1. Unconverted sinners can not enter the kingdom of heaven, because the God of truth hath declared they _shall not_. His word is more than ten thousand barriers in the way. And his veracity is so engaged to defend and fulfil every threatening, as well as every promise, that sinners might as well expect that God should change his nature, as change his word. Therefore if he hath said “the wicked shall be cast into hell;” Psal. ix. 17;—“he that believeth not shall be damned;” Mark, xvi. 16;—and that, “neither fornicators, nor isolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God;” 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10; we may be fully persuaded, that Jehovah will as certainly fulfil these most tremendous threatenings, as if we saw the accomplishment of them, this instant, with our eyes. Heaven and earth shall pass away; but one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the scriptures, until all be fulfilled. If Satan suggest “you shall not surely die,” remember “he was a liar from the beginning;” and that the fatal consequence of crediting that original falsity, was a confirmation of this unalterable truth, “that the wages of sin is death,” and that “what a man soweth that shall he also reap.” 2. When God makes a promise or denounceth a threatening, his _power_ as well as his faithfulness is exerted equally to the accomplishment of the one and the other. No intervention of second causes shall stay his hand, or obstruct, or even retard his designs; because himself the great FIRST CAUSE makes them all subservient to his sovereign will. So that he must fulfil every promise to his people, because his ability is equal to his veracity, and both spring from his eternal willingness to do so. And he will execute every denunciation of his wrath, because he can. Could the potsherds of the earth contend successfully with their Maker, they might then entertain some distant hope at least of evading his threatenings, and eluding his wrath: but, before they can expect to accomplish either, they must first cope with Omnipotence, and take heaven itself by storm: for, sooner shall the great Jehovah be dethroned, and his dominion in the heavens be subverted, than sinners unconverted be suffered to dwell there. The hand of God himself shall shut the gates of the celestial city against them; and all the power of the Lord God Almighty shall be exerted, together with his truth and justice, to keep them out, for ever. In vain shall the sons of Belial attempt to enter; in vain shall they knock, and importunately cry, saying, “Open unto us.” Their exclusion will be announced and confirmed by those cutting words of the Judge, “Depart from me, for I know you not.”