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Only in the light of the moral perfections of God - his infinite excellence and goodness - can man learn his true condition. For God's character is the opposite of our own. He created us in his moral image, to be like him, to live for him as the centre of our being, and to love him with heart and soul and mind and strength. But sin has reversed the purpose of creation and man has become the contradiction of what he ought to be. Withholding from God what belongs to him, men serve themselves and love themselves: 'They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, wo is blessed forever' (Rom. 1:25). The charge brought against Belshazzar applies to the whole human race: 'You have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven...And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honoured' (Dan. 5:23)....
Lloyd-Jones was not going beyond the scriptural evidence when he said, 'The sinner is an abomination, he is a monstrosity in God's universe, he is altogether hateful and vile."
The knowledge of God does not therefore first come to sinners with comfort, rather it is intensely disturbing. Mouths are shut, or if they speak at all it is to say such words as: 'Against you, you only, have I sinned' (Psa. 51:4). 'Woe is me, for I am lost' (Isa. 6:5); 'You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence' (Psa. 90:8). 'I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye sees you; therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes' (Job 42:5).
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Quotations taken from The Old Evangelicalism: Old Truths For a New Awakening, 8-9.
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