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.

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

200. In crises of the spirit the Lord fights for us. The Lord alone fights for us in spiritual crises; we do nothing on our own: 1692, 8172, 8175, 8176, 8273. Of ourselves there is no way whatever that we could fight against evil and falsity, because this would be fighting against all the hells, which no one but the Lord alone can control and conquer: 1692. The hells fight against us and the Lord fights for us: 8159. Resources we use in the fight are truths and goodness, and therefore our knowledge about and love for truth and goodness. However, it is not we who are fighting, it is the Lord who is doing so by these means: 1661. When we are in crises of the spirit, we think that the Lord is absent because our prayers are not heard then the way they are when we are not in such crises, but in fact the Lord is even more present at such times: 840. When we are in spiritual crises we need to fight as though we were on our own, not drop our hands and wait for direct intervention, yet we should still believe that the Lord is the one doing the work: 1712, 8179, 8969. There is no other way we can receive a heavenly selfhood: 1937, 1947, 2882, 2883, 2891. The nature of this selfhood-it is not ours but is something within us that belongs to the Lord: 1937, 1947, 2882, 2883, 2891, 8497.

[2] A crisis of the spirit does not accomplish anything or bring about any good if even after it is over we do not believe that it was the Lord who fought and conquered for us: 8969. People who want credit for their deeds cannot fight against evils, because they fight by their own efforts and do not let the Lord fight for them: 9978. It is hard for us to be saved if we believe that we ourselves have earned heaven by going through spiritual crises: 2273.

The Lord does not test us but sets us free and leads us to goodness: 2768. Spiritual crises seem to come from the Divine, but in actuality they do not: 4299. What is meant by "Lead us not into temptation" [Matthew 6:13; Luke 11:4] in the Lord's Prayer: 1875 (which includes evidence from eyewitness experience). Contrary to the way we usually think permission ¹ works, the Lord does not condone the spiritual crises he permits us to undergo: 2768.

There is freedom in all crises of the spirit even though it does not seem so. But this freedom is deep within us from the Lord; it allows us to fight and try to win and not be overcome, which we could not do without freedom: 1937, 1947, 2881. The Lord creates this freedom through a love for truth and goodness that he has imparted to our inner self without our knowing it (5044), because all freedom is a function of love and affection and depends on what that love is like (2870, 3158, 8987, 8990, 9585, 9591).

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