Four Cardinal Sins
Text: (No specific text; topical — Matt. 23; James 3:8; I Pet. 2:11; I John 2:16; Heb. 11:25 as governing texts)
Series: Restoration Sermons
Date:
Speaker: Ed Rangel
Location: Waupaca Church of Christ
Bible Version: NASB 1995
Sermon Type: Topical
Learning Objectives
By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:
- Define hypocrisy from its Greek root and from Jesus' condemnation in Matthew 23, and explain why it is called "the sin most condemned by Jesus."
- Explain why slander is described as uniquely destructive — what distinguishes it from other forms of harm — using James 3:8 and Prov. 10:18.
- Explain the two Scripture passages that identify worldly pleasure as a spiritual threat (I Pet. 2:11 and I John 2:16) and describe what Moses' choice in Heb. 11:25 illustrates.
- Define selfishness as the opposite of the second great commandment, and explain what Scripture requires in its place.
- Name the four "cardinal" sins and explain what makes them "cardinal" — why the sermon groups these four rather than any other four.
Thesis
Among all the forms that sin takes, four are identified in Scripture with unusual consistency and severity: hypocrisy, slander, worldly pleasure, and selfishness. They are "cardinal" not because they are the only sins but because they are foundational patterns — forms of sin that shape the person who practices them, destroy relationships, and, if unchecked, make repentance progressively harder. Each is condemned with a specific intensity in the New Testament; each requires a specific remedy.
Burden
The burden is to name the enemy precisely. General warnings about "sin" can be acknowledged and mentally filed without producing conviction. The sermon that names four specific patterns — describes what they look like, shows where Scripture condemns them, and presses the hearer to examine whether they practice them — creates the specific conviction that general warnings cannot. Each of the four cardinal sins is common, self-concealing, and destructive. All four can be practiced within the walls of a congregation without obvious detection.
Introduction
Not all sins are equally prominent in the New Testament's warnings. The Scriptures return to some patterns of sin repeatedly — condemning them with particular intensity, describing their consequences with particular specificity, and warning against them with particular urgency. These are the "cardinal" sins: not the only sins, but the ones that appear most consistently as objects of specific, repeated, intense warning.
Four fit this description: hypocrisy, slander, worldly pleasure, and selfishness. They are considered here in the order in which the New Testament addresses them with the greatest force.
I. Hypocrisy
"No sin is more condemned by Jesus than hypocrisy." The statement is accurate: Matthew 23 devotes an entire chapter to it — seven "woes" addressed to the scribes and Pharisees, each one naming a specific form of hypocrisy and pronouncing judgment on it.
The word. Hypokrisis — from hypokrinomai, to answer back from behind a mask; the word of the Greek theater, where actors wore large masks to represent the characters they played. The hypocrite is the person who wears a mask: who presents one face publicly while another reality operates privately. The word does not describe ignorance or weakness — it describes deliberate performance.
The sin. Hypocrisy is the deliberate construction of a false public image. The specific forms Jesus condemns in Matthew 23:
"They say and do not do" (v. 3) — the gap between teaching and practice; the person who commands what they themselves refuse to do.
"They do all their deeds to be noticed by men" (v. 5) — the motivation is the audience, not God. The phylacteries are broadened; the tassels are lengthened; the good deed is performed where it will be seen. The external form is correct; the internal orientation is entirely wrong.
"They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues" (v. 6) — the craving for public recognition; the religion that is practiced as a strategy for social position.
"Woe to you... you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in" (v. 13) — hypocrisy is not only self-destructive but damaging to others: the hypocrite's false model of religion misleads those who observe it.
"You devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers" (v. 14) — financial exploitation covered by religious performance. The long prayer is not devotion; it is cover.
"You tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness" (v. 23) — meticulous attention to the small and externally visible, combined with the neglect of the internal and essential. The scrupulousness is real; so is the neglect; the combination is hypocrisy.
"Outwardly you appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (v. 28) — the summary: the exterior and the interior have been reversed; the exterior is for public consumption; the interior is the true self, concealed.
Why is this the most condemned sin? Because hypocrisy corrupts the instrument of truth. The person who sins openly is sinning; the person who sins while performing righteousness is sinning and corrupting the witness of the righteousness they perform. The open sinner harms themselves; the hypocrite harms themselves, misleads those who observe them, and makes the name of God an instrument of their deception.
Matthew 6:5, 6:2: The alternative is the worship and giving that are directed to God alone — done in private, unseen by the public audience, because God is the only audience that matters.
II. Slander
"The tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison" (James 3:8). "He who conceals hatred has lying lips, and he who spreads slander is a fool" (Prov. 10:18).
Slander is false and injurious speech — speech that damages another person's reputation, relationships, or standing through the communication of what is untrue, or through the malicious communication of what is true in order to harm rather than to help.
