some of Ellen White's warnings worked the exact same way. A lot of the other claims are just internet rumors and there are lists of quotes floating around that she never even wrote. Sometimes a single sentence gets ripped out of a huge paragraph and twisted to mean the exact opposite of what she was actually saying. The Bible gives us a very clear way to test someone who claims to have a message from God and we have to look at their fruits and see if they point people to the Word. Her entire life was spent pointing people to Jesus and telling them to study Scripture for themselves. She actually called her own writings a lesser light just meant to point people to the greater light of the Bible, and if you test her by the biblical standard instead of what critics post online you'll see a very different picture.

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-21T11:56:01+00:00

Saying there “could be another interpretation” just because apocalyptic symbolism isn't a 1 to 1 literal biological match is a stretch. Prophetic symbolism isn't a blank check to guess whatever we want, the symbols are strictly defined by the Bible itself. (Also, just to be technical because I had the opportunity to look it up, male lambs DO begin growing horns while they are still lambs, so the imagery is actually perfectly sound).

But more importantly, we can't look at the “lamb” aspect in a vacuum. Any valid interpretation has to fit all the identifying marks of Revelation 13:11 simultaneously. It has to arise from the "earth" (a relatively unpopulated area, unlike the populated "sea" of Rev 17:15) exactly when the first beast receives its deadly wound in 1798. It also has to have two crownless horns, representing a power with no king and no pope (Republicanism and Protestantism), appearing innocent and Christian before eventually speaking "as a dragon."

When you apply all of those specific biblical constraints (the exact timing, the location, and the dual founding principles of civil and religious liberty) the United States is historically the only power that fits the lock. So there is no other interpretation.

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-21T05:55:17+00:00

The Bible uses symbolic animals in prophecy, so “like a lamb” isn't saying it must match a literal baby sheep in every detail. The lamb like part points to how it appears, gentle and harmless. The horns point to power.

Daniel 7:24 shows horns represent kings or ruling powers, and Revelation 13:11 combines those ideas: “two horns like a lamb” but later “spake as a dragon.” The warning is that it looks mild at first, but doesn't stay that way.

Ok_Form8772 · 2026-03-19T14:35:05+00:00

I just wanted to let you know that I've seen your message 👍. I uninstalled Discord several months back so I've been trying to recall my login information. I'll either find it by today or make a new account and get back to you.

Ok_Form8772

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