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)

205. In sequential order the first degree constitutes the highest element, and the third the lowest; but in concurrent order the first degree constitutes the inmost element, and the third the outmost. Discrete degrees exist in sequential order and in concurrent order. The sequential order of these degrees extends from highest to lowest, or from top to bottom. In such an order are the angelic heavens. The third heaven in this order is the highest, the second heaven is intermediate, and the first heaven is the lowest. That is their situation in relation to each other.

In a like sequential order in the heavens are the states of love and wisdom in angels, and likewise their states of warmth and light, and also those of the spiritual atmospheres. In a like order are all perfections of the forms and forces there.

[2] When degrees of height or discrete degrees are in sequential order, they may then be likened to a column or tower divided into three levels through which one may ascend or descend, whose uppermost story contains things most perfect and beautiful, the intermediate story things less perfect and beautiful, and the lowest story things still less perfect and beautiful.

[3] Concurrent order, on the other hand, which consists of like degrees, has a different appearance. In it the highest constituents of sequential order - which, as we said, are the most perfect and beautiful - are at the core, its lower constituents in an interjacent area surrounding that, and its lowest constituents on the periphery. They are like concentric layers in a solid object consisting of three such degrees, whose core or center contains the finest elements, round about which are elements less fine, and in the outmost parts which form the surface, elements composed of these, and thus cruder. It may be likened to the column or tower referred to just above sinking down into a single plane, whose highest level then forms the inmost degree, its intermediate level the interjacent degree round about, and its lowest level the outmost degree.