What makes slander uniquely destructive. Unlike most forms of harm, slander is often irreversible. The person who has been struck can heal; the property that has been damaged can be repaired; the money that has been taken can be returned. But the reputation that has been damaged by slander cannot always be repaired. The lie that has been told travels; its denial does not travel as far or as fast. The person slandered must live with the consequences of what was said about them long after the slander is exposed.
The tongue's capacity for harm: James 3:5-8. "The tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell" (James 3:5-6). The metaphor of fire is precisely chosen: fire does not need to be large to do enormous damage; it spreads faster than it can be controlled; it destroys what took years to build in a moment.
The prohibition. Romans 1:30 lists slander (katalalos) among the sins that characterize those who have refused to acknowledge God. II Corinthians 12:20 lists it (katalaliai) among the sins Paul fears he will find in Corinth. Ephesians 4:31 commands that it be put away along with bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor. The consistent NT response to slander is not tolerance or excuse — it is removal.
The alternative (Eph. 4:29): "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear." The measure for speech is not "Is it true?" alone but "Does it build up? Does it serve the need of the moment? Does it give grace?"
III. Worldly Pleasure
"Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul" (I Pet. 2:11). "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world" (I John 2:16).
Worldly pleasure is not pleasure as such — the creation is good, physical existence is good, enjoyment is legitimate within the structure God has given it. Worldly pleasure is the pleasure that is defined by the world's system rather than by God's revealed order — pleasure that is sought at the expense of obedience, that displaces God, or that is organized around the satisfaction of the desire rather than the fulfillment of the calling.
I Pet. 2:11: The identification of fleshly lusts as waging war against the soul is precise military language — not "tempting" the soul or "distracting" it but actively attacking it. The person who yields to worldly pleasure is not merely indulging a preference; they are losing a battle whose outcome is the soul. Peter's framing is urgent: "I urge you as aliens and strangers" — the Christian is not a native of the world's pleasure system; they are a foreigner in it and should be governed by a different set of loyalties.
I John 2:16: The three categories exhaust the field. The lust of the flesh — desires originating in the physical, undisciplined by the will. The lust of the eyes — desires aroused by what is seen, the covetousness that begins with looking. The boastful pride of life — the desire for status, for the admiration of others, for the image of success that the world confers. None of these is from the Father; all are from the world. The person who organizes their life around any of these three has organized their life around something that is passing away (I John 2:17).
Moses' choice (Heb. 11:25). "Choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin." The text is careful: "passing pleasures of sin" — not non-pleasures. Sin's pleasures are real. Moses was not choosing between pleasure and pain; he was choosing between temporal pleasure and eternal reward, between the pleasures of Egypt (which were genuine) and the purposes of God (which were greater). The choice is always between pleasures that differ in duration and weight, not between pleasure and its absence.
IV. Selfishness
The fourth cardinal sin is the direct negation of the second great commandment: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:39). Selfishness substitutes the self for the neighbor as the object of love — placing one's own interests, desires, comfort, and advantage at the center of every decision.
What Scripture requires. "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others" (Phil. 2:3-4). The command is not the suppression of all self-regard but the refusal to make self the governing principle — and the positive practice of attending to the interests of others as seriously as one attends to one's own.
The model (Phil. 2:5-8). "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men." The one who had the most to cling to clung to nothing. The opposite of selfishness is not self-destruction but self-giving — the willing expenditure of what one has in the service of others.
Selfishness and the community. The congregation that tolerates selfishness cannot fulfill the purpose for which it exists. "Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2). The burden-bearing that fulfills Christ's law requires the person who could decline to bear someone else's burden to choose to bear it anyway. This is the direct opposite of selfishness.
Application
The four cardinal sins share a common structure: each is self-concealing; each corrupts something essential; each produces progressive hardening.
Hypocrisy is self-concealing because the hypocrite's public performance convinces even themselves. The self-examination that true worship requires is exactly what hypocrisy prevents.
Slander is self-concealing because it presents itself as honesty, as concern, or as the appropriate sharing of relevant information. The slanderer rarely identifies their speech as slander.
Worldly pleasure is self-concealing because the pleasures are real. The person who is losing the war that Peter describes rarely feels they are losing — they feel they are enjoying.
Selfishness is self-concealing because every selfish person can give an account of their choices that frames them as reasonable, fair, or even generous.
The examination required for all four: apply the law of God without the self-protective reframing. "Is this what I present to God, or to men?" (Hypocrisy.) "Would the person I am speaking about recognize this as true and as kindness?" (Slander.) "Am I seeking pleasures that are passing, at the expense of purposes that are eternal?" (Worldly pleasure.) "Whose interests am I actually serving?" (Selfishness.)
