What must happen before a person's attempts to clean up the sin-bent personality amount to anything?
Until God Himself does the things only God can do, all efforts of the sin-bent personality to clean itself up are for nothing. The root problem is not merely what a person does but who they are as sons of Adam, so human self-reform cannot accomplish what divine action alone can.
Les teaches that the Holy Spirit moves upon the population, convicting men by the Law of their need because they cannot do it on their own. Paul then lays it out plainly: the root problem is not what we are doing but who we are—sons of Adam. Every baby born into the world is in the same fallen place Adam was after he fell: the body may look sweet and innocent, but lying with it is a sin-bent personality. That personality can try to clean itself up, but until God does the things only God can do, it is all for nothing. The mind, will, and emotions are invisible yet real.