Opening the Gates of Heaven Perry Stone

with others in the temple. When asked why, they responded, “Our fathers passed on a tradition to us, that one day the Holy Temple will be destroyed. We did not want to teach our secret, so that it does not fall into the wrong hands … then be used for idolatry.” 6 I have seen several artists’ renditions of how the priest would stand over the golden altar once the incense was burning. He held his hands over the smoke in the form of the Hebrew letter shin , which is the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet; it was also the letter representing the name of God and the letter placed on every Jewish mezuzah, the object on the right side of the doorposts of a Jewish home and business. The priest’s hands were formed similar to the letter W in the English language. The initial smoke of the incense would travel upward through his hands and into the atmosphere. The belief was that all of the prayers from God’s covenant people went to the temple over the golden altar, and once the incense was burned and formed the smoke, the words went up into the heavenly realm toward the temple in heaven. In what is classified as extra-biblical literature , the gate of heaven is mentioned as being linked with prayer. In 1 Enoch 9:10, prayers go to the gate of heaven. In 3 Baruch 11:1–9, it is written that the gates of heaven are opened to receive prayer, an idea also confirmed in Testament of Adam 1:10. 7 In Revelation 5:8 ( KJV ), the golden vials have prayers of the saints described as “full of odours.” The word odours