Conclusion
The four are "cardinal" because they are foundational — each one, if unchecked, shapes the character of the person who practices it and progressively closes the door to repentance. The hypocrite who has performed righteousness long enough cannot repent without the performance itself being exposed. The slanderer who has spoken destructively long enough begins to believe the damage is justified. The person given over to worldly pleasure has less and less capacity to value what is not pleasurable. The selfish person has less and less capacity to attend to what is not self.
The remedy for all four is the same: the honest application of the mirror that James describes — the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25). Look in it without the self-protective reframing. Act on what you see.
Invitation
The one who condemned hypocrisy in Matthew 23 also issued the invitation of Matthew 11:28: "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden." The invitation is not to those who have first cleaned themselves up. It is to the weary and the burdened — including those burdened by the sins that this sermon has described.
Believe. Repent of what the mirror has shown. Confess. Be baptized for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38). The burden of hypocrisy and slander and worldly pleasure and selfishness is real; the relief is also real.
Word Study
| English Term | Greek Term | Basic Meaning | Usage in This Sermon | Sermon Significance | Key Texts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hypocrisy | hypokrisis | The speech or action of a stage actor — one who answers from behind a mask. | Used throughout Section I as the defining description of the sin Jesus condemns most severely in Matthew 23. | The theatrical origin of the word is not decorative — it is definitional. The hypocrite is performing a role rather than being a person. Every "woe" in Matthew 23 names a specific form of the performance. The word describes deliberate construction of a false public image, not merely inconsistency. | Matt. 23:28; Matt. 6:2, 5 |
| Slander | katalalos | Speaking against — kata (against) + lalos (speaking). | Used in Rom. 1:30 in the catalog of sins that characterize those who reject God. | The compound makes the direction visible: the speech is against rather than for. The alternatives that Scripture prescribes (Eph. 4:29) are speech that builds up and gives grace — the opposite direction. | Rom. 1:30; James 3:8; Prov. 10:18 |
| Fleshly lusts | sarkikas epithumias | Desires of the flesh — sarx (flesh) + epithumia (strong desire, longing). | Used in I Pet. 2:11 for the lusts that "wage war against the soul." | The military metaphor (strateuontai — wage war, carry on a military campaign) makes the stakes clear: the soul is the objective; the lusts are the attacking force. The person who yields to fleshly lusts is not declining a temptation; they are surrendering a battle. | I Pet. 2:11; I John 2:16 |
| Empty conceit | kenodoxia | Vain glory — kenos (empty) + doxa (glory). | Used in Phil. 2:3 as one of the two motivations that the practice of humility displaces. | The word captures why selfishness is also foolish: it pursues glory that is empty — reputation, status, the world's admiration — at the expense of what has genuine weight. Moses' choice (Heb. 11:25) shows what a person looks like who has assessed the glory correctly. | Phil. 2:3; Heb. 11:25 |
Scripture Interlock Table
| Theme | Boles' Outline | Supporting Scripture |
|---|---|---|
| "No sin more condemned than hypocrisy" — seven woes | I | Matt. 23 |
| "Do not sound a trumpet before you" — audience is God only | I | Matt. 6:2 |
| "When you pray, go into your inner room" — private vs. performance | I | Matt. 6:5-6 |
| "The tongue is a fire... full of deadly poison" | II | James 3:6, 8 |
| "He who spreads slander is a fool" | II | Prov. 10:18 |
| "Let no unwholesome word proceed" — alternative to slander | II | Eph. 4:29 |
| "Abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul" | III | I Pet. 2:11 |
| "Lust of flesh, lust of eyes, pride of life — not from the Father" | III | I John 2:16 |
| Moses chose ill-treatment over "passing pleasures of sin" | III | Heb. 11:25 |
| "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit" | IV | Phil. 2:3-4 |
| Christ emptied himself — model for the opposite of selfishness | IV | Phil. 2:5-8 |
| Baptism for remission — the entry into a life shaped by the opposite of these four | Invit. | Acts 2:38 |
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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 159. Primary text: none stated; topical (Matt. 23; James 3:8; I Pet. 2:11; I John 2:16; Heb. 11:25 as governing texts). OCR corrections: "Jas. 3 :8" → "James 3:8"; "lll." → "III." Doctrinal audit: hypocrisy developed from all seven woes in Matt. 23 rather than selected ones; slander's irreversibility developed without exaggeration — the point is about the difficulty of repair, not that repair is impossible; worldly pleasure developed from I Pet. 2:11 (military language) and I John 2:16 (three categories) — Moses' choice in Heb. 11:25 used as the positive illustration; selfishness developed from Phil. 2:3-8 and the second great commandment rather than from general cultural observations; no denominationalizing, no Calvinizing; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).
