Father Mike Schmitz

What do we have?

We have chapters 8 through 11.

So there's a lot of stuff happening.

We have the seventh seal.

Remember, with each opening of each seal, there's more destruction coming upon the earth.

At the same time, there were those who were protected by this seal that they had on themselves.

And it's interesting.

I mentioned this before.

I'll mention this again.

There is a debate regarding the dating of the book of Revelation that some say is before the year 70.

Others say it's around the year 80 to 90.

Again, those are important to note.

The majority idea is the later dating.

The minority view is the earlier dating.

But regardless, they were writing to a people.

John was writing to a people who were in persecution.

And he's writing to them, revealing to them

the power of worship that's happening in heaven.

In fact, look at this chapter eight, the very beginning, it talks about this golden censer.

And it says this, it says, he stood at the altar, this is chapter eight, verse three, another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer.