Something difficult to see

Here is a site with a work by Tyndale titled A Pathway to the Holy Scriptures.

This paragraph is the aspect of our situation we just have to see and that is most difficult to see...or see and accept:

"By nature, through the fall of Adam, are we the children of wrath, heirs of the vengeance of God by birth, yes, and from our conception. And we have our fellowship with the damned devils, under the power of darkness and rule of Satan, while we are yet in our mother's wombs; and though we show not forth the fruits of sin as soon as we are born, yet are we full of the natural poison, whereof all sinful deeds spring, and cannot but sin outwards, (be we never so young,) as soon as we be able to work, if occasion be given: for our nature is to do sin, as is the nature of a serpent to sting. And as a serpent, yet young, or yet unbrought forth, is full of poison, and cannot afterward (when the time is come, and occasion given) but bring forth the fruits thereof; and as an adder, a toad, or a snake, is hated of man, not for the evil that it hath done, but for the poison that is in it, and hurt which it cannot but do: so are we hated of God, for that natural poison, which is conceived and born with us, before we do any outward evil. And as the evil, which venomous worm doth, maketh it not a serpent; but because it is a venomous worm, doth it evil and poisoneth: and as the fruit maketh not the tree evil; but because it is an evil tree, therefore bringeth it forth evil fruit, when the season of the fruit is: even so do not our evil deeds make us first evil, though ignorance and blindness, through evil working, hardeneth us in evil, and maketh us worse and worse; but because that of nature we are evil, therefore we both think and do evil, and are under vengeance under the law, convict to eternal damnation by the law, and are contrary to the will of God in all our will, and in all things consent to the will of the fiend."

Human beings tend to think of themselves as some kind of special prize that God must convince and lure to His camp, but that is not our situation... The Bible doesn't exist to convince but to convict (and after convicting to give the good news of the Way)...

There is an especially good passage in the above paragraph: "...and as an adder, a toad, or a snake, is hated of man, not for the evil that it hath done, but for the poison that is in it, and hurt which it cannot but do: so are we hated of God, for that natural poison, which is conceived and born with us, before we do any outward evil."

Even if we think that because we don't do any (we think) outward evil it is still in us and God is holy and we can't be in His presence with that poison of sin in us. We are to God like what a poisonous snake or a slimy frog is to us.

The message in the quoted paragraph above would be an example of 'the law' that convicts. There is another part of the Bible called 'the Gospel'. The Gospel gives the good news of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. He washes our poisonous nature away (by His sacrifice) and makes us able to approach God. Literally makes us holy. Without that sacrifice (without that High Priest and Mediator) we can't approach God; and more than that we are condemned by God. Yet the way out of the prison of death and the devil is there. Seeing ourselves as being not holy is the difficult part, because vanity and worldly pride and self-will don't buy it or else they refuse to admit it or else they fight the reality of it tooth and nail...(or using another tactic, they get you to affect seeing it in yourself when it is still not yet a real conviction in you)...