How To Prepare For A Spiritual Confrontation Series

One of the most important questions any Bible-believing church must ask itself is this: How will we respond when we find that gross, even unrepentant sin is present in our church body?

Many of us who fashion ourselves as born-again Bible-believing Christians might respond something like this: Well, not like the Roman Catholic Church has.

In the US, determined reporting by the Boston Globe newspaper (as captured in the 2015 film Spotlight) exposed widespread abuse and how pedophile priests were moved around by Church leaders instead of being held accountable. It prompted people to come forward across the US and around the world.

A Church-commissioned report in 2004 said more than 4,000 US Roman Catholic priests had faced sexual abuse allegations in the last 50 years, in cases involving more than 10,000 children - mostly boys.

A 2009 report found that sexual and psychological abuse was "endemic" in Catholic-run industrial schools and orphanages in Ireland for most of the 20th Century.

By 2012, the Roman Catholic church had paid more than $3 billion dollars in settlements to abuse survivors.

Again, as I mentioned, it was easy for Bible-believing evangelicals to point the finger until a years ago when an investigative team of reporters for two Texas papers revealed that top officials in the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention had covered up sexual abuse by both volunteers and church leaders, preferring to protect churches from lawsuits rather than potential future victims from the same abuse. Apparently, hundreds of Southern Baptist Convention church leaders and volunteers been criminally charged with sex crimes since 2000. The series of articles also detailed numerous incidents in which denominational leaders mishandled, ignored or concealed warning that Southern Baptist churches were being targeted by predators.

So, what's a church to do? Well, these are troubling and difficult issues, but one serious thought we're consider this morning is this: How about doing just exactly what the Word of God, the Bible, tells us to do. Though these situations are never easy, simply obediently following the Word of Jesus and His apostles in the New Testament could have saved many victims from the abuse and pain they experienced from repeat offenders.

As we come to the final chapter of Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, we find ourselves confronted with some very sharp words written by the Apostle Paul. The great apostle is about to visit the Church at Corinth, Greece for at least the third time, after writing at least three letters to them in an attempt to resolve the church's many sin problems. However, at the conclusion of all these attempts, Paul is still concerned that when he comes for his third visit, he may find that many Corinthian believers and possible unbelievers had persisted in their sin, and that there may well need to be a personal spiritual confrontation. Chief among the sins was the slander and gossip propagated by the false apostles who had infiltrated the church and had sought to discredit the Apostle Paul. But also, among the sins mentioned in II Corinthians 12:20 were not only "strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances, but also impurity, immorality and sensuality.

So again, the question we're asking this morning, is this: How should our church deal with gross and unrepentant sin when it is found in our midst. Specifically, what we will find in II Corinthians 13 is how to prepare for a spiritual confrontation--when someone may have sinned in your fellowship of believers and needs to be confronted.

Be certain of your facts, your faith & your motives and don't make exceptions for anyone for any reason.

Again, the Apostle Paul has planned a visit. And he's preparing both himself and the Corinthians for the worst-case scenario: The Corinthians really haven't repented as his associate Titus had reported, they have either covered up their sin successfully or they have perhaps fallen back into it. And Paul will ultimately have to deal with it personally when he visits.

So, Paul's words are at this point very sharp, or some might say he's very blunt. He gets to the point here with regard to ground rules for confrontation if the confrontation is necessary.

And the first thing we learn from verse one is this: Always make sure of your facts by requiring two or three witnesses. In any confrontation about a supposed sin, always make sure of your facts by requiring two or three witnesses.

II Corinthians 13:1: "This is the third time I am coming to you. "Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses."

Now as Paul writes this, he is quoting two passages. The first is Deuteronomy 19:15 which was God's instruction to Israel about how to judge anyone accuses of a crime or offense within the nation. The second reference, which I'm almost certain was in Paul's mind, were Jesus' own words in Matthew 18:15-17 about how believers are to handle sin or offenses among themselves.