The Doctor: Sin Not Sins

The problem of life, my friends, is not individual sins but Sin itself, the whole background – the thing itself, the desire process which is the cause of all these local and minor manifestations and eruptions.  And that is our problem.  We are not here to teach and lecture men and women about individual sins you may control and conquer.  You are still an sinner, your nature is still evil and will remains so, until by the death of Christ and the resurrection you are born again and receive a new nature.  Our trouble is that our nature is evil; it really does not matter how it may manifest itself.

What is our duty then?  Well, it is this.  Before we talk to anyone we must find out first whether he believes in Christ or not.  Is he a new man?  If he is not, then he is still struggling with flesh and blood.  Are we to lecture him on his sins and to preach morality to him?  No, we are to preach Christ to him and do all we can to convert him, for what he needs is a new nature, a new outlook, a new mind.  It is no use our expecting to find figs on a thorn bush, however much we may treat and care for it.  The trouble is the root.  We are wasting our time and neglecting our duty by preaching morality to a lost world.  For what the world needs is life, new life, and it can be found in Christ alone.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, From D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years by Iain Murray, pp. 159-160