Tag Archives: grief

Damage Control | Bible Gleanings | June 28-29, 2025

June 27, 2025 Brandon G. B. Leave a comment

The prosperous paradise became a desolate graveyard in a matter of weeks. The air was unbreathable. Pests invaded homes and raided pantries. Livestock perished by the thousands. Leprous skin diseases broke out. Darkness covered the land, and even the water turned to blood.

This is not a scene from an apocalyptic movie, however. It was real life for the ancient Egyptians during the plagues God sent to compel Pharaoh to fear the Lord and free the Israelites from slavery. But more jaw-dropping than the severity of the plagues themselves was Pharaoh’s spiritual schizophrenia—his flip-flopping inconsistency. He begged for mercy when the plagues were too hard to bear, but hardened his heart the moment things got better. When he couldn’t take anymore, he cried, “Plead for me . . . This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong . . . Go, serve the Lord; your little ones also may go with you” (Ex. 8:28; 9:27; 10:24). Even his advisors warned, “Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” (Ex. 10:7).

Yet, as soon as the skies cleared and the frogs croaked their last, the Scripture says, “But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said” (Ex. 8:15; cf. Ex. 8:32; 9:34; 10:20, 27). He did not hate his sin—he hated the consequences of it. He despised discomfort, not disobedience. His heart ached because of the suffering caused by his sin, but not because of sin itself.

But before we point too many fingers at Pharaoh, we would do well to look in the mirror. How often do we mourn over our sin only because it seizes our comfort, robs our peace, and afflicts our consciences? We are often more upset by the plagues sin brings upon our lives than by the fact that sin is offensive to our holy God. And let’s be honest: if we could sin without consequences, many of us would do so without hesitation and harden our hearts even worse than Pharaoh. That is not sin-hating repentance at all—it is damage-control.

As the Puritan John Owen wrote, “We must hate all sin, as sin, and not just that which troubles us. To seek mortification only because a sin troubles us proceeds from self-love . . . A man who only opposes the sin in his heart for fear of shame among men or eternal punishment from God would practice the sin if there were no punishment attending it.” In other words, genuine repentance is marked by grief over what sin is, not merely by what sin does (2 Cor. 7:10). As believers, we should hate our sin not simply because it harms us, but because it grieves and defies the God who saved us from it.

Brandon is the pastor of Bandana Baptist Church in Bandana, Kentucky, where he lives with his wife, Dakota, and their three dogs, Susie, Aries, and Dot. Brandon and Dakota are also foster parents through Sunrise Children’s Services of Kentucky. Brandon is also a published author and a religious columnist for the Advance Yeoman newspaper in Ballard County, Kentucky. He is also a devotional contributor for Kentucky Today, a news publication of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. His columns are also featured in the Times-Argus newspaper of Central City, Kentucky, West Kentucky News of western Kentucky, and the online blog, Reforming the Heart.

Bible Gleanings, devotions, Sermons

Sorrow for Sin | Bible Gleanings | March 8-9, 2025

March 7, 2025 Brandon G. B. Leave a comment

David was too sick to his stomach to eat and slept on the ground in mourning clothes when Nathan the prophet confronted him about the gravity of his murder, lying, and adultery (2 Sam. 12:7-17). Upon discovering that they only had forty days to get their act together and turn to the Lord, the Ninevites wiped the smiles from their faces and donned frowns of repentance (Jonah 3:1-10). Ezra tore his clothes, ripped out his hair, and sat in the dirt for an entire day when learning about the Israelites’ insensible iniquity (Ezra 9:3-4). A torrent of tears spilled from the eyes of the sinful woman who interrupted Jesus’ dinner with Simon the Pharisee—enough tears to wash Jesus’ feet, as a matter of fact (Luke 7:37-38). After denying Christ thrice, despite swearing to never do so, a regretful and repentant Peter “went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62).

Every child of God should shed tears of remorse and repentance when realizing the seriousness of their sins against God. And this is the meaning of Jesus’ command to His disciples then and now to be marked as, “those who mourn” (Matt. 5:4a). Certainly, while the Lord cares about all legitimate mourning (Psalm 56:8), Jesus is speaking having a broken heart for the sin which breaks God’s heart. Christ’s command is repeated in James 4:9, where the apostle exhorted, “Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.”

The Corinthian Christians also felt this holy grief. That is why Paul commended it in 2 Corinthians 7, where he wrote, “As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Cor. 7:9-10). Therefore, believers must weep when they sin against God, taking a page out of Ezra’s confessional prayer: “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens” (Ezra 9:6; cf. Lam. 5:15-16).

