Why can't you charge a dead car battery by cleaning it?
Cleaning a dead car battery only addresses its outside; it cannot restore the lost charge. A battery needs power from an outside source to be recharged. In the same way, people cannot clean up their own act or appease God by works; only God can touch and transform the invisible part of a person.
Les teaches that when a car battery is dead because the lights were left on, you do not bring a basin of warm soapy water and a rag to clean the outside of the battery. That is ridiculous. You can wash that battery till doomsday, but you will not put a charge into it until you bring in power from an outside source. It is the same way with the Spirit. People constantly try to clean up their own act or do something to appease God, but works religion is as doomed to failure as anything can be. No preacher, teacher, priest, denomination, or religion can touch the invisible part of a man’s make-up. Only God can, because He is the Creator of that invisible part. We are to be transformed and different from what we were before, not by works.