Our Tomorrowland

19 The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones: the first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls: each gate was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
Revelation 21:19-21

The Scripture for today is hard to get your mind’s eye to even imagine the picture. All those precious stones are on the foundations of the wall of New Jerusalem. There are twelve separate gates to the city, and each gate is one pearl. Not pearls in each gate, but the gate itself is a pearl. To help us understand the value of each of these “gate” pearls, let’s look at one of the biggest pearls in the world.

One of the most famous pearls ever is “La Peregrina.” It is about the size of a pigeon egg, about 4 centimeters or 1.5 inches. This pearl was appraised at over $11 Million USD. Now if we go back a couple of verses, we see that the walls around New Jerusalem are 144 cubits high. That means the gate needs to be 144 cubits. Now that is a challenge because we don’t know how long a cubit is. Well, let me help us out there.

A cubit is 18 inches. That means the pearl is taller than a 20-story building. It’s a gate, so it has to be wide enough for transportation to get through. At least a chariot. We know that exists because from earlier in the Heaven series, we saw Elijah was carried off into heaven by a chariot with horses. The Bible doesn’t say how many horses, but since it is plural, we know there had to be at least two. I researched that the width of a chariot for a single horse is a little over 4.5 feet, so with two horses, that would be 9 feet.

So this pearl is over 20 stories high and 9 feet wide. I don’t want to bore you with the math, but just one of those pearls would be worth over 123 Billion USD. Yes, 123 Billion. And I haven’t even mentioned the see-through gold streets. Not golden, but gold.

Amazing, Remarkable, Stupendous, and any other group of words you want to put together do not do justice to what we will see, touch, feel, hear, and smell when we are with the Lord in “Our Tomorrowland.”