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Revelation 6 : The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

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1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

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The Meaning of the Book of Revelation: the Four Horsemen

Door 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.

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

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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

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #5127

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5127. 'According to the former manner' means in keeping with the law of order. This is clear from the meaning of 'the former manner' as the law of order. The law of order demands that exterior things should be subject to interior ones, or what amounts to the same, lower things should be subject to higher ones, serving them like domestic servants. Indeed exterior or lower things are nothing else than such servants, whereas interior or higher things in relation to them are their lords. The reason 'after the former manner' has this meaning is that as the cupbearer, being a servant, had previously served Pharaoh as his lord, in keeping with the law of subordination, so too was it in keeping with the law of order that the sensory power represented by 'the cupbearer' should serve the interior natural represented by 'Pharaoh'.

[2] The fact that the law of order requires lower or exterior things to serve higher or interior ones is totally unknown to a person governed by his senses. For anyone who relies solely on his senses has no knowledge of what is interior, nor thus of what is exterior in relation to this. He knows about his thought and speech, and about his will and action, and from this presumes that thought and will are interior, speech and action exterior. But he is not aware of the fact that thought based solely on sensory experience, and action based solely on natural impulses, belong to the external man, so that his thought and will are activities of his exterior man alone. He is particularly unaware of this when his thoughts are false thoughts and his desires evil desires. And since in the case of anyone like him communication with his interiors is closed he therefore has no idea of what interior thought is or what interior will is. If he is told that interior thought is based on truth and that interior will is based on doing what is good, he does not begin to understand it. He understands still less if he is told that the interior man is distinct and separate from the exterior - so distinct that the interior man can, from a higher position so to speak, see what is going on in the exterior man - and that the interior man has the ability and power to discipline the exterior, and the ability not to will or think what the exterior man sees as a result of his having false notions and longs for as a result of his having evil desires.

[3] As long as his external man is in control and reigning he sees none of this. But when not in this state, when for example he suffers any pain or grief owing to misfortune or sickness, he can see and grasp it because the external man ceases at that time to be in control. For a person's ability or power to understand is always preserved by the Lord, but it is largely obscured in the case of those steeped in falsities and evils, and is always more apparent as falsities and evils become dormant. The Lord's Divine is constantly coming to a person and bringing him light, but when falsities and evils are present, that is, things contrary to truths and forms of good, the light of the Divine is then either cast aside, smothered, or perverted. Just enough is received, through chinks so to speak, to allow him to think and to speak by the use of ideas received through the senses, and also to think and to speak about spiritual matters with the help of expressions registered in the natural or bodily memory.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.