We're saved in spite of being wicked. Recently, I was talking to soldiers at Fort Dix. They were very intelligent boys. The problem with those boys is that they were wicked. But you see, that concept doesn't compute to the secular mind.
People are sick, they're misguided or they're stupid, but they're never bad.
The concept that people are just plain evil has been largely lost. This is a result of a Quaker heresy, embraced by the liberals, that the state and not the church has the job of correcting people who are misguided, rather than punishing them for doing evil. To understand how blessed we are to be Christians, to be saved and on our way to heaven, we first have to understand how great our sin and misery really is. Think of your misery. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil.