Jesus judged righteous judgment. He was not to be flattered. He did not try either persons or circumstances, in reference to Himself. This is where we so commonly fail in all our judgments. We see objects, whether persons or things, so much in our own light. How have these circumstances affected ourselves? How have these people treated us? These are the inquiries of the heart: and in the answer they get, the judgment is too commonly formed. We are flattered into good thoughts of people, and slighted into hard ones. Jesus was not such a One. The Pharisee’s compliment, and good fare (Luke 14:11And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him. (Luke 14:1)) did not affect His judgment on the whole scene in his house. The friendliness of a social hour could not relax the rightness of His sense of things: as Peter’s recent confession, on another occasion, did not hinder the rebuke that Peter’s worldliness deserved. Jesus was not to be flattered. Like the God of Israel in old times, His ark may be boasted in, and brought into the battle with a shout; but He is not to be flattered by this. Israel shall fall for their unrighteousness (1 Sam. 4).
What a lesson for us! What reasons have we to guard against the judgments of self-love! Against the trying and weighing of things or persons, in relation to ourselves! This firm, unswerving mind of Jesus, may be our encouragement, as well as our pattern, in this; and we may pray, that neither “this world’s flattery, nor spite” move us from having our thoughts as before the Lord all the day!