We can best answer this question by considering the furniture and layout of the tabernacle the Lord instructed Moses to build. That tabernacle, after all, was patterned after the heavenly prototype (see Hebrews 8:5). There were two altars in the earthly tabernacle, one made of bronze located outside the tent proper, and the other made of gold located inside the Holy Place up against the curtain behind which God was enthroned on the ark. This golden altar, in other words, stood “before God.” The bronze altar was used for sin offerings and burnt offerings, while this golden altar was used to present incense to the Lord. The incense represented the prayers of the people of Israel (see Revelation 8:3–4). The golden altar was intimately connected to the bronze altar through a ritual involving “the four horns of the golden altar”—with the activity on the golden altar dependent on the activities on the bronze altar.
13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God,