wonders that He says it, and the world believes that He is saying the
truth when He says it.

How does that come? There is only one answer; only one. His words
were the illuminating manifestation of God, and His deeds were the
plain and unambiguous operation of the divine hand then and there,
only because He Himself was divine, and in Him 'God was manifested in
the flesh.'

But passing from that, notice how our Lord here declares that in
comparison with the sin of not listening to His words, and being
taught by His manifestation, all other sins dwindle into nothing. 'If
I had not spoken, they had not had sin.' That does not mean, of
course, that these men would have been clear of all moral
delinquency; it does not mean that there would not have been amongst
them crimes against their own consciences, crimes against the law
written on their own hearts, crimes against the law of revelation.
There were liars, impure men, selfish men, and men committing all the
ordinary forms of human transgression amongst them. And yet, says
Christ, black and bespattered as these natures are, they are white in
comparison with the blackness of the man who, looking into His face,
sees nothing there that he should desire. Beside the mountain
belching out its sulphurous flame the little pimple of a molehill is
nought. And so, says Christ, heaven heads the count of sins with
this--unbelief in Me.

Ah, brother, as light grows responsibility grows, and this is the
misery of all illumination that comes through Jesus Christ, that
where it does not draw a man into His sweet love, and fill him with
the knowledge of God which is eternal life, it darkens his nature and