The Meaning of the Book of Revelation: the Four Horsemen
Por Jonathan S. Rose, Curtis Childs
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.
(Referencias: Apocalypse Explained 315; Apocalypse Revealed 262-263, 301, 306, 314, 316, 320, 322-323)
This video is a product of the Swedenborg Foundation. Follow these links for further information and other videos: www.youtube.com/user/offTheLeftEye and www.swedenborg.com
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #117
117. A self-induced conviction is when we believe and love the Word and the teachings of the church not for the sake of their truth or in order to live by them but for the sake of profit and respect and to be thought learned. 1 As a result, when this is the kind of faith we have we are not focusing on the Lord or heaven but on ourselves and this world. People who aspire to worldly greatness and crave an abundance of material things express stronger conviction that what the church teaches is the truth than people who have no such aspirations or cravings. This is because for the ambitious the church's teachings are only a means to their own ends, and the more they love those ends, the more they love-and trust-the means.
In reality, though, what determines the strength of their conviction at a given moment is how intensely their love for themselves and for the world is burning and how much that fire is affecting their conversation, preaching, and actions. During moments on fire they are completely convinced that what they are saying is true. When they are not feeling the fire of those loves, however, they believe very little-some have no belief at all. This shows that a self-induced conviction is a faith of the mouth and not of the heart, so it is really no faith at all.
Notas a pie de página:
1. In Swedenborg's Europe, a clerical career was often a path to political and material aggrandizement. The clergy had a significant role to play in the administration of the realm, and the highest offices were accompanied by lucrative sinecures. One example is given by the defrocked-priest-turned-diplomat Talleyrand (1754-1838): "The French clergy consisted of men of whom some were genuinely pious, others were distinguished as administrators, and others again were merely worldly, and, like the Archbishop of Narbonne [Arthur Richard Dillon, 1721-1806], delighted to put off the attributes of their office and live as great nobles" (Cragg 1960, 203-204). As a more immediate case in point, in Sweden the Clergy was one of the four Estates (houses) in the Diet (parliament), and every bishop had a seat in it. Furthermore, the children of noted bishops were traditionally ennobled. Thus in 1719 Queen Ulrika Eleonora (1688-1741) ennobled Swedenborg and his siblings, in acknowledgment of the distinguished career of their father, bishop Jesper Swedberg (1653-1735). This gave Swedenborg a seat on the Diet as a member of the Estate of Nobility and enabled his early career in politics (Bergquist 2005, 84). It also gave him an insider's perspective on the corruption that obtained in both the church and the nobility of Europe. [DNG]
