Listen to radio or watch TV and at the end of a very nice sermon the preacher will invite the audience to have fellowship with God by having their sins taken away because they recited a prayer. I've studied the bible to find a command, example, or inference that says remission of sins is accomplished by saying a prayer.
Understand me please.....prayer is important, and to ask God to save is something to do. But to believe that saying the prayer is God's way of saving man today is doing something the bible doesn't say to do.
The thief on the cross??
Did he pray to Jesus for salvation? Yes. Did he receive the salvation he prayed for? Yes. Did Jesus have the power on earth to forgive sin? Yes. He did it on more than this occasion with the thief on the cross.....
Mark 2:5-10 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?
But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins,Jesus is not on earth anymore, before he ascended into heaven he gave instructions to his apostles concerning how to make disciples when he's gone.....
Matt. 28:19-20 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
Consider what I say.....