Fortunately, the Lord consoles the contrite: “they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4b). God comforts those who experience godly sorrow—never before they do, but always afterwards. Those who continually mourn over sin will be continually restored and reassured by the “God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3). And this comfort will be fully realized when believers see the Lord face-to-face in eternity, in a place where sin is barred from entering: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

This above column is from my book, 40 Days with Jesus, which is a forty-day daily devotional focusing on the life, teachings, and miracles of Jesus. This book is available in paperback and hardcover on Amazon:

Bible Gleanings, devotions

Guidance from the Grave | Bible Gleanings | November 9-10, 2024

November 8, 2024 Brandon G. B. Leave a comment

Scores of smiling graduates suddenly began to stare soberly when Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955— October 5, 2011), founder of Apple, stated something startling during a commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

And as astonishment filled the atmosphere, Jobs continued,

“Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.”

Jobs did not believe in God, but he did believe in the grave and the necessity of learning lasting lessons from life’s last stop.

And this king of technology unknowingly echoed the words of the king of Israel, Solomon, who shockingly said, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart” (Eccl. 7:2). If you are still alive, you need to attend more funerals and less feasts. But why should we choose a depressing funeral over a party with family, friends, and good food? Because funerals are ugly and unpleasant reminders of the inevitability of death. All funerals are a preview of our own, and they prevent us from pretending that we are immune from death.

Furthermore, death compels us to stop playing pretend so that we can live for what truly matters. You know what you don’t think about at funerals? Trivial and transient things like money, possessions, careers, sports, and presidential elections. All of life’s “side issues” take a back seat in the funeral home when someone you know is up front in a coffin. Funerals force you to think, “One day, it will be my turn. Am I ready to meet my Maker? What legacy will I leave behind? Will those in attendance have to say nice things to cover up the odor of my bad reputation, or will I leave behind a good name that glorifies the name of Christ?”

Death is the great priority-rearranger. As Jobs later remarked in his speech, “Death is life’s change agent.” Indeed, the more we think about it, the more we should reconsider and reshape our goals, attitudes, hopes, dreams, prayers, and longings—and that’s the point of Solomon’s counsel. The living should “lay it to heart” that they will not live forever on earth, and thus, all of the living should prepare for eternity and live a life on earth that counts for the glory of God. The grave will give us guidance for life, if only we will listen.

Pick up a copy of Brandon’s latest book, Fundamentals for the Faithful, which explains the importance of all the basics which every believer should know:

Bible Gleanings, devotions

The Death of Death | Bible Gleanings – June 4-5, 2022

June 3, 2022 Brandon G. B. Leave a comment

Death. It fills graves and empties hearts. It is the ship that carries the soul across the infinite sea of eternity. It is the wind that blows out the burning candle of living. It is the door through which we exit life and enter everlasting delight or damnation. It is the period at the end of the final chapter of your story on earth.

Death is also a sentence—the penal verdict for transgressing the righteous law of the Judge of all the earth. The decree from His golden bench reads, “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20a). The first criminals to be anathematized by this awful adjudication were our first parents, Adam and Eve. After they sinned in the Garden, the Lawgiver declared to them, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19b). And death is still the consequence for crooked culprits convicted of the crime of sinning against God: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a).

Yet, somehow one of Scripture’s most malignant malefactors can confidently say, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Paul violently persecuted Christians in the early church, but he was happy to die. How is death a petrifying retribution in Genesis, but a pleasant reward in Philippians? Apparently, the meaning of death changed somewhere between the Garden of Eden and the Roman prison from which Paul wrote this letter. As a matter of fact, the nature of death changed somewhere between two thieves on a hill called Calvary.

As Jesus desperately clung to life on a bloody crucifix, He assured the robber beside Him, “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Death would not be the thief’s painful conclusion—it would be his passageway to paradise because of the grace of Christ. The Lord of life put death to death by His death, securing eternal life for all who believe—including the swindler by His side (2 Timothy 1:10). Because of Christ’s work for believers, death is the gateway to glory, the staircase to salvation, and the elevator to everlasting life. It is merely the bridge between heaven and earth for those who have crossed over from death to life (John 5:24).

This is why the Christian may sing and shout the words of 1 Corinthians 15:54-57,

“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Bible Gleanings is a widely-read weekend devotional column, written for the Murray Ledger & Times in Calloway County, Kentucky.

Brandon is the founder and main contributor to Brandon’s Desk, the blog with biblical resources from his ministry. He pastored the family of believers at Locust Grove Baptist Church in Murray, Kentucky for six years. He and his wife Dakota live there with their three dogs, Susie (Jack Russell), Aries (English Shepherd), and Dot (Bluetick Beagle).

Brandon's Desk