How Many People Allowed in Heaven?

I went to Home Depot the other day and there was a line with “X” marks every six feet on the sidewalk. There was an employee at the entrance only allowing so many people to enter the store. The store is large, but only 100 customers were permitted at a time. As I reached the front of the line, a man came up and was about in enter, but on second thought turned and asked me if he had to get in line in order to go in. I sympathetically remarked, “I’m afraid so.” He let out a sigh when he saw the length of the line. Next he walked over and boarded a shuttle bus to take him to the end of the line which had just extended past the Texas/Oklahoma border.

During the Covid-19 crisis we have learned even in the big state of Texas that there are times there is just not enough room. But in the next life, the faithful saint has nothing to fear. Heaven will not have a Covid-19 crisis and has plenty of room. Or does it?
A man remarked to a preacher that he was not going to go to heaven. He had calculated that the New Jerusalem was only 1,500 miles long and 1,500 miles wide and therefore it was probably too crowded for him to go. The preacher replied, “even if Heaven is just 1,500 miles long and 1,500 miles wide, it is also, 1,500 miles high. This amounts to 2,250,000 square miles. If we take that 1500 mile figure literally (though it may not be), heaven could be composed of 396,000 stories (at 20 feet per story). If you cube it, about 512 quintillion cubic feet.

Revelation 21:16 reads, “And the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed: twelve thousand furlongs. Its length, breadth, and height are equal.” Someone has given us a curious calculation based on this verse.

“Twelve thousand furlongs, 7,920,000 feet which being cubed, 496,793,088,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Half of this we will reserve for the throne of God and the court of heaven, and half of the balance for streets, leaving a remainder of 124,198,272,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Divide this by 4,096, the cubical feet in a room sixteen feet square, and there will be 30,321,843,750,000,000 rooms. We will now suppose that the world always did and always will contain 990,000,000,000,000 inhabitants, an that a generation lasts for 331/3 years, making in all 2,970,000,000 every century, and that the world will stand 100,000 years or 1,000 centuries, making in all 2,910,000,000,000 inhabitants. Then suppose there were one hundred worlds equal to this in number of inhabitants and duration of years, making a total of 297,000,000,000,000 persons, and there would be more than a hundred rooms sixteen feet square for each person.”

Yesterday I went to Family Dollar (no I am no getting paid to included store names in my articles). The sign on the door said, “Limited to 10 customers at a time.” I had to go look for something in the back of the store and stumbled across the end of the line. The store was way over capacity. Being the good citizen I am, I promptly left. That is when I thought about Heaven. Heaven will not be crowded. There is room for all the children of God in His Heavenly Home. Yes, Heaven is big enough. Big enough for you, your family, and all those you can bring with you. Better still, it does have a stay-in-place order. Which is superfluous when you think about it. Where would you want to go?

– Daniel R. Vess

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