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.

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

9346. 'Lest perhaps they cause you to sin against Me' means lest evils turn away forms of good from the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of the inhabitants of the land, to whom the words 'lest perhaps they cause to sin' refer, as evils, as above; from the meaning of 'sinning' as turning away, dealt with in 5474, 5841, 7589; and from the meaning of 'you against Me' as [turning away from] forms of good from the Lord. For the children of Israel, to whom 'you' refers here, mean those governed by good, and so mean forms of good, 5801, 5803, 5806, 5812, 5817, 5819, 5826, 5833, 9340, and Jehovah, to whom 'Me' refers here, means the Lord, dealt with in 9194, 9199, 9315, and in the places referred to in these paragraphs. The reason why evils turn away forms of good from the Lord is that evils and forms of good are opposites or contraries, and two opposites or contraries cannot exist together, since they loathe and clash with each other. This becomes perfectly clear from the consideration that evils spring from hell but forms of good from heaven, and hell is totally remote from heaven, not as to distance since there is no distance in the next life, but as to state. Those therefore who live in the state that is hell's cannot be transferred to the state that is heaven's, for the evils residing with them repel the forms of good residing with those in heaven. This is the meaning of Abraham's words to the rich man,

Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass across from here to you cannot, nor can those who are there pass across to us. Luke 16:26.

'A great gulf' is the opposite and contrary natures of their states of life. From all this it is evident how to understand the explanation that evils turn forms of good away from the Lord; that is to say, those immersed in evils not only fail to receive forms of good, which with everyone flow in unceasingly from the Lord, but also completely turn them away. For this reason a person cannot by any means receive the good of heaven until he refrains from evils.