The most damnable and pernicious heresy that has ever plagued the mind of man was the idea that somehow he could make himself good enough to deserve to live with and all-holy God.

God has found out the guilt of your servants;

If all men have "free will" and yet all without exception are under God's wrath, then it follows that "free will" leads them in only one direction—"ungodliness and unrighteousness" (i.e., wickedness). So where is the power of "free will" helping them to do good? If "free will" exists, it does not seem to be able to help men to salvation because it still leaves them under the wrath of God.

The truth is, I am all sin.

If, therefore, you acknowledge that you have sin, if you tremble, if you are troubled by a feeling of God's wrath and by a horror of God's judgment and of hell, then have confidence. You are the one with whom God wants to speak, to whom God wants to show His mercy, and whom He wants to save.

So we are not sinners because we commit this or that sin, but we commit them because we are sinners first.

it is completely contrary to the nature of sin to confess that one has sinned.

Sinners are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive.

For so it usually happens in the world. Righteous men are regarded as sinners and vice versa. No one in the whole world is a sinner except the man who has the Word and believes in Christ. But those who persecute and hate the Word are the righteous ones. As Christ says (cf. John 16:2): "They think they are offering God a service.

So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!

God has committed himself, ever since creation, to working through his creatures--in particular, through his image-bearing human beings--but they have all let Him down.

The church is not supposed to be a society of perfect people doing great work. It's a society of forgiven sinners repaying their unpayable debt of love by working for Jesus's kingdom in every way they can, knowing themselves to be unworthy of the task.