HOW THE HEAVENLY ART WAS BORN! DFO 1577 5/83
1. I'VE GOT A GREAT IDEA FOR YOU! None of you guys yet have ever really drawn the Heavenly City the way it ought to be really drawn! You've done well, & mostly Eman's had it in his art, but it's just been a bright bare Pyramid shining in the distance so far away that you never really get the conception of how enormous it is! I was reading that Chapter today (Rev.21) & figuring out the exact size mathematically, & it covers over 2-1/4-million square miles! Then I was curious, well, what's the volume? How many cubic miles volume is it going to be? I mean, it staggers the imagination when you really begin to think about it!--It's 1-1/8 billion cubic miles! That's a lot of room & could hold quite a few estates on various levels!
2. WE REALLY HAVEN'T PLUNGED INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THAT MONSTROUS CITY! It's just absolutely almost beyond conception! It hasn't been the major emphasis in any picture, really, except "Space City", but even there it's always somehow in the distance. I made a little cardboard model when I was doing the Eden Series, exactly to scale in comparison to the globe we were using, & when you put that on the globe, you really get a pretty good idea of how immense it is! I mean, they could see it from some other planet! It is tremendous!
3. OF COURSE, ON THESE LITTLE PAGES WE DON'T HAVE MUCH ROOM, so what I'm thinking about is maybe a poster to give the kids some idea of how tremendous it is! I think I'm going to have to sketch it for you! If it was a nice big poster we could show it sitting on just a section of the Earth--we couldn't have the whole World or again you get too many things in--but we could have maybe one picture of it sitting on the curvature of the Earth.
4. WELL, MAYBE THAT'S JUST A CRAZY IDEA, but to get a little idea of the tremendous size of the City, you have to compare it with something, & nobody's ever really drawn it on a map. The closest it's ever come is putting my little model on top of that globe! But when you think it's about the size of Europe or half the size of the U.S., then you begin to realise how big it is!
5. SOME OF THE FOLKS HERE DIDN'T REALISE THE WALL WAS SEPARATE FROM THE CITY! But if you read it, you realise the Wall is a separate entity which surrounds the City, 216 feet high! Now that doesn't mean anything to most people unless you compare it to something & tell them that's as high as a 24-story hotel!--Just the little Wall that runs around it for 6,000 miles!--6,000 miles entirely around the City!
6. YOU DON'T REALLY GET ANY CONCEPT OF HOW TREMENDOUS EVEN THE WALL IS!--And the Wall is the one that's made out of 12 different kinds of precious stones. I spent two hours looking up all those stones to see what the modern names are, or what modern names we could use which people would recognise to really know what it looked like & get a little idea of those emeralds & diamonds & rubies & pearls etc.! That Wall, being 24 or 25 stories high, when you divide that into 12 layers--12 foundations of the Wall--those 12 layers are each about two stories high!--Two stories thick!--The first one a solid diamond, another one a solid ruby, the next a layer of emerald, some of them transparent, some of them opaque, depending on the gem! Can you imagine anything like that?--Not just one little stone, but a Wall as high as a 25-story building with a different layer of precious stones every two stories high, stretching 6,000 miles clear around the City! Can you imagine?
7. WE HAVEN'T BEGUN TO COMPREHEND THE SIZE OF THIS THING! I mean, if you were to show the Wall on the map of the World, it wouldn't be anything but a little line! It would be questionable you could see it at all! But what I thought about was sort of zeroing-in! Maybe have a big pic of the whole thing on the map, then having an inset or even another picture of one corner next to the ground, showing the Wall & the height of the Wall. You could get a little idea of how high the Wall was by putting a few little figures of people out there that look like ants or something!
8. I WAS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT TODAY WHERE THOSE PEARLS WOULD BE, THREE ON EACH SIDE. It's always been the concept there would be three right in the middle of each side, but when you realise each side is 1500 miles long, what's the point of having three gates right beside each other? You need more gates than that, farther apart. If you'd put'm about 500 miles apart that makes a little more sense! Maybe each corner could have one! Why not? It doesn't say it couldn't be!
9. IF WE DREW A CORNER, WE COULD SHOW THE WALL & AT LEAST ONE PEARLY GATE, & if we'd zero-in big enough we could show the road leading up to the Gate & maybe a carriage & some horsemen etc. on the road going toward the Gate. They're bound to have some transportation for at least the people outside!--And a gate big enough to allow a coach & horses through is going to have to be pretty high, so those are pretty big pearls!
10. LET'S GIVE PEOPLE A LITTLE IDEA OF SOMETHING LIKE THAT! Then the little kids, for example, can begin to get a small concept of how tremendous it is! In an inset like that you could show a corner of the Wall with a Gate there & the figures & the road & really give a little idea of how high it is! And if it's close-up enough to see figures on the road, you could even draw floors in the Pyramid behind it, & if it's transparent, you could draw figures of people walking around inside!
11. DOES THAT INSPIRE YOU? I'll try to send you my ideas & maybe then you can get inspired about it! But nobody's ever really drawn me a picture of that thing to give a real idea of just how big it is! It's pretty difficult. Can you imagine what that Wall would look like in colour? Boy oh boy! I think you could do it! I got the stones all sorted out today & we can get the exact colours. I had to look through several dictionaries & encyclopedias & a Bible dictionary & everything else to really pin'm down, & believe it or not, some of those names are still used today for those stones!
12. CAN YOU IMAGINE ONE LAYER OF SOLID DIAMOND? Some people picture it like it's all cluttered up or something, but it's one solid layer of diamond!--One solid layer of ruby, etc.! The Wall's bound to have some thickness, so any wall that size is bound to be pretty thick! Can you imagine the colours if you'd be able to do it in colour? I'm trying to inspire you! We could show one corner of the Wall with one corner of the Pyramid behind it & one Pearly Gate & a few figures down below on the road, people going in & out the Gate, & then showing the actual floors in the levels in the Pyramid. You can see through the walls of the City & you can even see through part of the protective Wall outside.
13. I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING IN SCIENCE FICTION OR SCI-FI MOVIES TO EVEN COMPARE WITH IT WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT THE MAGNITUDE OF THE THING! This is a job for an artist! Nobody can take a photograph of it! This ought to inspire you, only an artist can do it, & I think you can do it! I'm going to send you a little rough sketch! I'm working on the last few Eden Chapters now, & wouldn't that be gorgeous if we could stick in a picture or two to give the Family an idea of really how big it is? Even on these small pages, if you'd turn the page sideways I think there would be enough room to have a map showing a slight curvature of the Earth with some areas of land around. After all, if Heaven's going to be any place, it surely ought to be down here somewhere!--Ha!
14. WHEN WE THINK ABOUT WHAT'S COMING & WHAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE, IT MAKES IT WORTH IT ALL! We love Him & He loves us, of course that's the main thing, but every bride should be looking forward to the house she's going to live in too! Every bride usually has a new home! I have never yet been completely satisfied with any of these pictures that anybody has drawn, they just haven't quite grasped the whole thing! But I'm going to make you some sketches that I know you can draw & really make it beautiful! I really think we can do it!--Amen?
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family