So you must have salvation
before you can work it out.

When Christ cried out on Calvary, "It is finished!" He meant what He
said. All that men have to do now is just to accept of the work of
Jesus Christ. There is no hope for man or woman so long as they are
trying to work out salvation for themselves. I can imagine there are
some people who will say, as Nicodemus possibly did, "This is a very
mysterious thing." I see the scowl on that Pharisee's brow as he
says, "How can these things be?" It sounds very strange to his ear.
"Born again; born of the Spirit! How can these things be?" A great
many people say, "You must reason it out; but if you do not reason it
out, do not ask us to believe it." I can imagine a great many people
saying that. When you ask me to reason it out, I tell you frankly I
cannot do it. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it
goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John 8.) I do
not understand everything about the wind. You ask me to reason it
out. I cannot. It may blow due north here, and a hundred miles away
due south. I may go up a few hundred feet, and find it blowing in an
entirely opposite direction from what it is down here. You ask me to
explain these currents of wind; but suppose that, because I cannot
explain them, and do not understand them, I were to take my stand and
assert, "Oh, there is no such thing as wind." I can imagine some
little girl saying, "I know more about it than that man does; often
have I heard the wind, and felt it blowing against my face;" and she
might say, "Did not the wind blow my umbrella out of my hands the
other day? and did I not see it blow a man's hat off in the street?
Have I not seen it blow the trees in the forest, and the growing corn
in the country?"

You might just as well tell me that there is no such thing as wind,
as tell me there is no such thing as a man being born of the Spirit.
I have felt the spirit of God working in my heart, just as really and
as truly as I have felt the wind blowing in my face. I cannot reason
it out. There are a great many things I cannot reason out, but which
I believe. I never could reason out the creation. I can see the
world, but I cannot tell how God made it out of nothing. But almost
every man will admit there was a creative power.

There are a great many things that I cannot explain and cannot reason
out, and yet that I