Transparency is needed to sort things out. Before big change happens, God first reveals what’s really going on.

In the Book of Revelation - the last book of the Word - the apostle John describes a series of apocalyptic visions that he experienced during his exile on the Isle of Patmos, in the Aegean Sea.

In one of these visions, he saw four horsemen, the first riding a white horse, the second a red horse, the third a black, and the fourth - named Death - riding a pale horse. These "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - oft-pictured - are described in Revelation 6:1-8.

What do these horses, and their riders, represent? What do they have to do with us, today? Watch as Curtis Childs and Jonathan Rose explore the hidden Bible meaning of the Four Horsemen in the Book of Revelation, in this video from the Swedenborg and Life Series, from the Swedenborg Foundation.

Plus, to go straight to the source, follow the links below to the places in "Apocalypse Revealed" where Swedenborg explained the inner meaning of this famous Bible story. A good place to start would be Apocalypse Revealed 298.

(Verweise: Apocalypse Explained 315; Apocalypse Revealed 262-263, 301, 306, 314, 316, 320, 322-323)

4832. 'And Er, Judah's firstborn, was evil in the eyes of Jehovah' means that it was immersed in falsity springing from evil. This is clear from the representation of 'Er' and from the meaning of 'firstborn' as falsity of faith, dealt with just above in 4830. Evidence that this falsity was falsity springing from evil is given in what has been stated above in 4818. But with this son the falsity springing from evil was of such a nature that not even that which was representative of the Church could be established among any who would have been descended from him, and therefore it is said that 'he was evil in the eyes of Jehovah, and Jehovah caused him to die'. Among that whole nation - right from the start, and especially from Judah onwards - falsity springing from evil was present, that is, a false teaching that resulted from evil living, though that falsity was different with one son of Judah from what it was with another. Which of these could serve a purpose was foreseen, and this was not that existing with Er the firstborn; nor was it that with Onan the secondborn, but that existing with Shelah. Therefore those first two sons were destroyed, whereas this third was preserved. The existence among that whole nation, from when it first began, of falsity springing from evil is described plainly in Moses in the following words,

Self-corrupted; not his sons; the blemish is theirs; a perverse and crooked generation. When Jehovah saw, and rejected - with more than indignation - His sons and His daughters. And He said, I will hide My face from them; I will see what their posterity will be, for they are a perverse generation, sons in whom there is no faithfulness. I will add evils upon them, I will expend My arrows on them; they will be exhausted with famine, and consumed with burning coal, and with bitter destruction. They are a nation from whom counsel has perished, in whom there is no intelligence; from the vine of Sodom comes their vine, and from the ploughed fields of Gomorrah, their grapes are grapes of gall, their dusters are bitterness. The poison of dragons is their wine, and the cruel gall of asps. Is not this stored up with Me, sealed up in My treasures? The day of their destruction is near, and the things to come upon them are hastening on. Deuteronomy 32:5, 10, 20, 23-24, 28, 32-35.

In the internal sense these words describe falsity springing from evil which existed among that nation, and the fact that this falsity was rooted deeply within them.