All men are inwardly impure and unrighteous. Because they are unclean in their hearts, sin abounds in their lives:
“What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous? Behold, God puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight; how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water!” —Job 15:14–16
Man’s moral problem is that the inner corruption of his life runs much deeper than mere external actions. His problem is what he is. His inner nature and personal character are defiled by sin. His fallen heart actively lusts for iniquity, so that he drinks sin like water. Of this insatiable thirst for sin, Thomas Watson writes, “Like a hydropsical person, that thirsts for drink, and is not satisfied; they have a kind of drought on them, they thirst for sin. Though they are tired out in committing sin, yet they sin. . . . Though God has set so many flaming swords in the way to stop men in their sin, yet they go on in it; which all shows what a strong appetite they have to the forbidden fruit.” It must be acknowledged that in the heights of heaven even a host of angels fell into sin. How much more have the sons of Adam on earth rebelled.
—Steve Lawson, Foundations of Grace (Reformation Trust, 2006), 127–128.
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