When God says all of us are sinners, what are we supposed to realize?
We are to stop and realize that under like circumstances we would probably be prone to do the same thing. Because the old sin nature is in every one of us, God's declaration that all are sinners means every person is capable of the same sins; no one can claim to be different by nature.
Les teaches that when the old sin nature is exposed for what it really is and God says we are all sinners, we have to stop and realize that under like circumstances we would probably do the same things. He points to human history and present-day examples: armed forces committing horrendous atrocities, young men in Yugoslavia or Bosnia losing all sense of morality, treating any female as free game for their animal appetites, with no one taking that liberty away. A bygone general even called it one of the privileges of being a foot soldier. Les asks where such thinking comes from and why these young men suddenly lose what they learned at their mama's knee. The answer is the old sin nature. Every one of us, as shown in Romans chapter one and two, is capable of those same things; chapter three shows the old sin nature for what it is, and God's statement that all are sinners should make us realize our own proneness to the same acts.