It’s a poor diet to eat “the muscle that shrank” (Gen 32:32)—feeding on the failures of God’s people.
Some words you may only get to use correctly once or twice in a lifetime. Here’s one—expurgated! The Chronicles are the expurgated editions of the Books of Kings. The dictionary defines the word as “an account having had objectionable or unsuitable material removed.” One source gives a synonym as “decontaminated.” You recall that this is one of four marks of the Chronicles—blessed deletions, removing the failures of God’s people from the record. But why? God doesn’t shy away from giving the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But this is the effect of two factors: chronology and grace. The Kings told the stories of people during their lifetime. Now this is the postmortem account, once these saints are in glory. And it’s one sublime result of the Cross and New Covenant applied retroactively. Here’s the promise of the Ultimate Record-Keeper: “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Heb 8:12). Based on what? “He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:14, NLT). Thus we are introduced to Jonah as a preacher like Jesus, Sarah, the model of submission to one’s husband, and Samson, an example of faith in God. Yes, there’s hope for us, struggling saint! And here is Solomon’s record once grace has finished her editing: “All the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart…Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. Then Solomon rested with his fathers” (2 Chron 9:23, 30-31). Grace teaches us to sing these words by Samuel Whitlock Gandy: “I hear the accuser roar Of ills that I have done; I know them well, and thousand more; Jehovah findeth none.”