How does God save a person?
God saves a person by taking them just as they are, as sinners, rather than waiting for them to clean up their life. He alone infuses the divine life and power that comes with salvation. A person in bondage to the sin nature cannot produce this life; it must come from God's outside power.
Les explains salvation with the illustration of an old dead battery. You can wash it, wax it, and make it sparkle on the outside, but when you turn the key nothing happens because it is still dead until outside power is brought in. That, he says, is exactly what salvation is. You and I cannot clean up our life to become a Christian; God takes us just exactly where we are, as sinners, and He is the One who infuses the divine life and power that comes with salvation. Before salvation, a person is only body and soul, with the sin nature ruling supreme, and he is in bondage to the sin nature and to Satan. Satan is powerful, controlled only by the more powerful, sovereign God, and the world is operating under his influence.